The world’s nightmare – escalation of the Middle East crisis – is moving rapidly towards reality.
Pushing the region to the edge are Israel’s Likud government and Yemen’s Iranian-backed Houthis.
As of this Friday the death toll in Gaza – according to UN figures – was 23,357. Another 59,410 have been wounded. Benjamin Netanyahu refuses to discuss a ceasefire.
Britain and America publicly back him because they are afraid of losing what little leverage they have. Privately they want a ceasefire; Netanyahu out and talks for a two-state solution.
Meanwhile, 16 missile and drone launch sites have been attacked by British and American ships and planes. They are backed up by an alliance of 42 partner nations dubbed “Operation Prosperity Guardian.”
The Anglo-American attacks were in response to Houthi attacks on shipping in the Red Sea– one of the world’s arterial waterways. The Houthi’s say their attacks were in support of demands for a ceasefire in Gaza. Both sides have warned of more to come.
The Houthis are one of three Iranian proxies/allies in the region. Like the other two—Hezbollah and Hamas—they are armed to the teeth non-state actors. This means that their best means of influence is through armed disruption.
They started their latest offensive with missile and drone attacks on targets inside Israel less than a week after the Hamas terrorist attack on 7 October. The attacks failed. Israel’s air defences are too good.
So, the Houthis turned their attention to Red Sea shipping. They would hit Israel and its Western backers where it really hurt—in their pocketbooks.
Since November, the Houthis have carried out 27 attacks on Red Sea shipping. Some 12 per cent of the world’s trade – including giant oil tankers and container ships – passes under the gaze of Houthi guns through the Red and Arabian Sea. Nearly a quarter of them have been diverted around the Cape of Good Hope. This significantly increasing costs at a time when Europe, America and Japan are still reeling from the economic effects of the Ukraine War, the covid pandemic and the 2008-2009 banking crisis.
The Houthi attacks have been condemned by the UN Security Council. China and Russia refused to use their veto to block the anti-Houthi resolution, although they did abstain.
Conspicuous by their absence from Operation Prosperity Guardian are key Arab states. Tiny Bahrain is present but Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Egypt, Jordan, Iraq and the United Arab Emirates remain aloof. Their governments privately—and quietly—support the Anglo-American attacks, but publicly are saying little or nothing.
This is because public opinion in the Arab world is solidly behind the Houthis. They are seen as the current number one champions of the Palestinian cause. In the eyes of many in the Arab world, an attack on the Houthis, is an attack on the oppressed Palestinians.
Arab public opinion is not the only problem facing the Western alliance. There is also the little issue of money. Defense budgets worldwide are stretched and the British and major EU economies are flat lining. To fire one missile from a ship or jet costs $1.5 million per pop.
In contrast, the average cost of an Iranian-made Houthi drone is $16,000. A single drone is easily identified and knocked out, but the Houthis have developed swarm tactics of about ten drones per attack. This pushes the cost up to $160,000 but that is still a tenth of the cost to the US and Royal navies and the Iranians seem prepared to provide an inexhaustible supply.
Houthis also have the advantage of firing from land bases. This enables them to move and camouflage their attack platforms and storage facilities all around Yemen’s mountainous countryside. It is a strategy that they have employed successful in the civil war of the past eight years.
But what will the Iranians do? So far they have heeded President Biden’s warning to stay out of the conflict. But they are supplying the Houthis and have parked a surveillance ship at the entrance to the Red Sea to provide intelligence on ship movements.
After Friday’s Anglo-American attacks on Yemen, an Iranian spokesman said they would fuel “insecurity and instability” in the region. But the Mullahs remained sitting on their hands.
* Tom Arms is foreign editor of Liberal Democrat Voice and author of “The Encyclopaedia of the Cold War” and “America Made in Britain".
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12 Comments
Might the “Mini-West” attacks also be part of election campaigns?
Tom, The UK has no leverage in Israel, any we may have had disappeared decades ago.
The Lib Dems need to stop pretending we believe such sentimental guff (which simply provides gives Rishi Sunak half an excuse) and have a clear principled position – “We are supportive of our Israeli friends, but its leadership is taking it into a very dark place and needs to change direction now.”
Might the following quotation show that the unstated/submerged/real purpose of the Israeli government is ethnic cleansing/land grabbing and not just self defence?
