The Iran war is spreading

On a Saturday in late September, Houthi missiles hit King Khalid International Airport in Riyadh, killing at least 13 people and wounding hundreds more. It was the worst attack on Saudi soil in more than a decade. The airport stayed closed for days. Flights into Dammam and Jeddah were forced into hours-long holding patterns. The Houthis struck the same airport three more times in the following week. By the end of it, Greg Carlstrom of The Economist, reporting from Riyadh, said the only safe way to get in or out of Saudi Arabia was to drive to another country and fly from there.

The Houthis have become a serious military threat

The Houthis began as a local insurgency in northern Yemen, fighting the Yemeni government. After the Arab Spring overthrew longtime dictator Ali Abdullah Saleh, the Houthis seized large parts of the country, and by 2014 they had taken the capital Sanaa. Saleh later allied with them, helping consolidate their control over most of Yemen’s population centers.

What changed the Houthis from a local rebel group into a regional threat was Iran. Tehran supplied them with weapons, money, know-how, and technical expertise. Over time, the Houthis built an arsenal of ballistic missiles, cruise missiles, and drones. They are now using that arsenal to hit Saudi Arabia directly.