While the world has been somewhat distracted by events in Lebanon and Gaza, the Houthis rebels in Yemen have been continuing their Iranian-backed attacks on world shipping in the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden.
By way of background, the Houthi movement is a Shia Islamist and military organisation that emerged in Yemen in the 1990s. They established themselves as an opposition movement to the recognised government of Yemen, which they accused of corruption and of being in the pocket of Saudi Arabia and the USA.
In 2003, influenced by their cousins in Hezbollah, they set out their stall against the US, Israel, and the Jews. Following the October 2023 terrorist attack by Hamas against Israel, the Houthis — presumably to show their solidarity with “the Palestinian cause” — starting firing missiles at Israel and against ships off Yemen’s coast in the Red Sea in October 2023.
Since then the Houthis have launched attacks on numerous occasions against naval and merchant shipping in the Red Sea, sinking at least two civilan vessels and damaging others. More than 60 have been targeted, and not all have any links with Israel. In short, the Houthis are out of control.
A number of countries have responded militarily to these attacks. At the beginning of the year the UN Security Council adopted Resolution 2722, condemning their attacks and affirming freedom of navigation. The US-led Operation Prosperity Guardian was then launched to protect Red Sea shipping.
Since then the US and UK have led coalition air and missile strikes against the Houthis while other countries have patrolled the waters near Yemen, occasionally attacking Houthi vessels in the Red Sea.
Undaunted, in May this year, Houthi Brigadier General Yahya Saree said: “We will target any ships heading to Israeli ports in the Mediterranean Sea in any area we are able to reach.”
This clearly now has to be stopped. The Houthis pose a strategic threat with global implications for the USA and its allies. And yet, to date, they have failed to prevent Iran from strengthening the Houthis’ military capabilities since 2015. The rebels have developed from a small militia in Yemen’s northern mountains into a major strategic threat with ties to multiple US adversaries.
The US seems to have sought to avoid escalation by taking a series of reactive half-measures that have failed to accomplish decisive effects or materially degrade Houthi military capabilities. This has allowed the terrorists to familiarise themselves with the US modus operandi and adapt to defend themselves against it.
Apart from anything else, the Red Sea debacle is a major distraction for the US and continues to deflect US efforts to shift its military focus to the Indo-Pacific, which they have been trying to do for some time now.
According to the Washington DC based Institute for the Study of War (ISW), current US policy toward the Houthis over this period has shown that managing escalation looks like a an unsustainable policy. The
Houthis have repeatedly escalated their actions and have faced only a limited US response that has done nothing to alleviate the situation.
To quote from a recent ISW report: “The Houthis first fired drones and missiles at Israel in October 2023, then expanded attacks to target global shipping. The group, recognizing that any US response would be limited and would pose no threat to their control in large areas of Yemen, has since fired drones and missiles at Israeli cities … the lesson that the Houthis are learning in this war is that they can fire missiles and drones at US warships, global shipping, and US partners and suffer only limited and inadequate consequences.”
It further suggests that the US must learn that “managing escalation” actually encourages escalation and protracts conflicts—a particularly serious problem when America must be able to focus on other critical theatres.
The ISW also notes that Russia has reportedly recruited hundreds of Yemeni nationals to fight in the Russian military amid growing cooperation between Russia, Iran, and the Iran-backed Houthi movement. The Axis of Resistance clearly has its tentacles everywhere.
So, with Hezbollah in Lebanon and Hamas in Gaza both critically damaged and their leadership emasculated thanks to Israeli action, the US may be able to try to sort out the Houthis for once and for all. We may see an upsurge in the military response to Houthi attacks on shipping and further air strikes on their missile launch sites and other facilities.
Plus, as I have said too many times before, the root cause of most of the conflict in the Middle East is Iran. America will have to deal with this in due course. Might Trump take it on when he enters the White House in January?
Lt Col Stuart Crawford is a political and defence commentator and former Army officer. Sign up for his podcasts and newsletters at www.DefenceReview.uk
