CONSPICUOUS IN PRESIDENT Trump’s declaration that the U.S. will resume bombing Yemen was the lack of anything like a strategy to produce the end of Houthi attacks on Red Sea shipping. “We will use overwhelming lethal force until we have achieved our objective,” is the closest he came, but that’s just a description of means and aims, with the hope that enough bombs will compel a Houthi surrender. The Houthis’ ability to withstand a decade of Saudi, American and occasionally Israeli bombs and cruise missiles shows they won’t. Now not only is Israel back to its U.S.-backed genocide in Gaza, the regional war in the Middle East spilling out from it is back on.

There is a surefire way to stop attacks on Red Sea shipping and U.S. Naval vessels. The Trump administration secured it in January, to great regional fanfare and the humiliation of Democrats: Force a ceasefire on Israel. But the administration is actively undermining the ceasefire while attempting to cast Hamas as the intransigent party, a move that clears the decks for as much ethnic cleansing as Israel can get away with.