Mainstream media have claimed that U.S. involvement in the Iran conflict would embolden rivals to strike elsewhere. However, U.S. adversaries are instead showing caution and restraint, fearing possible American reprisals. Photo courtesy of the U.S. Department of War.
The 2026 Iran conflict has generated considerable speculation about American overreach and strategic strain. However, the behavior of the actors best positioned to exploit U.S. military engagement, including Iran’s proxies in the Middle East, the Houthis, Hezbollah, and Hamas, as well as China in the Indo-Pacific and Russia in Europe, suggests the opposite.
Rather than taking advantage of a supposed vacuum created by the shift in U.S. military attention, America’s adversaries have largely acted with caution and restraint. Their behavior suggests that they recognize the United States remains the premier military power on earth. They also appear to understand that the U.S. is capable of conducting operations in one theater without forfeiting its ability to respond decisively in another.
Beginning in November 2023, during the Biden administration, the Iran-backed Houthi militia launched a sustained campaign of drone and missile strikes against commercial shipping in the Red Sea. The economic damage was severe. The Defense Intelligence Agency reported that the attacks impacted at least 65 countries and forced at least 29 major energy and shipping companies to alter their routes, with alternate shipping routes around Africa adding around 11,000 nautical miles and increasing fuel costs by approximately $1 million per voyage.
The DIA put the decline in container shipping through the Red Sea at approximately 90 percent between December 2023 and February 2024. The International Transport Forum estimated the total additional cost to global trade at $15 to $20 billion annually for the duration of the disruption. The Russell Group estimated $1 trillion in goods disrupted from October 2023 to May 2024.
The Biden administration’s response, Operation Prosperity Guardian launched in December 2023, became the most sustained combat experience for the U.S. Navy since World War II. Despite the Navy neutralizing 380 Houthi-launched projectiles through January 2025, the shipping lanes did not recover. Iran, as the Houthis’ primary benefactor, supplied the group with weapons transfers, training, and intelligence support, with the Congressional Research Service documenting Iranian provision of ballistic missiles, cruise missiles, drones, and IRGC advisory personnel that sustained the campaign.
Trump escalated. Operation Rough Rider launched March 15, 2025, with the stated goal of restoring freedom of navigation in the Red Sea. By April 28, U.S. Central Command reported over 800 targets struck, with a 69 percent reduction in Houthi ballistic missile launches and a 55 percent decrease in one-way drone attacks. On May 6, Oman brokered a ceasefire under which neither side would target the other in the Red Sea and Bab al-Mandab Strait, restoring freedom of navigation and the flow of international commercial shipping.
Iran’s three primary proxies, Hamas, Hezbollah, and the Houthis, entered 2026 in vastly different states of readiness. Israel had killed all of Hamas’s top leadership in Gaza and the vast majority of its battlefield commanders over two years of sustained bombardment.
Israeli strikes killed Hezbollah secretary-general Hassan Nasrallah in September 2024, along with most of the group’s senior command. Hezbollah had privately promised Lebanese officials, including President Joseph Aoun, that it would stay out of the conflict, a commitment the Lebanese cabinet formalized by outlawing Hezbollah’s military and security wings and ordering the deportation of IRGC members from Lebanese soil after Hezbollah broke that promise and rejoined the fighting anyway. The Houthis were the least damaged of the three.
With the U.S. now in a kinetic conflict with Iran, the Houthis’ primary arms supplier and financial backer, the group has not resumed attacks on commercial vessels. As of May 2026, the Houthis had conducted limited attacks on Israel but had not resumed strikes on shipping. Those limited attacks were intercepted, and analysts attributed the subsequent restraint to cost-benefit calculations and fear of drawing the U.S. into another sustained campaign.
Israeli Operation Lucky Drop on August 28, 2025, killed Houthi Prime Minister Ahmed al-Rahawi, along with nine other ministers, the director of the prime minister’s office, and the secretary of the council of ministers. The military chief of staff subsequently died from wounds sustained in the strike. Those losses left the group more cautious and wary of provoking another heavy aerial campaign.
When the Houthis eventually entered the conflict, launching a ballistic missile at Israel on March 28, 2026, their first strike since the U.S.-Iran war began, the attack was intercepted by Israeli air defenses. The Houthis warned that closure of the Bab el-Mandeb was “likely” only if the conflict escalated further or Gulf Arab states joined the war directly. That posture reflected deterrence management rather than offensive escalation.
This experience with the Houthis demonstrates that the Houthis have both the capacity and the will to disrupt global shipping. The reduction in attacks under President Trump demonstrates that the U.S. military has the ability to reclaim freedom of navigation, while Biden’s refusal to do so underscores a lack of political will under the previous administration. None of this supports media claims that U.S. engagement in one conflict prevents the United States from responding to other conflicts.
Regarding Beijing, the Iran conflict has reduced China’s access to cheap Iranian oil, yet China has done very little to support Iran militarily against the United States. Beijing issued press statements condemning the strikes, while Chinese companies reportedly provided some dual-use technology and geospatial intelligence to Iran, drawing U.S. sanctions. However, the CCP explicitly avoided overt military support in order to safeguard its broader economic interests and protect its shipping routes through contested waterways.
When CNN reported that China was preparing to ship MANPADS to Iran through third countries, President Trump warned Beijing that China would “have big problems” if it proceeded. Chinese leader Xi Jinping subsequently told Trump in a letter exchange that Beijing was not providing weapons to Iran. China ultimately backed away from even that limited covert support.
Furthermore, the primary contingency in U.S. military planning regarding the PRC has long been a potential Chinese invasion of Taiwan. Xi Jinping has repeatedly stated his desire to “reunify” China by absorbing Taiwan and has refused to rule out the use of military force to achieve that objective.
Over the past several years, China has conducted increasingly large military exercises around Taiwan, including repeated incursions into Taiwan’s air defense identification zone and operations near Taiwanese territorial waters. Many of these drills appeared designed to rehearse blockade or invasion scenarios.
Mainstream media commentators and foreign-policy pundits frequently claimed that President Trump’s engagement in Iran would weaken deterrence in the Indo-Pacific by tying down U.S. military resources and creating an opportunity for China to move against Taiwan. However, that has not happened.
As for the Ukraine war, Moscow has not “seized the moment” to intensify its campaign in Ukraine or invade additional countries in Europe. Similarly, China has not dramatically increased support to Russia in an effort to help Moscow successfully conclude the war in Ukraine.
The mainstream framing that the U.S. is strategically constrained by the Iran war and unable to respond to threats elsewhere in the world inverts the actual evidence. The United States has simultaneously conducted operations in Iran, Yemen, Somalia, Iraq, Syria, Ecuador, Nigeria, and against drug-trafficking vessels across the Caribbean and eastern Pacific.
President Trump’s demonstrated willingness to use kinetic force across multiple theaters complicates Xi Jinping’s calculations regarding Taiwan, Russia’s calculations in Ukraine, and those of Iranian proxies across the Middle East.
The post Lessons From the Iran Conflict: How Tehran’s Proxies and China Expose the Limits of U.S. Rivals appeared first on The Gateway Pundit.