PBS News Hour - Full Show - The widening Iran war and what it means for the region and the world

Episode Date: July 31, 2026

This week, the war in Iran that President Trump predicted would last four to five weeks entered its sixth month. Now, there are new fronts in the war. Compass Points moderator Nick Schifrin discusses what the widening conflict means for the Middle East and the U.S. with Mohammed Al-Basha, Kirsten Fontenrose, Dana Stroul and Alex Vatanka. PBS News is supported by - https://www.pbs.org/newshour/about/funders. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy

The widening war, Saudi Arabia and the U.S. team up to attack Iran-backed fighters in Iraq. The Iran-backed militia in Yemen opens up a new front. The war is expanding, challenging peace talks and raising prices here at home. What's it all mean for the region and the U.S.? Coming up on Compass Points. Hello and welcome to Compass Points. This week, the war in Iran that President Trump predicted with last four to five weeks entered its six months. And now there are new fronts.

The Iran-backed Houthis have been holding their fire, for months, but now they're firing at ships in the Bab al-Mondep, southwest of the Strait of Hormuz and the gateway to the Red Sea. That has raised global oil prices and threatens to rekindle a war with Saudi Arabia that's been mostly dormant for four years. This week, the U.S. and Saudi Arabia also took aim at Iranian-backed militias in Iraq, blaming them for opening fire on Iran's behalf. And we even saw an apparent drone strike on a tanker in Egypt, the first incident in the Mediterranean. The war is expanding, so to make sense of it all, I'm joined this week by Mohamed al-Basha, a Yemeni researcher who has advised the U.S. government,

partner countries, and the private sector on Yemen and the Arabian Peninsula. Kirsten Fontenrose is a non-resident senior fellow at the Atlantic Council. She worked on the National Security Council staff during President Trump's first term. Dana Stroll is the director of research and a senior fellow at the Washington Institute for Neri's policy. She worked at the Pentagon during the Biden and Obama administrations. And Alex Vatanka is a senior fellow at the Middle East. Institute. Thanks very much. Real pleasure to have all of you. Welcome to Compass Points. I'm going to begin with a map. So let's look at this. What began as U.S. and Israeli strikes

on Iran became Iranian strikes on ships and all of the U.S.'s Gulf allies. Now strikes between Saudi Arabia and Iranian-backed groups in Iraq. Saudi Arabia and the Iranian-back Houthis from Yemen. That's a lot of arrows. And we've even got an attack now in the Mediterranean. off. How big of an expansion? How complicated is that map are we dealing with right now? It's definitely getting more complicated and it's definitely expanding incrementally. One of the interesting things about the post-October 7th landscape is that Israel and then the United States were able to sequentially address Iran and Iran-backed proxy. So there was Hamas and Gaza, there was Hezbollah and Lebanon. There was multiple campaigns, actually, against the Houthis in Yemen.

There have been several rounds of U.S. military strikes against Iran backed militias in Iraq and in Syria. And then there have been now four rounds of interstate war with Iran. Now we're seeing all of it happen at the same time. And what I think the other interesting feature here is that escalation is still controlled and incremental. On all sides. So the United States could certainly be going bigger in the scope and scale of its military strikes. and the Iranians certainly could as well. They could also direct all of their partners and proxies to activate in the same time

in a way that would probably be very challenging for the United States and its partners to manage, and that's not what's happened so far. Kirsten, so Dana worked for the Biden and Obama administrations. You work for the Trump administration, first one. Do you see it differently? I don't see it differently, but I would say that there's something to note is that I think the use of proxies now, which we didn't see earlier in the war, to this extent is because there's a weakness in Tehran that they sent.

So the proxies have been a pillar of their foreign policy, along with the nuclear program and the missile and drone program, and they always refuse to negotiate on the proxies with us, with Gulf states, because they said, sorry, these are our guys. This is our tool for leveraging the rest of the region, right, and extending our borders out to closer to NATO, to closer to where the U.S. sits. And the fact that they're struggling to pull them in, finally pulled these guys in, though, is a sign that they really are looking for other tools,

that they're running out of munitions. We know that the volume of their strikes has gone down 90%. They still have plenty in store, but it's a sign that they're looking around and saying, we've got to go asymmetric, because we can't conventionally take on a broader war. But the fact that those proxies didn't enter earlier is something that's a positive for us.

