The Houthis have cracked down brutally on Yemeni civil society. A strategic response is required

But like clockwork, every time the Houthis are mentioned here, people chime in to talk about how they are heroes for fighting Israel. Which they aren't even actually doing. Nothing they have ever done helps Palestine in any way. But they claim they're fighting Israel, so apparently that's all that matters.

Meanwhile, they are responsible for the deaths of thousands of their own child soldiers. I've even had people handwave that away because they say they're fighting Israel.

And what happens after you kill the Houthi leadership? Do all of the Houthi forces turn over their weapons and go home? Get taken over by a more radical leadership? Split up into a bunch of cells with no centralized leadership?

The Houthis are not a force for good on the region. However, compared with other terrorist groups, they are relatively rational and constrained. If even half of their forces want to go more extreme, they will have a proximate reason to do so, and no leadership to stop them.

The likely result is the Gaza war expands into having a full war on the Yemen front (which is, admittadly, on track to happen anyway), against an enemy that no longer has the capacity to negotiate or surrender.

As a fun side note, a bunch of those cells are also going to be freshly angry at the US, which is very much not in her interest.

We've tried killing terrorist leadership before. It tends to not end well.