Smart guys in the White House and Pentagon specialize in devising ways to retaliate against attacks on American troops and bases with limited punitive blasts. The idea is they will scare our enemies into thinking twice before striking again, without actually having to go after them guns blazing.

These formulations are like medical prescriptions. Give the bad guys an air strike, maybe two or three bombs, and hit another bunch a little harder. Second and third offenders may get an increased dose.

That’s how the Americans are calibrating their strikes against the Houthis for firing on commercial vessels on one of the world’s busiest links between Asia and Europe.

What will it take to get the Houthis to conclude they’ve got to let up while they recover and rebuild their forces? That’s the question the Americans assume the Houthis are asking one another as they dig into their fortifications in Yemen, a divided country at the strategic juncture of the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden.

Wishful thinkers are pretty sure the terrorists in charge of Hamas are asking similar questions as Israeli President Bibi Netanyahu talks about going after what he would like us to believe are the last of Hamas, stuck in the southern Gaza enclave of Rafah.

In actuality, the wirepullers of Hamas are mostly far away, safe in the emirate of Qatar, which is in the wonderful position of having close to ties to the U.S., which has a large air base right there too.

There’s no evidence, of course, of what the Hamas and Houthi commanders are really thinking, but we do know the Iranians are funneling the missiles that the Houthis have been firing........

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