And I would also say the fact that they are degraded, now. So they're having to turn to the Houthis because they can no longer really turn to Hamas. They can no longer really turn to Hizbalah. The PMFs in Iraq, yeah, they're using them. The pro-Iranian militias in Iraq. Yes, exactly. The paramilitary forces in Iraq that are technically a part of Iraq's official military, but are acting under Iranian direction. They are coming under fire from the Iraqi federal government. We'll see how that plays out. But they have fewer tools in that toolbox. So they've turned to the Houthis. And even in a time of limited resources in Tehran, they were trying to send them.

They're sending them trainers. They're sending them more munitions stockpiles. They're saying, we really need your help here, so we'll take some of our scarce resources to share them with you, Houthis, in the hope that you will then come to our assistance. Alex, how does Tehran see this expanding war? I think in many ways what the Iranians want to do, and this is something to try to do from get-go, is to make the economic cost so incredibly hard for the Americans to ignore that President Trump comes under pressure and has to make a decision.

Do I stay in this war or do I look for a genuine way to end it? The Iranians are seeing what they're openly describing war of attrition. And in fact, they're saying this war of attrition is going to happen on multiple fronts. They are expecting, certainly with Prime Minister's recent visit to Washington. Prime Minister Netanyahu Israel. I'm sorry, Prime Minister Netanyahu Israel. They are expecting potentially a new round of major conflict to break out, including targeting of their nuclear facilities. But in the meantime, what they're doing is to go back to.

that asymmetric economic warfare. How do you make the shock so incredibly hard to ignore? So the escalation horizontally, but also I expect vertically soon, meaning they're going to hit energy infrastructure and transportation infrastructure in ways we might not have seen in recent months. That seems to be their game plan. So, Basha, let's zoom in on the Houthis, right? This asymmetric warfare that everyone's talking about. Obviously, one of the major tools, one of the major players when it comes to that. briefly, who are the Houthis? Just remind everyone. And what has concerned the U.S. and the Saudis so much about what the Houthis have been doing? Sure. I mean, the Houthis is the Yemeni version of

Hezbollah. It started in the 80s. It evolved initially as a revivalist movement of the Zadis sect, but then it challenged the central government, six wars later. It survived. And then from 2004 to 2014, they expanded from their mountainous regions into seizing the capital. And then after seizing the capital, 10 years later, they're shooting cruise missiles and drones at U.S. carriers and targeting Israel. So I think right now with the Houthis, you have two paths. You have an Iranian-led axis of resistance path, and then you have the Saudi Houthi path. And they both are now seen to have aligned, and that's why we're seeing the escalation

timed right now. We have seen the United States launch seven weeks of war against the Houthi. We have seen the Saudis launch four years of war, and the Israelis also struck the Houthis, and yet here we are talking about them. Why was nobody else able to deal with this threat? Yeah, last time I joined you in an interview, I said that, and I'm going to repeat it again,

air strikes alone are not going to defeat the Houthis. They're not going to defeat the regime in Iran. I think right now, today, all sides of the axis are comfortable enough that they're no longer just trying to survive. I think they're trying to dominate. Iran is trying to dominate. I was in Oman last week, and the tone there has changed.

The Iranians, you know, you realize when you're walking on a beach in Iran, Iran is not going anywhere. It's their neighbor. You open the balcony. It's in front of you. You hear the buzz of a tractor and you think it's a drone.

So their anxiety is pretty high up in the region. And I think, you know, the only way to push these groups is via ground operations. It's possible in Yemen. It's not possible in Iran. It's not possible in Iraq at this. point.

Everybody should jump in. I mean, Alex, let me ask you first. There's a real debate here that all of you guys have talked with our team actually this week. Are the Houthis a proxy? Are they a partner? How independent are they? Yeah, I mean, look, from Iran's point of view, you got a spectrum.

You got Hezbollah in Lebanon very close to the Iranians, founded by the Iranians. They look to the Iranian Supreme Leader, Mosh Tabah Khomeini, today and his father, Ali as their supreme leader, not the case with the Houthis. They have their own supreme leader. In terms of a sector, they're different. So I see the Iranians and the Houthis right now, for example, in escalating perhaps a convergent of interest. It's in both their interest to create an energy shock for the Iranians to get Donald Trump's attention, for the Houthis to get the Saudis to perhaps loosen the blockade on.

