Shay Khatiri
Three consecutive U.S. administrations have failed to resolve the problem of Iranian-backed Houthi militia in Yemen—a failure demonstrated by the Iran-made drone that killed an Israeli in Tel Aviv this month, striking near the U.S. Consulate. The main cause of this American failure has been a lack of will, arising from fear that Iran would unleash its proxies on the U.S. It’s time to cut supply lines to the Houthis by imitating the Reagan administration, which sank roughly half of Iran’s navy in 1988, ending Iran’s assaults on oil tankers and convincing it to end the war with Iraq.
The U.S. has tried several strategies to defeat the Houthis. In 2015, Washington began to provide support for a Saudi-Emirati campaign against the militia. After six years, the campaign had made little progress and was a humanitarian catastrophe, leading the Biden administration to end support for the Arab partners in 2021. The recent drone attack shows the failure of the campaign to reopen the Red Sea and America’s broader Yemen policy.
The U.S. and its partners haven’t been able to degrade Houthi assets faster than Iran supplies them. The halting of the Saudi-Emirati assault, combined with the de facto lifting of U.S. sanctions on Iran, allowed the Houthis to grow stronger between 2021 and 2024. Following Hamas’s attack on Israel in October, the Houthis rushed to assist the Palestinians. They began by targeting the Israeli homeland and contributing to Iran’s missile and drone barrage against Israel in April. No missile launched from Yemen landed in Israel, thanks to Israeli air defense and assistance from American, European and Arab governments. But another Houthi strategy has been more successful: targeting commercial shipping through the Red Sea.
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