Iran war expands: What Houthis joining & attack on US troops means

Earlier today, Houthi rebels in Yemen, backed by Iran, announced they launched missiles toward sensitive military sites in Israel, marking the group's entry into this war.

CNN's Eleni Jokos, good morning to you, Eleni. What do you know?

Okay, so there's quite a few things happening here and we've got, you know, we're a month in and it feels on this Saturday we've woken up to what is sort of like an escalation around the region. And this is really a fascinating turn of events. This was perhaps the wild card that everyone was sort of anticipating because the Houthis have been very vocal in terms of supporting Iran in this war, but very quiet militarily.

It's an Iranian-backed proxy group. They have caused havoc in the Red Sea and importantly in the Bab al-Mandeb Strait, which is the other huge maritime choke point, specifically after October 7th. We know that they can really divert a lot of traffic down the Cape of Good Hope. We're already seeing the Strait of Hormuz that is completely being choked off, causing incredible crises on the oil fronts around the world. And now with this front opening up, where they say they launched a barrage of missiles towards Israel, this is clearly an escalation that we're seeing, as we're hoping on the

sidelines that President Trump and even the Iranians might be looking for a diplomatic off-ramp. What is very certain right now, that Iran has a strategic hold over the Strait of Hormuz, something the Gulf countries won't accept. And of course, President Trump is trying to get a coalition of countries to try and open that strait up as we still see strikes across the region. Victor.

Elena Junko, setting the table with reporting for us this morning. Thank you. All right, let's talk now about these developments and more. We're joined now by CNN military analyst and retired Colonel Cedric Layton and CNN global affairs analyst Kimberly Dozier. Good morning to both of you.

And Colonel, I want to talk with you about the new player on the board, and those are the Houthis out of Yemen, the Iran-backed rebel group. They fired their first missiles of this war toward Israel as we start the second month of it. First, an official with the group said that closing the Bab el-Mendab Strait off the coast of Yemen is a viable option.

We've focused a lot on the Strait of Hormuz. If they were to exercise that option, how would that change this war?

Well, that would be a big change, Victor. Good morning to you. There are certain things here that the Houthis have already done and some things that they're talking about doing. So in this particular case, they've obviously sent a rocket toward Israel that was intercepted. talking Mandeb is cut, that would then cut the alternate trade route that the Saudis have, at least in part.

They could still theoretically go through the Suez Canal. But that is going to be a real problem, because there are a lot of ships that go down through the southern aspect and down through the Bab al-Mandeb. So it could have significant impact on basically the alternate route that not only Saudi Arabia, but a lot of the Gulf, other Gulf countries are using. And if that happens, then you will see even more perturbations in the economies of the

Gulf states. For example, medicine and food supplies already being cut in places on the western side of the Persian Gulf, those supplies could be cut even further if there's no alternate route going into those countries through Saudi Arabia. So it's a significant, potentially significant development.

Kemp, what do you think explains the Houthis' month-long sideline here in this war, why they weren't in earlier, and what explains entering at this point of the war?

You could say that this is a strategic use of assets by the Iranians, but that sort of denies the Houthis any agency in making this decision. The US and Western campaign against the Houthis, when they were regularly rocketing the Israelis, had really hurt the organization. The U.S. unleashed billions of dollars of munitions on the Houthis over the first year

or the opening months of the Trump administration. And so when Hamas and Israel had a ceasefire, it was a good opportunity for the Houthis to bow out. They have been biding their time. But now you see, as the Iranians are running out of some of the munitions they have to fire, bringing the Houthis to bear adds pressure.

As Cedric was saying, you've got mostly oil and gas shipments out of the Gulf being choked by the Strait of Hormuz. You have a lot of east-west container traffic that comes through the Suez and around the Bab el-Mendeb that would be impacted by this. So you start having a knock-on effect on global trade. And also Cedric was mentioning in the Cape and South Africa, Singapore, et cetera, the alternate routes and harbors that are being used for this deflected trade are overwhelmed

with all the shipping traffic. They're simply not built to take that much. All of that builds the costs and the Iranians know that really builds the economic pressure on the Trump administration.

