The United States has "played games" with Yemen's Houthis for far too long, and now that strikes have been ordered, former NATO Supreme Cmdr. Wesley Clark told Newsmax Sunday that he hopes a real campaign has been stopped to eliminate their threat.
"We were playing tit for tat with them," Clark said on Newsmax's "Sunday Report." "And when you use American firepower and you put our troops out there and our airmen and naval, our seamen, you've got to be decisive in the use of force … let's get it over with and restore freedom of navigation."
Former President Joe Biden also ordered a few strikes against the Houthis last June, but Clark said Saturday's hit was "much heavier."
Further, President Donald Trump, unlike Biden, is giving the commanders in the field the authority to assess the situation and take out their targets, said Clark.
"My impression of it before, under the Biden administration, was that every strike was controlled and managed by the White House," he said. "That's exactly what got us in trouble in Vietnam in the mid-’60s. That's why we didn't win that war. There was too much White House oversight of every single strike. You've got to let these military guys who have access to the intelligence and the systems to go after it."
The strikes also send a message to Iran, as the Houthis "wouldn't have this capacity if Iran wasn't shipping the missiles to them," said Clark.
Meanwhile, the United States could have sunk the ships in the region rather than allow them to continue to deliver armaments, said Clark.
"The ballistic missiles and so forth are coming from Iran, and they're being shipped in," he said. "Let's stop it, and if they're being brought by air, let's stop the air flights going in there. We have the means to do this."
A Houthi spokesman, meanwhile, has threatened retaliation for the strikes, and Clark said that could be connected with a terrorist organization.
"Maybe they've got some friends in the axis of resistance that they are going to try to strike a U.S. air base in Jordan again with a drone," he said. "Maybe they're going to send somebody out to a harbor and try to attach a mine to a to a ship that's anchored somewhere in the Gulf. We don't know exactly how they're going to retaliate, but the point is put force in there, be decisive, break their will, get this stopped."
Meanwhile, he said that he thinks Trump has a direct strike on Iran on the table if it does not back down on its nuclear capabilities.
"Iran knows that when it goes all out for nuclear weapons, the world is coming in on it," said Clark. "I think we've still got a chance that Iran's going to back off and give up its nuclear program."
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Sandy Fitzgerald ✉
Sandy Fitzgerald has more than three decades in journalism and serves as a general assignment writer for Newsmax covering news, media, and politics.
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