In response to Israel’s assault on the people of Gaza in early October, Yemen’s Houthi movement, Ansar Allah, began mounting attacks on commercial ships in and around the Red Sea. The Houthis said the attacks were aimed at Israeli-connected or Israel-bound ships and they would continue until there is a ceasefire in Gaza. Meanwhile, the pressure on this vital trade route is impacting the global economy as ships are being redirected to more expensive routes.
On January 11, South Africa presented its case documenting Israel’s genocide in Gaza to the International Court of Justice. The following day, the U.S. and U.K. attacked 28 sites in Yemen. Tomahawk cruise missiles launched from a ballistic missile submarine killed five Yemenis and injured six. Four days later, the U.S. fired another cruise missile into Yemen.
The U.S. and Britain conducted large-scale airstrikes against about 12 sites in Yemen on January 22. These strikes were the eighth in almost two weeks and “signaled that the Biden administration intends to wage a sustained and, at least for now, open-ended campaign against the Iran-backed group that has disrupted traffic in vital international sea lanes,” according to The New York Times.
The U.S.-U.K. bombing campaign in Yemen, with logistical support from Australia, Canada, Bahrain and the Netherlands, is fanning the flames of a developing conflagration in a region already enraged by Israel’s genocide. “Israel’s unrelenting assault on the Gaza Strip is beginning to tip the Middle East into a wider regional conflict,” Murtaza Hussain wrote at The Intercept.
On October 8, the day after the Hamas-led attack on Israel, the United States sent an aircraft carrier to the region, closely followed by two destroyers and an armada of warships from 10 countries.
“With its decision to attack, the Biden administration appears to have opened itself up to a geopolitical checkmate by the Houthis,” Hussain noted. “Escalating the strikes against the rebels will likely bring more shipping disruptions — potentially counterproductive to mitigating economic consequences — and risk a full-blown regional war.”
The United States claimed it launched attacks on Yemen to “degrade Houthi rebels’ ability.” But “years of far more intensive U.S.-backed Saudi bombing have failed to destroy Houthi military capacity, and this campaign will similarly fail to achieve the stated objectives,” Phyllis Bennis wrote at In These Times. “It is not surprising that none of Washington’s current military actions are working to curtail the attacks in the Red Sea. Rather, they are dangerously worsening the already tense situation.”
When a reporter asked Biden outside the White House if the U.S.-U.K. airstrikes in Yemen had been “working,” he replied, “Well, when you say ‘working,’ are they stopping the Houthis? No. Are they going to continue? Yes.”
Moreover, the U.S.-U.K. bombing of Yemen violates both the United Nations Charter and U.S. War Powers Resolution.
Since 2014, Yemen and the Houthis have been engaged in a civil war, which was exacerbated in 2015 by the intervention of Saudi Arabia with weapons and military support from the United States. The Saudis mounted indiscriminate airstrikes,........