Let's talk about it now with retired Lieutenant General William Caldwell. He was former commander of the NATO training mission in Afghanistan. Welcome back, General.

Let me start here with the Houthis launching this first missile strike, these missiles toward Israel, announcing their entrance into the war at the start of the second month. How much could they influence or accelerate this war?

Well, it's very interesting. You know, up to now they have reigned out of the war because they recognize that if they do just what they did, Israel is probably going to strike back at them now in Yemen itself. In the past, they were a real threat. As you recall, they really did put a choke point on that.

You know, there's the Strait of Hormuz, and then as we just talked about, there's the other strait that goes into the Red Sea there.

And so those two choke points can really influence the entire flow of economic goods and oil across the world.

Yeah, the Bab Amandab straight there, as we see just west of Yemen there. Let me ask you about the progress of the war, because we heard from the president last night at a Saudi investment forum in which he talks about the work that's been accomplished and what is still left to do. Let's play that.

It's not finished yet. I'm not saying it's sort of finished, but it's not finished. It's got to be finished. And we have another 3,554 targets left, and that'll be done pretty quickly. And then at some point, we're going to have to determine what we do. But they have, they've never seen anything like it.

3,554 targets left. The accuracy of that, that number aside, is that the right lens through which to look at this conflict, a count of targets in reaching whether or not the U.S. will reach its goal?

Well, I think as we all look at this, what's going on, what we're trying to do is drive them to the negotiating table, to cut a deal, as the leadership keeps saying to the United States. So we want to bring them to the point where they're willing to talk, look at that 15-point plan again that was presented to them, you know, through the Pakistani government, so that they have the opportunity to, you know, agree to or make concessions so that they won't have a nuclear program again, that

they won't have proxies across the Middle East, you know, from Hezbollah to Hamas and the Houthis. And so this negotiation, the pressure that is continuing to be put on them, will be brought by hitting more and more of those targets. I mean, just yesterday Israel hit, you know, the two nuclear-associated targets there in Iran, along with steel plants, which the IRGC, their army uses as a pseudo monetary means of income.

Those kind of things will start having more of an impact and influence what's going to be taking place in the days ahead.

Let me ask you about the USS George H.W. Bush aircraft carrier. Sources say that it could be deployed into the region now. We don't know if it's going to be added to the Lincoln and the Ford carrier strike groups or it's going to replace one of them. But do you know enough at this point how to fit that piece

into the puzzle? Well, when you look at it, we've been at this now for four weeks, going into our fifth week. And at this point, the crews on those ships, those task forces have just got to be exhausted. They're going 24 by 7. They're creating so many sorties every day that are flying over Iran. The planning, the preparation, the support, all the members on those vessels that are then reconstituting

the aircraft and getting them set to go again. It's just got to be exhausting. So there's a high probability what they're going to do is rotate one carrier group in and another one out to give it some relief so that they can continue the intensity of the operations.

All right. Lieutenant General William Caldwell, thanks so much.

Today marks four weeks since the start of the war and there are no signs that the end is in sight. Iran has attacked an air base in Saudi Arabia used by the U.S. military, injuring at least 10 U.S. troops. Iranian state media released a satellite image showing the damage to Prince Sultan Air Base amounting to one of the most serious breaches of American air defenses since the start of this growing

conflict. We have seen multiple strikes against Gulf countries but importantly I want to focus on that attack on the air base in Saudi Arabia Prince Sultan Air Base. Ten US service members were injured Two are being treated for shrapnel injuries that are not life-threatening, but we also don't know the extent of the other injuries to the other service members. You mentioned around 300 service members have been injured since the start of the war and from what we know, since March the 25th, there are 13 service

members that have been killed. So those are the numbers right now as President Trump asserts that they're winning this war and importantly opening up a 10-day diplomatic window and holding off on striking Iranian power plants. So that's quite important to take note of as we're seeing sort of potentially some kind of talk, exchanging of messaging mediated

by Pakistan. The whole Gulf region is absolutely fearful and concerned about the possibility of worse damage yet to come. It's already been catastrophic in the words of the Qatari foreign ministry, the economic damage that's been inflicted on this Gulf state alone since the start of the Iran war.