So it's more of a case by case. But the case of the Hash to Shabian in Iraq, you know, they're pro-Iranians. They're pro-Iranians. Their card Iran can play. Will Iran play at any moment? I've been surprised, to Kirsten's point, that they didn't use the proxies earlier. I'm not sure if it's out of desperation. It could be because it's an opportune moment to, again, the psychological factor is important.

We're looking at the map. Oh, my God. It's, you know, erupting everywhere. And that stuff that matters for the market, which President Trump cares about. It also matters in terms of the public spirit in this country. Like, is this war worth fighting or not? And again, these are the types of things the Iranians do pay attention to. I'll take a different angle on this. I think when we look at Iran, but then all of the different

groups in Iran's network, the Houthis, the Iran backed militias in Iraq, Bashar al-Assad in Syria, Hezbo in Lebanon, Hamas and Gaza, we have for years now approached these problems through a military forward lens. And a lot of times, at least from a U.S. policy perspective, we don't consider the local contexts in which these groups are thriving and the social, and political ways in which they've entrenched themselves within these situations. It's not just military. So you can't just cut off the money, cut off the arms, pound them militarily, and think that's going to fundamentally change the picture.

And one of the struggles, I think successive administrations, not just this one and not just the last one, have had, is in transitioning from some military operations to meaningful political processes. So the Houthis, why escalate now and why not before? One of the big reasons, I think, is a lot of the Iranian resistance network was watching the exchange between the United States and Israel and Iran, and they weren't sure the regime was going to survive. And so they were thinking through their national and local interests compared to whether they're going to be part of an Iran cultivated resistance. Same thing in Iraq. There were also elections in Iraq. There's a new prime minister in Iraq. There's been transitions of American leadership who are taking a different angle in Iraq. And so the militias were thinking through, am I going to prioritize myself as an Iraqi entity or am I part of Iran's network?

And part of what we're seeing now is that the region perceives that the United States is not winning, that Iran has actually survived the worst existential challenge in the history of the Islamic Republic. And they look okay, even though they're weekend and even though they're launching more asymmetric capabilities at this moment in time, it doesn't look like they're going anywhere. So this seems like a convenient time for these groups to not just rise up to support the Iranian regime, but also to get more for their local considerations. We have seen some of the PMS in Iraq. Again, the pro-Iranian militias in Iraq that are, again, technically part of the official military,

do outreach to the U.S. quietly behind the scenes saying we want to come in from the cold, even when they weren't sure who was going to win? And, you know, so we question, is this because they see themselves as having a, you know, the leadership thinks my own bread is better buttered if I sort of join the official government or get a senior role within the military, I'll have more control, who knows. But that is interesting. I wonder if for the Houthis now, if they're thinking the things we've been asking for, we haven't been getting, we haven't been getting anywhere with the Saudis right now.

We want to draw more international attention on this because the time that they had their peak of popularity was right after they entered in Gaza. Right. Right. They were very unpopular at home. They were unknown internationally. It had gone quiet. The Saudi War had gone quiet.

The ceasefire was in place. And suddenly, after Gaza, when they started firing on Israel, they were international champions for a cause again. They had their kind of like 15 minutes of fame. That's died down again. They've just had a failed hostage exchange with South. You know, they're kind of going, how do we reignite this attention to us? But I think it's meaningful that they have only inflicted this block.

on Saudi Arabia. Their ceasefire with the U.S. is still in place. So while this administration started and the military leaders I spoke to, and Dana probably knew, they're probably the same plans that always sit on the shelves to be able to take care of the Houthi problem, which is not easy and not collateral damage-free, right? So nobody wants to do it. But there were some people chomping at the bit for that. And when the president turned around and said, instead, in March of 2025, I'm going to do a ceasefire with them. I think the Houthis understand the value in that still. They've spent the year ramping up. We know. that's been documented. Even the UN is documented that they've spent this year exchanging

technologies and information with other extremist-designated organizations and building up their own components, missiles, drones, so they may feel more ready. But I think they're also saying this is our time to bring some international light on us. Again, we always do better at the negotiating table when the international community cares, but we don't want to draw fire from the U.S. if we don't have to. Let me bring in President Trump's options here, U.S. options. So let's just take one second and listen to President Trump when he was asked whether the U.S. is interested in fighting the Houthis. What's going to happen there? We're not involved with that, but we may, you know, if they're a problem, we'll probably have to get involved.

