Calls to halt the Iran War and avert yet another US bombing campaign in Yemen intensified Friday after President Donald Trump reportedly declined a request from Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman to launch airstrikes against Houthi forces amid their stunning advance toward a vital global shipping lane.
According to Axios’ Barak Ravid, Mohammed bin Salman, who is also the Saudi prime minister, made two urgent calls to Trump on Thursday as Houthi forces captured the strategic Yemeni port city of Mocha and advanced toward the Bab el-Mandeb Strait, one of the world’s most important maritime chokepoints. MBS reportedly pressed Trump to intervene militarily, but the president declined to order US attacks at this time.
“With Iran already disrupting traffic through the Strait of Hormuz, Houthi control of Bab el-Mandeb could give Tehran a powerful new point of leverage over the US and its Gulf allies,” Ravid wrote.
However, he added that “US officials stressed the administration has no plans to intervene directly against the Houthis for now.”
Understanding that Trump’s apparent refusal of MBS’ request could be temporary, opponents of a wider Middle East war are urging the US leader to refrain from any further strikes on Houthi targets.
Instead of attacking Yemen, Matt Duss, executive vice president at the Center for International Policy and a former foreign policy adviser to US Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), said on social media that a “better idea” would be to “end the war on Iran and remove US forces from the Middle East.”
California-based Israeli academic Shaiel Ben-Ephraim said on social media that “Trump wisely decided not to get involved in the Yemeni civil war. Stop expanding all these wars.”
“Imagine if we had just built on the JCPOA and created a stable Middle East through cooperation instead of these endless wars in Syria, Yemen, Iran, Iraq, Lebanon, and Gaza,” he mused, referring to the Obama-era Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, the Iran nuclear deal unilaterally abandoned by Trump during his first term, despite Tehran’s full compliance with its terms.
Drop Site News national security and foreign affairs reporter Murtaza Hussain called on the Gulf Arab states—which have borne the brunt of Iranian counterattacks—to circumvent the United States and negotiate an agreement with Tehran.
The Houthi victories give the group—officially called Ansar Allah—a commanding position near the Bab el-Mandeb Strait. The narrow waterway links the Red Sea to the Gulf of Aden and carries an estimated 12% of global goods, including approximately 4-5% of the world’s total seaborne-traded oil and petroleum products.
Saudi Arabia launched Friday airstrikes on Mocha’s airport, while the Houthis attacked targets including Saudi pipeline infrastructure used to circumvent the Strait of Hormuz. The Houthis said that maritime traffic would be safe except for Saudi vessels.
Oil prices surged more than 6% on Thursday, with both major benchmarks trading at over $100 a barrel amid the Houthi advances and continued instability stemming from Iran’s effective closure of the Strait of Hormuz despite over six months of unsuccessful efforts by the US military and Trump administration to reopen the vital waterway, through which around one-fifth of the world’s oil previously transited.
The average US price of a gallon of gasoline reached nearly $4.30 on Friday, a 37% increase from when Trump—who promised both no new wars and $2 gas—entered office in January 2025.
US forces have carried out airstrikes and ground raids on al-Qaeda and other militants in Yemen for decades. According to the UK-based casualty monitor Airwars, an estimated 445-643 Yemeni civilians have been killed by US forces since 2009.
Starting under then-President Barack Obama in 2014, the US provided arms and support to the Saudi-led coalition during Yemen’s civil war. International experts attribute more than 150,000 Yemeni deaths to a US-backed, Saudi-led bombing campaign and blockade, which has fueled mass starvation and disease in the country of approximately 43 million people.
A report published Thursday documented more than 500 Yemeni civilian casualties caused by US attacks between December 2023 and May 2025. All but seven of 46 strikes covered by the report occurred during Trump’s presidency, including massacres at the Ras Isa oil port and at a detention center for African migrants in Saada.
During Israel’s war on Gaza, the US, Israel, and the United Kingdom carried out repeated airstrikes in response to Houthi attacks on commercial and military vessels in the Red Sea that the group said were intended to pressure Israel as it killed tens of thousands of Palestinians.
Responding to the latest developments, UK political commentator Bushra Shaikh said that “America went to war for Israel, seeking to dominate the Middle East.”
“Now Trump is negotiating with Iran, Saudi Arabia is looking towards regional diplomacy, Pakistan says the Mecca Pact won’t be used against Yemen, and the Ansar Allah Houthis retain leverage over Bab el-Mandeb,” she continued.
Shaikh added: “The ultimate humiliation? America will come out of this war having failed to defeat Iran while pushing the very region it wanted to control towards strategic independence from Washington.”
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