If Israelis are learning things, American leaders seem to be forgetting them. One is that the United States is prosperous because it can trade freely over the world’s waterways, and that its navy exists primarily to secure this freedom. This is the U.S. Navy’s own definition of its purpose, and has been since the 18th century. But it has done very little of consequence to stop Yemen’s Iran-backed Houthi rebels from destroying commerce through the Red Sea. Just last week, the Houthis disabled a Greek oil tanker, which since then has been on fire and likely leaking its cargo into the water. They hit two more ships yesterday. Elliott Abrams comments:

A recent article in the Telegraph newspaper in London by the former Royal Navy commander Tom Sharpe was titled “The Houthis Have Defeated the U.S. Navy.” If that is not correct, it is only because the U.S. Navy has been ordered not to fight.

The navy isn’t seeking to abandon that role and there are many reports that it wishes to do more to defeat the Houthi attacks that . . . have decimated Suez Canal traffic. But it has not been given a green light by the White House, which seeks to avoid what it calls “escalation,” especially (one might guess) in the pre-election period.

A thought experiment: instead of defending ships that are attacked by the Houthis, or trying to take out launch sites one by one, what if the United States told Iran that we would respond to further missile strikes by hitting targets in Iran, the supplier of the missiles? . . . What if Iran were told that for every ship sunk by the Houthis, the United States (and, one hopes, its allies) would sink an Iranian ship?

I can hear the screeches now: this is escalation, this means war, this would create instability. But the instability comes from Iran’s aggression—its delivery of weaponry to Yemen with the intent that the weapons be fired to prevent innocent maritime activity and to attack U.S. and other naval vessels. That’s an act of war.

Information about a supposedly near-finalized hostage deal continued to trickle out yesterday. While it’s entirely possible that by the time you read this a deal will be much more certain, it is every bit as likely that it will have fallen through by then. More likely still, we will learn that there are indefinite and unspecified delays. Then there are the details: even in the best of scenarios, not all the hostages will be returned at once, and Israel will have to make painful concessions in exchange, including the release of hundreds of hardened terrorists and the withdrawal from key parts of the Gaza Strip.

Unusually—if entirely appropriately—the president-elect’s Middle East envoy, Steve Witkoff, has participated in the talks alongside members of President Biden’s team. Philip Klein examines the incoming Trump administration’s role in the process:

President-elect Trump has repeatedly warned that there would be “all hell to pay” if hostages were not returned from Gaza by the time he takes office. While he has never laid out exactly what the specific consequences for Hamas would be, there are some ominous signs that Israel is being pressured into paying a tremendous price.

There is obviously more here than we know. It’s possible that with the pressure from the Trump team came reassurances that Israel would have more latitude to reenter Gaza as necessary to go after Hamas than it would have enjoyed under Biden. . . . That said, all appearances are that Israel has been forced into making more concessions because Trump was concerned that he’d be embarrassed if January 20 came around with no hostages released.

While Donald Trump’s threats are a welcome rhetorical shift, part of the problem may be their vagueness. After all, it’s unlikely the U.S. would use military force to unleash hell in Gaza, or could accomplish much in doing so that the IDF can’t. More useful would be direct threats against countries like Qatar and Turkey that host Hamas, and threats to the persons and bank accounts of the Hamas officials living in those counties. Witkoff instead praised the Qatari prime minister for “doing God’s work” in the negotiations.”