It's Time to End Biden's Yemen War

The U.S. should admit failure and stop wasting its time and energy on an unnecessary war.

Hal Brands is annoyed that the U.S. isn’t making its illegal, pointless war in Yemen even more destructive:

The core issue is that Washington has hesitated to take stronger measures — such as sinking the Iranian intelligence ship that supports the Houthis, or targeting the infrastructure that sustains their rule within Yemen — for fear of inflaming a tense regional situation.

That approach has limited the near-term risk of escalation, but allowed Tehran and the Houthis to keep the showdown simmering at their preferred temperature. It also reflects the underlying fatigue of a US military that lacks enough cruise missiles, laser-guided bombs, strike aircraft and warships to prosecute the campaign more aggressively without compromising its readiness for conflicts elsewhere.

The real problem with this war is that the U.S. and its allies have been trying to compel the Houthis through a bombing campaign that could not realistically succeed. The U.S. chose to escalate the conflict in January without having any idea of how it would achieve its stated goals. Now it is stuck with an ongoing conflict that it isn’t winning but that it refuses to end out of pride and stubbornness. Further escalation would destabilize the region more and expose more U.S. forces to attack, but it would not solve the main problem that the war has never been worth fighting.