Seth Mandel | Commentary | Dec 26, 2024
The fundamental problem with the Western way of war strategy in the 21st century is on display in Yemen.
The Houthis, an Iranian proxy militia, are everyone’s problem. In their current siege of the Red Sea shipping route and the waterways around Yemen, they have killed innocent crew members, sank ships, targeted U.S. Navy vessels with missile attacks, held global trade hostage, and expanded regional war.
They are also, by the way, deliberately starving the Yemeni civilian population—an act that is facilitated by the above-noted warmongering. “Being in constant conflict is actually strengthening their domestic cohesion,” Wolf-Christian Paes, senior fellow at the International Institute for Strategic Studies, told the Times of Israel. “Because people are not asking so much about service delivery and the economy and all of that when you’re in war.”
So that’s what we know: The Houthis are a terrorist arm of Iran that bombs civilians as well as Western military vessels so they can continue starving innocent Yemenite citizens to death on a massive scale.
And so it would be nice to be able to write that today’s strikes on Houthi-controlled assets by Israeli jets are part of a broad Western coalition with enthusiastic UN backing. But I can’t write that, because it’s literally just Israel.
What’s different about today’s Israeli strikes is that they might actually change the situation on the ground. The IDF hit the airport in Sanaa for the first time, two power stations, and parts of ports along Yemen’s Western coast that Israel says are being used by the Houthis. The goal of targeting the airport is to halt (or slow down, or significantly reduce) the importation of Iranian weaponry by the Houthis. Since nothing shy of complete destruction will deter the Houthis from firing the weapons they have, Israel has decided to choke off their supply. The Houthis will apparently never choose not to fire on innocents, but they cannot fire what they do not have.
Israel’s retaliatory strikes have increased because Houthi attacks on Israel have increased. The Houthis are the only Iranian proxy currently able to stand on two feet: Israel’s retaliatory actions against Hamas and Hezbollah have flattened them. (Picking a fight with Israel has been a losing proposition, and the Houthis are unlikely to buck the trend.) Ballistic missiles from Yemen have been fired at densely populated residential areas in Tel Aviv several times over the past week or so.
One problem for both the West and the Houthis is that the terror group depends on Iran for military supplies but not necessarily funding, which means it often makes its own decisions. As the Times of Israel notes, “Unlike many proxies, they don’t rely on Iran for money, instead raising funds from taxes and smuggling networks. The Houthis also practice a different strain of Shiite Islam from Iran, and make decisions independently of Iran and its Revolutionary Guards. For example, Iran reportedly urged the Houthis not to take the capital of Sana’a in 2014, advice the group promptly ignored.”
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