Houthis seize Red Sea city, expanding Iran's strategic leverage against U.S.

Along the narrow waters where the Red Sea meets the Indian Ocean, a militia long sustained by Iranian arms and ambition has claimed a city that overlooks one of the world's most consequential shipping passages. The Houthi seizure of this Red Sea port is not merely a battlefield development in Yemen's grinding civil war — it is a reconfiguration of leverage, placing a critical artery of global commerce under the shadow of a force hostile to Western interests. For an American administration that has staked its regional strategy on containing Tehran, the moment arrives as a reminder that influenc