Call this Operation FAFO II - Houthi Boogaloo. But the message Israel sent may not have been addressed exclusively to the Ansar Allah terrorists in Yemen. The targeting of Houthi infrastructure in Hodeidah had a big "cc:" attached to it.

The IDF conducted a significant raid on Houthi strongholds in Yemen in July after months of attacks on Red Sea shipping, as well as drone attacks on Israel itself. However, the Houthis didn't get the message that time, and neither did their patrons in Tehran. They fired a ballistic missile intended to hit Ben Gurion Airport at the same time that Benjamin Netanyahu arrived from New York and his speech at the United Nations. Israel's anti-ballistic-missile systems destroyed it in flight, although at least one piece landed near Jerusalem:

Yemen's Iranian-allied Houthis on Saturday said they had targeted Ben Gurion airport in Israel with a ballistic missile and they had timed the attack to coincide with Israeli Prime Benjamin Netanyahu's arrival.

The alleged attack was announced hours after the Lebanese Hezbollah movement, an ally of the Houthis, confirmed the killing of its chief Hassan Nasrallah in an airstrike in the southern suburb of Beirut.

Houthi military spokesman Yehya Saree said the group would not "hesitate to raise the level of military escalation" against Israel.

Well ... fool around and find out. The Israelis escalated instead, and much more effectively. The IDF returned yesterday for a much larger-scale series of attacks that have destroyed the Houthis' power generation, oil refining, and shipping infrastructure:

The strikes targeted sites used by the Houthi regime for military purposes at the port city of Hodeidah and the nearby Ras Isa port in western Yemen, the IDF said.

“The IDF attacked power plants and a port, which are used to import oil. Through the targeted infrastructure and ports, the Houthi regime transfers Iranian weapons to the region, and supplies for military purposes, including oil,” the military said.

The strikes caused power outages in most parts of the port city of Hodeidah, residents told Reuters.

The attack reportedly destroyed the Houthis' entire oil reserves, and may have destroyed port access for Iranian weapons transfers. Videos show massive explosions and fires in Hodeidah, including this one taken in the aftermath of the IDF response:

النيران تلتهم مدينة #الحديدة ما نشاهده اليوم هو نتيجة مباشرة لأفعال الحـ وثي ومليشياته الارهـ ـابية المدعومة من #إيران
هؤلاء الخونة لم يكتفوا بتدمير البلاد من الداخل بل ورطوا #اليمن في حرب مع العالم أجمع و حولوا أرضنا إلى ساحة للمعارك ولم يترددوا في التضحية باليمن واليمنيين من… pic.twitter.com/B1FaHeeMya

— عبدالله السالمي Abdullah Alsalemi (@al__salemi) September 29, 2024

The man who passed along the video is none too pleased with the Houthis for provoking the Israelis, especially on behalf of the Iranians:

Fires devour the city of #الحديدة What we are witnessing today is a direct result of the actions of the Houthis and their terrorist militias supported by #إيرانThese traitors did not just destroy the country from within, but they also involved #اليمن in a war with the whole world and turned our land into a battlefield. They did not hesitate to sacrifice Yemen and the Yemenis in order to achieve the interests of their masters in Tehran..!

Iran also responded, claiming that Israel had committed a war crime by attacking supposedly "civilian" infrastructure. That's rather amusing, given that their proxies in Yemen chose to aim a ballistic missile at a civilian airport and have launched missiles and drones at civilian populations -- not to mention the crimes of their other two proxies, Hamas and Hezbollah. But it does demonstrate that Tehran at least received the message:

Iran’s Foreign Ministry spokesperson Nasser Kanaani condemned the strikes, saying in a statement that they had targeted “civilian infrastructure” such as a power plant and fuel tanks.

“Iran once again warns about the consequences of the Zionist regime’s (Israel) warmongering on regional and international peace and security,” spokesperson Nasser Kanaani added.

Put it this way: This looks very much like a demonstration for the Iranians of what Israel will target if Tehran orders another strike on Israel. The Israelis sent a small but clear message when Iran attacked earlier this summer, just as the Israelis did with the Houthis, but it was notable nonetheless; they knocked out their anti-aircraft warning system near their key nuclear facilities. If Iran escalates directly, the Israelis appear to be warning that their next step will be to target Iran's oil production, shipping, and power generation infrastructure -- and likely their nuclear development sites to boot. 

So Iran at least has gotten the message. Will they take a lesson from it? Iran has spent a lot of time and money to make itself look invincible, but as the New York Times notices today, it now looks like the Iranians are paper tigers -- and that they know it:

The idea was simple: When a big war with Israel broke out, all the members of the Iranian-backed network of militias in the Middle East known as the “axis of resistance” would join the fight in a coordinated push toward their shared goal of destroying the Jewish state.

Iran came up with the strategy and invested tremendous resources to build each group’s fighting abilities and connect them to one another.

But the axis’s response as Israel has pummeled Hezbollah in Lebanon in recent weeks — killing many of its commanders and assassinating its leader — has so far been feeble, suggesting that the axis is weaker and more fragmented than many in the region had expected and that Iran feared that widening the war could cause Israel to turn its firepower on Tehran.

“The so-called axis of resistance from its very beginning was more or less a propaganda fiction created to enhance the prestige of the Islamic Republic,” said Ali Alfoneh, a senior fellow at the Arab Gulf States Institute in Washington.

What has been the Iranian response so far? To keep hiding behind its proxies:

Even Iran itself, the founder of the axis, has so far taken no clear action to save Hezbollah or join the fight. The country’s new president, Masoud Pezeshkian, told world leaders at the United Nations General Assembly last week that his government wanted to defuse tensions and get along with the West. Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, suggested that Hezbollah had to chart its own way forward.

Don't think for a moment that that hasn't sent a message to the region, too. It took Israel less than two weeks of serious combat to destroy most of Hezbollah's leadership, communications, and much of its weaponry, while at the same time defenestrating Houthi infrastructure nearly 2000 miles away. The IDF has pounded Hamas to pieces over the past year, although not quite defeating them utterly. And Iran has yet to offer an effective response to any of this.

In a region where strong horses get the most respect, the Iranian mullahcracy is looking ridiculous and cowardly. That's a dangerous position for everyone, but mainly for the mullahs themselves. If they provoke Israel into a response like the IDF just delivered in Yemen, the Iranian people may decide that they've had enough of the mullahs and their IRGC Gestapo.