MIDDLE EAST: Houthis enter US ‘kill box’ after seizing Red Sea ‘cork,’ former Pentagon official warns.

The island’s capture came after a month-long offensive along Yemen’s western coast that killed more than 1,500 soldiers and forced Yemen’s government to acknowledge a “painful” defeat, according to The Associated Press.

“With Perim, they have gained what we could call the cork in the Red Sea bottle,” Morgan Murphy, a former Pentagon press secretary and Navy Reserve captain, told Fox News Digital.

“But they’ve put themselves into a kill box. They’re nowhere near the capability of the United States and if the president so chooses, he can wipe them off the face of that rock pretty easily,” Murphy warned.

And the Saudi Air Force could have gotten the job done over the weekend, but has been largely MIA against a force choking off Saudi energy exports.

Very curious.