Subject: Re: WHY does Israel have to wait for
And the Chinese would politely take the call, would tell the Iranians they'll consider the offer, and hang up. Then laugh themselves silly. That's not how the Big Dragon rolls. They don't want to tip their hands before 2027. Nor are they going to risk this kind of stand off with the US over the Houthis because China's entry into the conflict - on the side of the Iranians - would reverberate through the region in ways you wouldn't believe.

Hilariously it would see a light-speed reopening of the Abraham Accords.

They wouldn't laugh at all. The Chinese would jump at the chance to have a Gulf naval base. They're expanding their global military footprint, and are already active in the Gulf of Aden. To say nothing of their efforts to reorient the Gulf States economically away from the West, and towards the East - which the Gulf States are definitely encouraging. China is already Saudi Arabia's biggest customer by a fair sight.

The goal here is to interdict Iran's ability to attack US shipping. Our armed forces aren't engaged in active combat in Iraq on the scale they were...we have resources enough to send messages.

You can't board ships with "messages." You have to actually board them, with sailors. And since Iranian flag vessels aren't pirates, or even necessarily involved in any illegal activity at all, they don't have to let you board and you're not actually entitled to use force to make them. I mention a blockade because if we were actually at war with Yemen, we could then lawfully intercept Yemeni-bound vessels to search for munitions. But since we're not, we don't have any basis for doing that - any more than Iranian naval ships are allowed to board Saudi cargo vessels and seize the arms going to the Yemeni government.