Basha, we'll have to get involved if there are a problem. What's the best U.S. option when it comes to the disease, if there is one? The timing makes sense for the Houthis because Bab and Mandab is no longer secondary. It's primary in our now. This is the gateway to the Red Sea. southwest to the Strader Formos. In fact, we could bring up the map right now, comparing these choke points, how important those are.

So the Saudis are pushing four million barrels through the east-west pipeline. Which goes out the Red Sea, up in the Sue. And it goes through the South Sea towards China, it goes up towards Europe. And so for them, this is the best time to do maximum pressure. And they're very careful in signaling to the Trump administration

that we're not closing Bab al-Mandip. This is exclusively a Saudi Yemeni, conflict from their perspective. However, from the first speech of Abdul Malik to the second speech, the leader, yes, Abdel Makh al-Huthi, the leader, their demands has increased. Initially, it was open their airport, lift their restrictions, let us be the government that authorizes the landing and taking off,

the permits to dock in the seaports, and let's negotiate for gas and sharing resources. The second speech, he went on for 30 minutes to explicitly say how the Saudis have hurt them. And that's building the case for war crimes, reparations, compensations. And so it's a very difficult situation for the Saudis. The Saudis don't want war with the Houthis. The best way to describe it is like you're driving around in a rollsroy's and a kid is throwing stones at you.

So what do you do? Are you going to go down and fight the kid? Are you going to give him money to go away? But sooner or later, you're going to have to deal with this kid that's throwing stones at you. And this is the situation right now. And the Houthis are ready for war. They're ready for war. They're testing the front lines.

And I think they're under the impressions that the U.S. is not going to engage with them as long as they don't engage with them. So they're, you know, sort of politically terrorizing the Saudis to get what they want. And if the Saudis compensate them, imagine how the Houthis will be.

Because there are certain things, including money that the Houthis have been asking this. Yeah. I mean, their Minister of Finance is saying $13 billion on unpaid salaries, 50 billion. in oil compensations. And so you want airport direct flights to Tehran.

You want billions in cash. You want free rein over the airport. And you want to be recognized as the legitimate authority. Nick, very quickly. One of the things that I'm not sure about, and I don't think the Iranians are sure about it, just to go back to Tehran for a second, is whether they think this is a moment

to sort of really mobilize, galvanize, all their friends and international community by hitting energy, mark, and so on, with the ultimate aim of pushing the United States out of the Middle East. Well, that's been their long state today. Well, they haven't necessarily, ambitiously, with everything they had pursued it.

That could change. I'm not sure, because there's a big fight of sorts in Tehran in terms of, for example, should you use the strait of hormones as leverage, but essentially as part of your negotiations, but that important point you negotiate, whereas those so-called hardliners are say, negotiate with Americans for what?

There is no common ground. There's no agreement to be had. But I mean, listening to Bashar here on one of the, One of the things that jumps at me looking at Iranian media is they look at Donald Trump as an American president who thinks about foreign policy, monetary terms more than any other way, perhaps. And they're looking at the fact that one to one point five trillion dollars of American investments in the Gulf region.

And they're saying, hey, American commercial interests and American voters, this is now all at risk because of this war that United States and Israel wage on Iran. Again, they're maybe overplaying their hand, overconfidence, all the rest of it, but that's certainly the way they're thinking in corridors into Iran. Kirsten, or is Iran overplaying at 10? I think their hand is asymmetric at this point. And so overplaying it when it's existential for these leaders, I don't think they have a definition of overplaying. You know, it's survive or die in this bunker because even if we come out and make a deal, the other faction that's more hardline than me will kill my family the next day.

And if I survive, the people are going to take me down like the people in Libya took down. Gaddafi. Like there's no good end for them. So it's sort of an all or nothing. So I don't think they, I don't think they see anything as potentially overplaying. I think with with the Houthis, it's this kind of symbiotic relationship where to all the points you've been making, you know, this is this is something that Iran can use to draw fire there. But if you've noticed, Sankham has has made statements that of course are cleared with the White House that have said, we will, we will strike the, you know, we'll get involved with the Houthis strike US assets or

Saudi energy infrastructure. So they've sort of told the Houthis, this is how you would break our ceasefire. And I think the behind-the-scenes conversations are probably telling the Saudis, we're dealing with Iran. We're dealing mutually with Iraq. And in fact, Saudi officials have said exactly that.

