Biden WH Says We're Going to War with the Houthis - Timeline Unknown
The Biden administration is drawing up a military option to use against Houthi terrorists in Yemen, and the timetable is unknown. The campaign won’t last years, but officials admit that they have no clue how long it will take to degrade the capabilities of the terror group sufficiently.
Houthi rebels have been harassing international shipping, leading to a mainly Anglo-American-led super fleet to curb their maritime influence in the region. We’ve already launched massive airstrikes against Houthi strongholds, which has incensed liberal Democrats on the Hill, some all but saying the action Joe Biden took was an illegal war action. It’s not. Biden can do this, but we’re again seeing the broader Middle East region simmering on the brink of total mayhem (via WaPo):
The Biden administration is crafting plans for a sustained military campaign targeting the Houthis in Yemen after 10 days of strikes failed to halt the group’s attacks on maritime commerce, stoking concern among some officials that an open-ended operation could derail the war-ravaged country’s fragile peace and pull Washington into another unpredictable Middle Eastern conflict.
The White House convened senior officials on Wednesday to discuss options for the way ahead in the administration’s evolving response to the Iranian-backed movement, which has vowed to continue attacking ships off the Arabian peninsula despite near-daily operations to destroy Houthi radars, missiles and drones. On Saturday, U.S. Central Command announced its latest strike, on an anti-ship missile that was prepared for launch.
The deepening cycle of violence is a setback to President Biden’s goal of stemming spillover hostilities triggered by Israel’s war against Hamas in the Gaza Strip. Underscoring the threat, Iran on Saturday blamed Israel for a strike on the Syrian capital, Damascus, that killed five Iranian military advisers. The Israeli military declined to comment. In Iraq, an attack on Ain al-Asad air base, which hosts Iraqi and U.S. troops, left one Iraqi soldier seriously injured, according to a Defense Department official. An Iran-linked faction there said it was responsible.
The Houthis, one powerful faction in Yemen’s long-running civil war, have framed their campaign, which has included more than 30 missile and drone attacks on commercial and naval vessels since November, as a means of pressuring Israel, bolstering their standing amid widespread regional opposition to the Jewish state. The quickly expanding U.S. response likewise risks pulling Biden into another volatile campaign in a region that has repeatedly mired down the American military, potentially undermining his attempt to refocus U.S. foreign policy on Russia and China.
This group has ballistic missiles—it’s unbelievable. And these situations accentuate the egregiousness surrounding Secretary of Defense Austin Lloyd’s secret hospital visit earlier this month. Lloyd was in the ICU for days, suffering from complications from a surgery stemming from his prostate cancer diagnosis. The man was hospitalized on January 1, and no one from the Biden White House knew for days. Besides Houthis in Yemen, the Pentagon is reportedly scrambling to draft other contingency plans, as talks with Iran, who’s been behind the chaos in the region, have failed.
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