But there is this constant ability of the Islamic Republic to throw drones and missiles lash out at the Gulf Arab states it's been doing that here in Qatar there have been several and these are the words of the Defense Ministry as several drone attacks that were intercepted by the Qatari forces over the course of the past 24 hours. President Zelensky of Ukraine has actually been visiting Qatar today. He's been on a bit of a tour of the of the Middle East. He's signed a 10-year

agreement to supply Qatar along with Saudi Arabia, potentially in the future the United Arab Emirates as well, with Ukrainian drone technology, interceptor drones, to help them deal with that constant Iranian drone threat. Of course, Ukraine has a great deal of experience with dealing with Ukrainian-designed and Russian-deployed Shaheed drones in the conflict there. And so Ukrainian expertise is of immense value at the moment to this region but yeah there have been Iranian missile and drone strikes, Qatar, you

mentioned Saudi Arabia, 10 at least US service personnel have been injured as well as a US military tanker that has been damaged. That airport in Kuwait, the international airport there, dramatic images of fire sort of lighting up the night skies after what the Kuwaiti military say was damage to a radar system there as well. And there have been drone and missile attacks just like that across the Persian Gulf region.

Colonel, the administration to this point has not taken deployment of U.S. ground troops off the table. In fact, our sources tell us that some of the next phase options that the president is being offered come with the risk of high casualties because they could involve or would involve U.S. troop deployment. I want you to listen here to Secretary of State Marco Rubio on the potential for ground

troops.

We can achieve all of our objectives with our ground troops, but we are always going to be prepared to give the president maximum optionality and maximum opportunity to adjust to contingencies should they emerge.

Can achieve all of the goals without using ground troops. But on Truth Social last week, the president listed five objectives. One of them was never allowing Iran to get close to nuclear capability. Can that be guaranteed without the deployment of ground

troops, considering the enriched uranium is still there in Iran somewhere?

Yeah, unless it's turned over voluntarily that enriched uranium, Victor, I don't think so. And this is, you know, kind of an interesting statement by Secretary Rubio because what he's basically saying is that the goals that they have can be met without ground troops. Well, depends on what the goals are. But if that goal stays the same, the one that you mentioned specifically about the enriched

uranium and securing that and preventing the Iranians from using it, that's very hard to achieve unless there's a diplomatic solution that says Iran's going to turn it over to a third country or to the IAEA or some other international body. So this is – it's not realistic to say that we are not going to be in use of ground troops at this particular point in time if those goals remain the same. So it's culinary skeptical at this point.

Kim, I want to play for you the president last night talking about NATO again bemoaning their refusal to send assets to the Strait of Hormuz to guarantee passageway.

I think a tremendous mistake was when NATO just wasn't there. They just weren't there. It's going to make a lot of money for the United States because we spent hundreds of billions of dollars a year on NATO, hundreds of protecting them. And we would have always been there for them.

But now, based on their actions, I guess we don't have to be, do we?

I mean, the president's been frustrated with NATO for a very long time, going back to his first term. But is this moment different? Because in the previous iterations of this frustration, these complaints, the US wasn't fighting its own war at the time, having to focus on its own resources.

I wonder how does Putin hear that? How do others hear this new frustration or this renewed frustration from the president?

This is good news for Putin whenever Trump gets mad at NATO, but let's remember NATO isn't some disembodied entity. The US is part of it. He's really mad at Western allies who didn't automatically join after he and Israel had launched this war without briefing the allies, explaining to them the war goals,

doing any of the groundwork you do before launching a strike like this to bring others on board at some point in the future. So this is a Trump shooting himself in the foot situation, but he's still seeking someone

else to blame.

Kim Dozier, Colonel Layton, thank you both.

Former NATO Supreme Allied Commander Admiral James Stavridis. Admiral, good to see you. We're four weeks in now. Yemen's Houthis struck Israel for the first time since the war began. Ten Americans just injured at a Saudi base. More troops headed to the Middle East. The market's down. It's feeling like escalation despite the president's desire to limit it to four to six weeks. Your thoughts?

