Published in the Jerusalem Post, 4 March 2024
As a result, recently their standing among the hard-pressed Yemenis had been on the slide, and they had been competing for popular support against the IRG and the other main protagonist in the contest for supremacy in Yemen – the so-called Southern Transitional Council (STC). Aidarus al-Zoubaidi, who founded the STC and is its president, has set his sights on establishing an independent state of South Yemen.
Hamas’s incursion into
Israel on October 7, and the subsequent massacre, provided the Houthis with a
totally unexpected political advantage.
As the news of the attack
broke, the Houthis – needing little prompting from their Iranian paymasters – virtually
declared war on Israel in support. It
was no doubt at Iran’s behest that the Houthis went on to plan a series of
assaults on Israel. Not all went according to plan. Three cruise missiles fired
from Yemen on October 19 were intercepted by the US navy. A drone attack launched on October 28
apparently went off-course and resulted in explosions inside Egypt.
Since then, claiming
they are acting to force the international community to halt Israel’s offensive
in Gaza, the Houthis have begun a campaign of missile and armed drone
attacks on commercial ships transiting the Red Sea. The maritime security coalition of more than
20 nations, Operation Prosperity Guardian, set up by the US in December has
done nothing to deter them, nor has the deployment of EU and even Chinese
maritime forces off the coast of Yemen.
In mid-January,
following more than 20 Houthi attacks on commercial ships, the US and the UK led
a 14-nation campaign to “degrade and deter” the Houthi attacks by striking
Houthi missile and drone launch and storage facilities, extending this to
associated targets such as radar and air defense installations. When this too proved
ineffective, in late January they began attacking Houthi weaponry being prepared
for launch against commercial shipping. By early February, US-led strikes had
destroyed more than 100 missiles and launches, including anti-ship missiles,
drones, radars, unmanned waterborne drones, and other equipment.
Whatever the effect of this on the Houthis’ total military capacity, there has been no appreciable reduction in their bellicose operations. They have, if anything, stepped up their aggressive activity. On February 18 they conducted their first strike against the crew of a commercial ship, forcing them to abandon it. Struck by a missile, the Belize-flagged, UK-registered vessel M/K Rubymar, slowly sank in the Red Sea on March 3.
The Houthi attacks,
threatening freedom of navigation and global commerce, have led many shipping lines to take the longer
Europe-Far East route round South Africa, avoiding the Red Sea and the Suez
Canal. Rerouting traffic around Africa’s
Cape of Good Hope can add anything from 12 to 20 days to the journey.
In the first half of February, according to the UN, the Suez Canal experienced a 42% drop in monthly transits and an 82% decrease in container tonnage compared to its peak in 2023. Meanwhile commercial vessels have been rerouting to the Cape of Good Hope for nearly two months, leading to a near doubling of vessel transits in the region and a 75% increase in trade volume.
This failure of the
world’s leading military powers to deter the Houthis still lacks a convincing
explanation. There is not even evidence
that the Houthis have been resupplied by Iran, followed the degradation in
their military hardware from Western action.
The US-led maritime coalition has intercepted numerous shipments from
Iran, but whether additional deliveries to the Houthis are slipping through
remains unknown. The Houthis’ original
stockpile of weaponry may have been far higher than originally estimated.
How should the West
proceed? One approach under
consideration is to concentrate on reviving the peace talks between the warring
parties in Yemen, pushing for a political settlement which would include an end
to Houthi attacks on shipping in the Red Sea. Another is to escalate the
attacks on the whole Houthi military machine and defeat them by overwhelming
force. How Iran might act in such a
scenario is the great unknown.
The respected US think
tank and research body, the Soufan Center, believes that as of the end of
February, calls in Washington for a significant escalation directly against
Houthi forces in Yemen have been gaining momentum. Prominent experts and some
former US officials, it says, “are calling for US support for ground combat
operations against the Houthis as the only means of forcing the movement to
alter its policies.”
The argument runs that
the US and its allies will have to threaten something more valuable to the
Houthis than the prestige they derive from attacking commercial shipping. The
only thing that reaches that threshold is Houthi control of Yemeni territory. So consideration is being given to massively
boosting the anti-Houthi forces engaged in the civil war. It is appreciated that supporting a direct
attack on Houthi-held territory would entail a great many risks. Of greater significance is that it would add
to the misery of the Yemeni population, already the victims of a massive
humanitarian catastrophe.
Yet despite the negative
consequences, the Soufan Center believes that the perceived threat the Houthis
now pose to US and Western vital interests virtually guarantees that calls for
an alternative to the current approach will continue to gather strength.
There is a chink of
hope. When the Israel-Hamas conflict in
Gaza comes to an end, as it must eventually do, the Houthis might seize the
opportunity to withdraw from holding the world to ransom.
https://www.jpost.com/opinion/article-790035
No comments:
Post a Comment