The deal that MBS, the Crown Prince, made with the president, is we're going to deal with the Houthis. You have to deal with everything else. Exactly. But the Saudis were willing to go into Iraq, or at least publicized. They were going to Iraq. So the Saudis have red lines.

Well, the other thing you noticed, too, is the statement was, if they act again, or if anybody acts against Saudi infrastructure, we will punish Iran. The U.S. statement did not say we will punish the Houthis. So it leaves U.S. action open to still maintain that ceasefire. Yeah. So let me be a devil's advocate. The Houthis have crossed all the red lines. They've targeted most of Aramco's facilities. Aramco, the state oil energy facility.

And Aramco has been targeted by the Houthis in the past. and a major, major, you know, upscale or whatever, if the Houthis keep doing it. Exactly. And the alarming thing is I'm hearing a lot of conversations about pipeline through Turkey, a pipeline through UAE. What the Iranian threat network is saying, we're going to hit the production facility,

the well where it starts, the pipeline, the export terminal. So there's no way out of this. You're going to have to sit down and negotiate and give us what we want. Otherwise, we're going to shut it down. And so there are facilities now that have been public, that's a jazan refinery in Saudi, 400,000 barrels a day. So not only is Saudi producing crude,

but also Saudi is producing quarter of the region's refined fuel. So the Houthis have struck at least four facilities, targeted civilian airport, and they're calling everybody's bluff. They're like, we're ready for work, bring it on. And so people are kind of like, what's next? Zoom out. We've only got a few minutes left. Zoom out for us again, Dana.

We've talked about all this escalation and talk about how difficult it is to get at the Houthis. Is there an exit strategy? Is there a way out of this for the region or not? First of all, just in response to what everyone has said here, I see the Iranian playbook right now is entirely consistent with what we've seen from the Iranian regime before. They do not think that just because there's negotiations,

you have to stop fighting, and just because you're fighting, you stop negotiations. The anomaly is the U.S. administration who is actually negotiating and fighting at the same time. And secondarily, what the Iranians and their access of resistance is trying to do is introduce doubt into whether the United States is going to stay in the region, stay committed to its intended objectives, its stated objectives, and continue to support the defense of its partners. So the fact that we're even talking about, can the United States support Saudi Arabia? that it's a question is already part of what the Iranian strategy is now.

So the question right now is for the United States and for Iran, are you going to get more of what you want on terms favorable to you by escalating? Is there some beautiful, decisive military operation here? Or are we going to wrestle with the imperfect, un-satisfying processes of diplomacy? And I think both sets of leadership has decided at this moment that we're going to try both at the same time, And that's the new normal we're in.

And for the United States, at this point, I would say the way out of this is to focus on the one specific thing that is vital for everything else, which is the Strait of Hormuz. The longstanding objectives of U.S. policy toward Iran, the nuclear weapons program, the missile program, the support for terrorism, those things are actually significantly degraded and pushed back. There's time on the clock on all of them. And there are political processes, Saudi Yemen, with Iraq, with Lebanon, with Gaza, and we need to have the patient diplomacy to continue to see them through. All right, Kristen, I'll give you the last word, but you only have about 35 seconds. So, in a word, it sounds like we need to focus on the Strait of Hormuz, according to Dana. Is that right?

The Strait of Hormuz is less economically important to the U.S. than it is to other partners. So I think if you want this administration to focus on it, it will mean that Europe, Japan, and other players that are much more impacted by, the trade that goes through there, we'll also need to put a little bit of skin in the game. Otherwise, you could see this administration say, our conventional military goals have been achieved. Why are we here?

You mean, instead of escalating, just say, we're done. We've done good enough. They don't have a nuclear program. They don't have these other programs. They're not a threat to us. We'll let the Europeans start their escort mission to help ships go through. And we can say it's been successful

and watch them from the sky, but pull our soldiers home. Very interesting. Thank you guys. Really appreciate it. Kirsten, Vasha, Alex, and Dana. Thank you very much. That's all the time we have for now.

Thank you at home for joining us. I'm Nick Schiffen. We'll see you here again next week on Compass Points.