He can still limit it to four to six weeks, but the chances of doing so are getting harder and harder. I think the Houthis starting to strike, if you will, that's gonna become the Western front of this war. That's another significant choke point because it controls the Suez Canal. So if you put Suez Canal closed alongside Strait of Hormuz

closed, you've got an enormous gun pointed at the head of the global economy. So extremely worrisome. To the question of is President Trump bluffing or not, are ground troops inevitable or not, I think the point to be made is that the chances of using them, the option to use them that

Secretary Rubio is talking about, is increasing. Is it inevitable that he'll use them? No. Is he bluffing? I don't think so. If we know one thing about President Trump, it's that he's unpredictable.

So if I'm in Tehran, I'm concerned as I watch the level of ground force increase moving toward and in the region.

There's a perception, I think, in the media that we're putting tremendous troop concentrations in the Middle East. I read something online from a guy who writes provocatively, admittedly, his name is Ken Klipperstein, just one quote.

If you squint, an invasion seems inevitable, but look closer at the actual state of each force being cited and a very different picture emerges. Your reaction?

It's not inevitable, obviously. Again, we know President Trump is unpredictable. He's also impatient. And ultimately, will he use those troops if he decides to? I think he will. I don't think it's a good idea from everything I see right now.

But the point for Tehran is not to try and assess is it inevitable or not, it's is it possible? And so I think that troop increase that you're seeing is extremely significant. Inevitable, no. Possible, yes.

More likely than it was three weeks ago, yes. You wrote for Bloomberg this week and focused on Karg Island. What's the value to the United States if we can control Karg Island? Quite simply, we can strangle the Iranian economy. Ninety percent of their oil transships through that kind of seven square mile patch in the northern reach of the Persian Gulf. So if you can control it, you can inevitably throttle the Iranian economy.

That's a good thing. The question I think the Pentagon is wrestling with and trying to give the president the right set of options is, do you have to actually seize it and hold it? That's a significant military challenge, frankly. Or should you blockade it? Or could you go in and simply destroy it?

You really have all three of those options. Which is the best is something the Pentagon's wrestling with and the president will decide soon. You are a former Supreme Allied Commander of NATO. Here's something that the president said via Truth Social this week relative to NATO. NATO nations have done absolutely nothing to help with the lunatic nation now military decimated of Iran. The USA needs nothing from NATO, but never forget this very important point in time, President Donald J. Trump. If a NATO member initiates an attack, Admiral,

and then draws return fire, is Article 5 kicking in? It is if the initial attack is based on imminent threat, hostilities that that nation believes are about to break out, which is the narrative the administration has used here, then it would have to go to the North Atlantic Council,

all the NATO countries come together and evaluate it. And if there's a collective decision that the initial round of strikes were done preemptively in the face of a standing threat, then I think there's a legal basis. I want to make a point about NATO that's important for people to remember. It is this, after 9-11, NATO responded, European NATO responded. They sent 50,000 troops ultimately to Afghanistan. They were under my command for four years.

Hundreds of them died there. NATO has stood and delivered for the United States. I think in this crisis, you'll see them come at some point, perhaps from the sea, in order to reopen the trade and foreign moves.

What can our allies do, not NATO, our European allies, shy of NATO's full participation,

what can the allies do relative to Iran? Quite a bit. And in particular, two things I'd draw a line under. One are the mine sweeping capabilities. Mine sweepers, mine hunters, the Europeans are very good at this. Why? Because they have enclosed seas they have to deal with, Baltic Sea and the Mediterranean. There are standing NATO mine countermeasure groups that

could be brought into this to help clear the strait. And then secondly, Michael, NATO maintains standing maritime forces. These are guided missile frigates, guided missile destroyers. They're an international force representing all of the nations of NATO. Those could also be brought in. It could be done under the NATO flag if it went through the process I described,

or it could be done individually by the European nations. I think ultimately the Europeans will decide to participate in a straight clearing operation. We need their help.

Admiral James Stavridis, the former Supreme Allied Commander of NATO. We appreciate you, Admiral. Thank you. Thank you.

You bet.