The last thing President Joe Biden needs right now is a full-on shooting war with the Houthi rebels in control of a third of Yemen. But with the battle-hardened forces spoiling for a fight with Israel and the United States, Biden felt forced to respond with military force.

Following the Oct. 7 attacks by Hamas terrorists in Israel, and Israel’s subsequent campaign to eliminate Hamas in the Gaza Strip, the Biden administration has stated repeatedly its overall goal is to avoid a wider war in the region and has tempered its response accordingly.

But the Houthis, a clan little known outside Yemen until they took over the country’s capital Sanaa in 2014, along with other Iranian-backed proxies in the region, had other ideas.

At first, the Houthis tried to lob missiles into Israel. But it was too far away and too heavily protected by robust air defenses.

Instead, they hatched an easier plan, firing missiles and drones targeting commercial ships transiting the vital Bab-el-Mandeb Strait at the mouth of the Red Sea. It’s a vital chokepoint that facilitates nearly 15% of the world’s trade by sea, including 8% of the grain trade, 12% of seaborne-traded oil, and 8% of global liquified natural gas.

The Houthis claimed their strikes were in support of Palestinians in Gaza, but longtime Houthi observers say what they really want is relevance.

“They want power. They have a lot of domestic aims. And in so many ways, the war in Gaza has really been just this huge gift from the sky for them,” Vivian Nereim, Gulf bureau chief for the New York Times, said in a recent podcast. “So essentially, they are now widening the war. They’re saying that this is a world war that we are excited to enter into now, and we’re ready for it.”

The Biden administration’s response began with dispatching a heavy naval armada to the region, including a missile defense warship, cruise missile submarines, and at one point two aircraft carriers.

As the Houthi attacks that began on Nov. 19 intensified, and the Houthis ignored repeated warnings of consequences if they didn’t stop, the U.S. organized a multinational maritime defense force with ships from 20 nations to protect international shipping, dubbed “Operation Prosperity Guardian.”

Finally, on Jan. 11, two days after the Houthis launched in multiple salvos including nearly 20 drones and multiple missiles aimed directly against U.S. ships, U.S. and British warplanes and ships conducted a massive air assault aimed at degrading Houthi missile sites.

Since then, the U.S. military has taken out Houthi missiles in more than a half-dozen smaller strikes using precision bombs or cruise missiles, and the U.S. and U.K. joined forces again for a bigger strike on Jan. 22.

“Since Jan. 11, we assessed that we’ve destroyed or degraded over 25 missile launch and deployment facilities, more than 20 missiles, plus we’ve struck unmanned aerial, vehicle, coastal radar and air surveillance capabilities, as well as weapon storage areas with good effects,” Pentagon press secretary Pat Ryder said, suggesting a five-day pause in Houthi attacks could be an indication of “a degradation of capability.”

At every turn, administration officials stress the U.S. is not interested in engaging in prolonged war with the Houthis.

“We’ve been very clear that our single focus is on ensuring that the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden are safe and secure and that these attacks against the international community stop,” Ryder said. “If they stop conducting these attacks, then there’ll be no further need to take these kinds of actions.”

But the next day, the Houthis were at it again, firing three anti-ship ballistic missiles at a U.S.-flagged, owned, and operated container ship.

Two of the missiles were shot down, and the third fell harmlessly in the water, but the message was sent: the Houthis are not stopping.

“I think it’s going to continue until the Houthis run out of weapons or we take their weapons away from them by destruction,” retired Marine Gen. Frank McKenzie, former U.S. CENTCOM commander, told CBS News.

To be seen as standing up to Israel and the U.S., and championing the cause of the besieged people of Gaza, plays very well domestically.

“There’s really no reason for them to pull back. And they’re very comfortable fighting, and that’s what they’re doing right now. As soon as it stops, it essentially leaves the Houthis back in a challenging position where they’re going to have to figure out how to govern,” argues Nereim, the New York Times Gulf bureau chief. “The Houthis may say that what they’re doing is just about defending the Palestinians and trying to end Israel’s war in Gaza, but it is multipronged. And what the Houthis really want is a simpler way to win the hearts and minds of their own people.”

Biden himself acknowledges he doesn’t know when the military strikes he ordered will produce the desired effect.

“Are the airstrikes in Yemen working?” Biden was asked one week after the first U.S.-U.K. strikes.

“Well, when you say ‘working,’ are they stopping the Houthis? No,” Biden said. “Are they going to continue? Yes.”

That open-ended commitment is making some members of Congress, including in his own party, uneasy.

A bipartisan group of four senators, Sens. Tim Kaine (D-VA), Chris Murphy (D-CT), Todd Young (R-IN), and Mike Lee (R-UT), have written Biden saying it is time for him to seek congressional authorization for what appears to be offensive military action that carries the risk of escalation.

“I think Congress needs to be brought into it because the last thing we need to do is to slide into another war in the Middle East without a really careful consideration and a debate in front of the public,” Kaine said on CNN.

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“Every president has inherent power under Article 2 to defend the United States, and that’s always been understood to mean to defend U.S. personnel, U.S. military assets, possibly even U.S. commercial assets,” Kaine said. “But when you go on the offense against a group and if it’s more than just self-defense and now suddenly it’s a back-and-forth that’s escalating, that’s classically when it becomes an offensive, not just defensive operation.”

“The Constitution gives him that authority to do what he has to do to protect our troops, our facilities, our ships at sea, and that’s what these attacks are largely designed to do,” National Security Council spokesman John Kirby said. “They are self-defense strikes and we will have to continue them as long as the Houthis choose to continue to conduct their own missile attacks.”