Biden's Dangerous Yemen Blunder Is Already Backfiring

Washington is not going to get what it wants with more threats and airstrikes, but those seem to be the only tools that this administration knows how to use.

The immediate consequences of U.S./U.K. military action in Yemen shouldn’t surprise anyone. Just as opponents of the strikes said, attacking the Houthis has made the threat to commercial shipping worse:

The US and UK’s decision to hit back at Houthi militants after weeks of attacks on merchant shipping in the Red Sea has only escalated the chaos across the shipping industry, underscoring the threat of an enduring supply-chain crisis as vessels navigate the crucial trade route.

Not only has escalating against the Houthis failed to stop the attacks on shipping as predicted, but the Houthis have been having more success in hitting their targets in the last week than they had before the U.S. and Britain attacked them. The Houthis have not yet started targeting U.S. bases and personnel elsewhere in the region, but it may just be a matter of time before they do. The U.S. chose to escalate a nuisance into a fight. Washington is not going to get what it wants with more threats and airstrikes, but those seem to be the only tools that this administration knows how to use.

The Houthis have thrived on conflict and have few incentives to back down. Confronting the U.S. raises their profile and increases their popularity. U.S. and British strikes can weaken Houthi capabilities, but they cannot end the threat to shipping. That threat will remain as long as the war in Gaza continues. The U.S. and British governments can pretend that there is no connection between the two things all they like, but it will get them no closer to solving the problem.

The administration’s other recent reckless and destructive move—re-designating the Houthis as specially designated global terrorists—isn’t going to help matters. The AP reported yesterday on how the designation is likely to play into the Houthis’ hands politically:

Hisham Al-Omeisy, a Yemeni analyst living in the Washington, area, said the U.S. designation plays into the Houthis’ narrative to the world that they are standing up to a superpower to champion Muslims everywhere.

At home, the designation helps the Houthis’ message to Yemenis that the U.S. is the cause of their suffering, Al-Omeisy said.

The typical knee-jerk U.S. responses to international problems are using force and imposing sanctions, and as usual neither one is going to work or make the situation any better. The one thing that might actually work, namely reining in the Israeli government and pressuring them to halt the war in Gaza, is the one thing that no one in the administration and almost no one in Congress can even imagine trying. So we will see many more “rounds” of pointless strikes and more Houthi attacks while the U.S. continues to support and to fuel the ongoing horror in Gaza.

Congress could assert itself and insist that unauthorized U.S. military action in Yemen cease. That is what Congress should do. Ideally, they would cut off all relevant funding so that Biden would have to stop. Unfortunately, we all know from many years of illegal warfare in Iraq and Syria and the unauthorized involvement in the Saudi coalition war on Yemen that Congress usually can’t be bothered to take an interest in the wars that presidents start or join.

It is little wonder that the U.S. has been continuously waging war somewhere in the world for decades. Presidents get the U.S. into unnecessary wars with depressing regularity because there is no real check on their power, and most people in Washington don’t see anything wrong with that. The presidents that wage these illegal wars are never held accountable for abusing their power, and they are more likely to be praised for their “leadership.”

Biden’s new war in Yemen seems certain to fail on its own terms. It is also an unnecessary fight because there are other alternatives that have a more realistic chance of ending the threat to commercial shipping. The administration failed to explore those alternatives before resorting to force, and now they have locked themselves into an absurd conflict with a group that welcomes the fight. The people of Yemen will be the biggest losers from this stupidity, and the U.S. certainly won’t benefit from it.