//www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/israel-in-talks-with-congo-and-other-countries-on-gaza-voluntary-migration-plan/ar-AA1moQA2
The behaviour of the US, and by extension our government, appears to make little sense. So I’m missing something I suppose. No-one benefits more from a “rules based international order” than the USA, but their support of Israel makes their espousal of an RBIO look as hypocritical as Boris Johnson demanding social distancing during Covid. Biden wants to be re-elected, of course, but by not calling for a ceasefire is alienating a large part of the younger voters that formed part of his 2020 voter coalition, so we’re likely to end up with Trump. The quickest way to reduce the Houthi motivation to attack shipping, again, would be to push Israel into a ceasefire. Bombing is unlikely to work – they have been bombed for years by the Saudis and they’re still there. Sunak and Starmer are just being US poodles. no way the UK would start a regional Middle East war off their own bat. The Houthis are quite pleased to be fighting the US who they regard as devils along with Israel – if you don’t want a Middle East war, you don’t go round stirring up wasp nests. So it makes no sense, on the face of it.
And if there’s ever going tobe a “2 state solution” it has to start with negotiations, almost certainly with Hamas, a ceasefire, and probably the ousting of Netanyahu. Again, any progress depends on a ceasefire.
Jenny, I appreciate your points, but your comment “the quickest way to reduce the Houthi motivation to attack shipping, again, would be to push Israel into a ceasefire” set me thinking. The tough question has to be ‘How long do you think your quickest way would take (say to the nearest year or possibly decade)?’
However, that’s an easy one compared to the follow up – Bearing in mind your comment ‘The Houthis are quite pleased to be fighting the US who they regard as devils along with Israel,’ how long do you think it would last? Once they had seen that tactic work once, do you think they would would really stop fighting the US by attacking cargo vessels in the shipping lanes?
Come on. Let’s be blunt about it. Sunak (with Starmer’s connivance) is bombing Yemen because he thinks that wars get votes. He hopes it will have a Falkland’s effect on his support. Attacking the Houthis will make a wider war almost certain and some idiot will think that using nukes is the solution.
As Molesworth once said ‘any fule kno’ that the last refuge of desperate politicians is jingoism.
Jenny Barnes is absolutely correct. A ceasefire and talks with Hamas, plus ousting Netanyahu (to face the courts and get his comeuppance) are the minimum we need. Those people who keep saying it’s difficult or impossible don’t want a solution.
Stopping wars requires a ceasefire. Why is it so difficult for Sunak, Starmer and Biden not to accept that and impress it on Israel?
I’m sure persuading Israel to ceasefire would be difficult. What I find puzzling is that the USA/ Biden are making no attempt to do so, and setting fire to a regional war that will surely not end well.
The weasel word here is “ceasefire”. What does it really mean? Does it mean “Israel to stop all miitary activity, while Hamas continue to run Gaza?” Even if Hamas were also to agree to stop firing rockets and release all their hostages, could Israel reasonably be expected to accept such a deal? Furthermore, turning to the Palestinian perspective, if Hamas did release all their hostages, what would then prevent Israel from reneging on the deal and restarting the bombing?
David Cameron uses an even more weaselly variant, “sustainable ceasefire”. That appears to mean “If Hamas can be obliterated, then the UK will then be ready to ask Israel to stop firing.” That’s not a genuine plan for a ceasefire.
Calling for a ceasefire isn’t really helpful unless there is also some sort of game plan which offers the prospect of a genuine peace settlement.
The first step always has to be an agreement to talks. Preconditions, such as demanding Netanyahu’s removal and/or a two-state solution, will merely provide Israel with excuses to avoid talks. Simply getting Israel to talk to Hamas will be quite hard enough. That is when the US / UK could say “talk to Hamas, or you will lose our support”.
We are starting a big war with no end:
Sa’dah in the north is 500km to Taizz in the south via Sana’a between, all 200km inland from the coast and Al Hudaydah also bombed on the coast
This is the same as Durham in the north to Brighton in the south with more than the distance to the coast than that between London and Bristol.
Later we heard air strikes by US and UK forces on Houthi targets in Yemen hit nearly 30 targets, using more than 150 munitions, the Pentagon says.
Having witnessed the Somali pirates attacking shipping in the Arabian Sea, I was impressed with the navy personnel being on board each ship, with ships moving in convoys.
France is not involved in the attack on Yemen; their navy supports convoys up the Red Sea along the Djibouti coast 30km from Dhubab in Yemen at the pinch point.
Let’s concentrate on getting rid of Netanyahu and getting a ceasefire in Gaza.
Jenny Barnes talks sense.
It’s not surprising that Arab state public opinion is ‘solidly behind the Houthis’, given the Houthis say (cynically or otherwise) that what they are doing is in support of Palestinians. With 23,000 civilian dead in Gaza, that is 1% of the population killed in 3 months. At that rate, there would have been over 3 million killed in Ukraine by now. When people see the west not only not stopping Netanyahu, but actively supporting him, it’s hardly surprising that they see our foreign policies as based on national self-interest rather than principle. What, they may legitimately ask, would Netanyahu have to do for us to withdraw such support?
“The most complete revenge is not to imitate the aggressor” – Marcus Aurelius