If Hizballah were to attack Cyprus, it would be part of a general effort to bring the war to the eastern Mediterranean, which would be coordinated with the maritime front already opened by its Houthi allies in the Red Sea. Yesterday the Houthis appear to have attacked a commercial vessel much further from the shore than they have previously managed to. The same group sank a ship and killed a British mariner last week. James Stavridis, a retired U.S. admiral and the former supreme commander of NATO, chides the West for its “anemic, indecisive, and mostly defensive” response. Drawing on his extensive experience fighting pirates, Stavridis suggests a firmer approach:

What we learned was that to defeat pirates operating from bases ashore you need to go ashore and neutralize the attacks before they successfully get out to sea. Once the pirates or their weapons—missiles, drones, unmanned high-speed boats—are in the open seaway, the challenges multiply. When we began to strike the pirate bases ashore, capture or kill the pirates, and destroy their equipment, the threat gradually reduced. While the Houthis are far better trained, equipped, and organized thanks to their masters in Tehran, the same principle applies.

Stavridis explains what applying this strategy to the Houthis would entail, and then adds that

a campaign plan against the Houthis must include severing their supply chain back to Iran. This is challenging but not impossible. Clearly, Iran is providing not only intelligence but also hardware, including components for drones, ballistic missiles, and unmanned speed craft. . . . This may require striking Iranian assets directly, to include their intelligence-gathering ships in the Red Sea and North Arabian Sea; offshore Iranian intelligence-gathering platforms outside the Arabian Gulf; [and] Iranian logistic vessels moving weapons and components to Yemen.

Some may find direct strikes against Iranian sovereign assets too provocative. I’d invite anyone looking at the situation to reflect on the direct attacks thus far—now numbering in the dozens—of ballistic missiles and drones shot down (fortunately) by U.S. warships. If one of those ballistic missiles were to get through and strike a U.S. destroyer with a tightly packed crew of 350 sailors, we would be very close to a war with Iran. Better to send a strong signal now than to have to react with overwhelming firepower against Tehran after U.S. casualties.

Recent reports suggest that the White House has at last acted to allow the shipments of weapons that had been withheld from Israel and to end further the delays. On this topic, Elliott Abrams comments, “I don’t know what and how much has been held up, but it shouldn’t have happened. The level of delay should be zero.”

In this interview with Ariel Kahana, Abrams also comments on the failings of U.S. policy toward Iran, and the Biden administration’s refusal to enforce existing sanctions:

According to Abrams, Iran has indeed halted the advancement of its nuclear program on rare occasions. “This happened when Bush invaded Iraq in 2003, and when [President] Trump eliminated Qassem Suleimani in 2020. The U.S. needs to be ready to use force in Iran, but credibility is critical here. Only if [Iran’s leaders] are convinced that the U.S. is willing to act will they stop.”

Abrams claims that the U.S. president tried for two-and-a-half years to revive the nuclear deal with Iran until he realized it wasn’t interested. “Iran has benefited from this situation, and everyone outside the administration sees it as a failure.”