David Ignatius on Houthis Targeting Ships in Red Sea: U.S. Is Really Pinned Down in the Middle East

EXCERPT:

IGNATIUS: “We’re finally seeing energy markets, after slumbering for a while — oil prices were down around $85 — back up above $100. and that’s that’s a sign that financial traders have given up, seem to be giving up their expectation that somehow Trump would find a way out of this. That confidence seems now to be disappearing from the markets. If the United States is in a two-front war against an Iran that is very hard to suppress, despite claims every other day from Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth that they’ve been degraded, and we’re in a second conflict against another resilient ally that’s closing another key waterway, the United States really is pinned down in the Middle East. And it’s striking that we have, at this point, no international support from other countries that depend on commerce through these straits, to the Strait of Hormuz, to the strait of Bab Al-Mandab that the Houthis control. You’d think the Europeans would be finding ways to help the United States. They aren’t. They want to stay away. And that’s, I think, another key problem for the administration. It just doesn’t have enough friends and supporters on this campaign."