To Peter Berkowitz, emergent trends on both the American left and the American right are hostile to the Founders’ version of freedom of religion:

Scorn for religion drives the threat to religious liberty from the left. The progressive threat is less openly articulated but more ensconced in elite institutions. Many on the left regard religion as an oppressive and dehumanizing superstition. Christianity, they believe, suffuses and corrupts the great literary and philosophical works of Western civilization and sustains what they regard as the West’s surpassing sins toward minorities, women, other civilizations, and the environment. The progressive disposition aspires to purge religious expression from the public sphere while using state authority, especially through public education, to emancipate individuals still under religion’s spell.

Religious enthusiasm propels the threat to religious liberty from the right. The conservative threat is primarily the work of elite right-wing intellectuals who have yet to persuade the people or the powerful. While religious liberty’s most ardent defenders in contemporary America tend to be conservatives, members of the new right who are outraged by secularism’s inroads in America want to scale back substantially, if not tear down, the wall of separation between church and state. Some national conservatives rightly argue that Christianity is central to American traditions. Some common-good constitutionalists respectably regard religion as the highest good. Both leap from these reasonable stances to espousing the use of state power to promulgate religion, particularly Christianity.

The threats to religious liberty from left and right betray a common ambition—if inspired by diametrically opposed anxieties and aims—to employ government to regulate faith. Whether intended to circumscribe religion or expand its reach, however, assigning the state responsibility for overseeing the wellbeing of citizens’ souls flies in the face of the principles of individual liberty, human equality, and limited government that are inscribed in America’s founding documents and deeply rooted in the nation’s political traditions.

For more than a year, the Iran-backed Houthis have been launching drones and missiles at ships traversing the Red Sea, as well as at Israeli territory, in support of Hamas. This development has drastically curtailed shipping through the Suez Canal and the Bab al-Mandeb Strait, driving up trade prices. This week, the Trump administration began an extensive bombing campaign against the Houthis in an effort to reopen that crucial waterway. Burcu Ozcelik highlights another benefit of this action:

The administration has a broader geopolitical agenda—one that includes countering China’s economic leverage, particularly Beijing’s reliance on Iranian oil. By targeting the Houthis, the United States is not only safeguarding vital shipping lanes but also exerting pressure on the Iran-China energy nexus, a key component of Beijing’s strategic posture in the region.

China was the primary destination for up to 90 percent of Iran’s oil exports in 2024, underscoring the deepening economic ties between Beijing and Tehran despite U.S. sanctions. By helping fill Iranian coffers, China aids Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps in financing proxies like the Houthis. Since October of last year, notable U.S. Treasury announcements have revealed covert links between China and the Houthis.

Striking the Houthis could trigger broader repercussions—not least by disrupting the flow of Iranian oil to China. While difficult to confirm, it is conceivable and has been reported, that the Houthis may have received financial or other forms of compensation from China (such as Chinese-made military components) in exchange for allowing freedom of passage for China-affiliated vessels in the Red Sea.