A week ago, U.S. President Donald Trump’s national security team inadvertently included the editor-in-chief of The Atlantic in a Signal group chat to discuss operational planning for strikes on the Yemen-based Houthi rebels. Since then, coverage has focused on the security implications of using a commercial messaging app for such a highly sensitive matter; the incompetence of texting strike plans to a journalist; the flippant, emoji-strewn celebration in the wake of killing civilians; and even the lack of a legal basis for attacking Yemen under the U.S. Constitution.
Lost in the uproar is the true scandal of the entire episode: the misguided decision to attack the Houthis in the first place.
According to the subsequently published transcript of the group chat, the logic behind the U.S. attacks was to safeguard freedom of navigation for commercial shipping in the Red Sea, which the Houthis have targeted with missile and drone strikes since the start of the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza in October 2023. The group paused those attacks during the recent ceasefire in Gaza but recently threatened to restart them now that Israel has resumed its military operations there.
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