The breaking news that Ansar Allah (Houthi) fighters have fired on the USS Carney in the Red Sea today (Friday, 26 Jan.) underscores the shocking failure of the Biden Administration, which initiated airstrikes on the Houthis this month with no plan for “victory” beyond hoping that the mere presence of US warships would intimidate them into surrendering.
Even a junior Pentagon or State Department analyst could have advised the Administration that, based on everything we understand about the Houthis and their successful defeat of Saudi Arabia (and, by proxy, DC), lobbing a few missiles in their general direction was not going to result in an ocean of white flags raising over Aden.
In other words, it was the kind of doomed operation that, had cooler (i.e. non-political) Pentagon heads prevailed, would never in a million years have been launched. There was simply no possibility of success and 100 percent probability of failure.
How did it all start? In response to the ongoing Israeli attack on Gaza (codified as “potential genocide” in today’s International Court for Justice ruling), Ansar Allah announced last month that they would not allow international shipping to service any commerce to or from Israeli ports. They judged the killing of more than 25,000 Palestinian civilians to be a “genocide” and cited obligations under international law to take steps to end the killing.
Whatever one’s view on the legality of the Houthi decision to interdict Israeli shipping in the Red Sea, the fact is by virtue of their unique geography they have the ability to do so. It is also a fact that the Houthis did NOT explicitly target US or US-flagged shipping unless it was headed to or from Israeli ports.
In short, it was not our fight. Until Biden made it our fight.
On January 11th, Biden announced that he was ordering the US military to launch airstrikes against Yemen, but very soon it became clear that far from being intimidated into surrender, Biden’s move was just what the Houthis wanted: a David’s slingshot chance at Goliath.
As it turns out, the Bidens were a Goliath intent on sacrificing the US standing in the world, military deterrence, US economy, and even US servicemembers in its blind support of Israel.
And, as any of these junior analysts (or seasoned analysts) could have predicted, the hits just keep coming for Biden.
Yesterday, the US Navy attempted to escort two Maersk tankers – the Maersk Detroit and the Maersk Chesapeake – through the Red Sea loaded with weapons for Israel. This after nine rounds of US airstrikes on the Houthis. The US show of force backfired into an unprecedented and “Black Hawk Down” kind of moment where after several missiles were launched the Maersk lines reversed course followed by the US Naval warships. It was a massive defeat for the notion of US military superiority – but don’t hold your breath for it to be reported in the mainstream media.
So today the Houthis again fired on US military ships in the Red Sea and have again scored a massive success for “the resistance,” which is a truly global movement against the albatross that the Biden Administration has taken on its shoulder.
Here is the main point: an ill-advised US policy of airstrikes against the Houthis has been an enormous gift to them while in no way diminishing their ability to fulfil their mission. What will you do next, Joe Biden? They are immune to your bombs. They have no military-industrial-complex. They just shoot your ships. Are you going to launch a ground invasion? In an election year? Dead Americans in Yemen for Israel? Really?
Even the most comatose US Members and Senators are starting to wake up to the fact that Joe Biden – who seems unable to even speak English – is taking the country to war without any authorization.
Attacks against Biden’s forces in Iraq, Syria, the Red Sea, the Mediterranean will escalate. And he is backed into a corner. What’s next?
