I'm John Bachelor, Bill Rajo, senior fellow for the Foundation for Democracy, is here with me, and we're

very pleased to welcome Edmund Fitton Brown and the FD, former UK Ambassador to Yemen. Bill,

you had excellent observations about Houthis and the puzzle about how you can hope air power is going

to reduce the Iranians when what did it do for the Houthis?

Please ask Edmund, Bill.

Edmund, the U.S. and Israeli air power heavily targeted the Houthis as it was

blockading the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aiden last year and the year prior, and yet was unable to defeat the Houthis.

The Houthis were still able to conduct strikes.

Ultimately, they cut a deal to stop attacking U.S. worships, but never promised to not strike at Israel.

So the Houthi leadership remained intact.

What chance do you think the U.S. has of decapitating the Iranian regime and forcing the hundreds of thousands of people who

are ideologically committed to this regime within the IRGC, within the military, within the intelligence

service, within the police,

the besiege, do you think it's realistic to expect a U.S. air campaign to decapitate and cause regime change in Iran? So let me answer that in two parts, Bill, because I think it's important

to mention the Houthi context as well, and since you do.

You're right that the Houthis were not defeated, but they certainly didn't win.

They took a lot of hits, and they were desperate for the end of the fight with the United States,

the seven-week war from March through May last year.

And the reason they were desperate was that it was also paralyzing their ability to prosecute

the civil war in Yemen. It's one of the least understood parts of this US-Houthi war in 2025, is that whilst the U.S. was flying its missions in Yemen,

the Houthis who were planning to try to take the city of Marib in central Yemen and were building

their forces and engineering works to do that, they had to disperse the

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