Houthis' Perim Island capture creates strategic vulnerability in Red Sea chokepoint

On September 11, Iran-backed Houthi rebels took control of Perim Island, a volcanic outcrop sitting squarely in the Bab el-Mandeb Strait—one of the world's most critical shipping passages. The capture capped a month-long military campaign along Yemen's western coast that killed more than 1,500 soldiers and forced Yemen's government to publicly concede defeat. The island itself is small, barren, and uninhabitable: no fresh water, no vegetation, just rock and a 6,000-foot runway built years ago by the United Arab Emirates. Yet its location gives it outsized strategic weight. The strait narrows to just 18 miles at this point, and Perim sits dead center, effectively cutting the passage in half.

Morgan Murphy, a former Pentagon press secretary and retired Navy captain, described the seizure in stark terms when speaking to Fox News Digital. The Houthis had gained what he called "the cork in the Red Sea bottle"—control of a chokepoint that has been fought over for centuries, held by the British Empire for more than a hundred years, and previously contested by French forces. But Murphy also issued a warning: in seizing the island, the Houthis had walked into what military strategists call a kill box. The island sits roughly 20 miles from Camp Lemonnier in Djibouti, home to one of the largest U.S. military installations on the African continent. From there, and from naval assets in the region, American firepower could concentrate on the small target with overwhelming force. Murphy was blunt about the mismatch: the Houthis lack the air power, the sophistication, or the defensive capability to hold the island against determined U.S. action. "We could wipe that rock into glass," he said.

The political response from Washington reflected restraint rather than immediate escalation. Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman called President Donald Trump twice on September 10, urging him to authorize direct U.S. military strikes against Houthi positions. Trump declined. U.S. officials said the administration has no immediate plans for direct combat involvement, though it will continue providing intelligence assistance to regional partners. When Trump spoke to reporters in Dublin on September 12, he noted that the Houthis themselves had signaled they did not want to fight with the United States. "They called us, and they don't want to fight with us," Trump said. "They let us know, they don't want to fight with us."

Yet Murphy cautioned against reading restraint as weakness. The Trump administration, he argued, had demonstrated willingness to use force when it chose to do so. He suggested that if the Houthis continued to disrupt global energy supplies, the president might well decide to strike. The broader strategic picture, Murphy emphasized, reflected a fundamental truth about naval power: control of critical shipping lanes has always been central to great power competition. Britain built its empire partly on naval dominance. The United States maintains its navy for the same reason. Regional powers from the Strait of Malacca to the Strait of Hormuz to the Red Sea constantly seek to bottle up shipping and extract leverage. The Houthis, Murphy noted, were using a 19th-century playbook in a 21st-century world—seizing geography and hoping to choke commerce.

Behind the Houthi advance lay Iranian support. Yemeni government sources, regional intelligence, and Iranian sources told Reuters that the offensive was sustained by Iranian weaponry and tactical direction from the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. U.S. officials estimated that hundreds of IRGC officers remain active in Yemen, advising and coordinating operations. Murphy suggested that Tehran's strategy was designed to drive up global fuel prices by restricting the flow of goods through critical waterways. The Houthis had captured the cork, but how they would use it—and whether the Trump administration would tolerate their control of it—remained an open question. Murphy predicted that in the coming weeks and days, the administration would work to coordinate with allies to keep the Red Sea open and ensure freedom of navigation. The island was a prize, but it was also a vulnerability, and the calculus of who would ultimately control it had not yet been settled.