Final Winner of Red Sea Face-off: Washington, Sana’a, or Tel Aviv?

The attacks started from early morning of Friday and continued to Saturday, during which, the officials of two countries said, tens of sites in Yemen were hit. 

The attacks, which came under the ruse of protecting freedom and security of navigation in the Red Sea but actually were carried out in support of the Israeli economic security and an effort to remove the economic and military pressures on Tel Aviv in the Red Sea, drew strong reaction from Yemeni Ansarullah Movement’s officials and warnings about retaliatory attacks, raising some questions: Will we witness military confrontation in the forthcoming weeks and perhaps months? Has the US-Britain coalition met its goals behind the strikes? Will attacks on Yemen engage other regional and international actors in the crisis? How far will the war expansion go? What will be the short-term and long-term consequences of Gaza war? 

American military and political obstacles and Ansarullah’s resistance 

In their statements, American officials stress the use of military operations to weaken Ansarullah’s naval operations in order to protect the freedom of international shipping in the Red Sea. 

Despite the fact that a few people do not know that the American administration undertakes support to the Israeli massacring campaign in Gaza and support to the freedom of navigation is an utter cover to protect the Israeli foreign trade against Yemeni attacks that are conducted in solidarity of Gaza, senior American officials claim they do not want to escalate war behind these missile and airstrikes. 

John Kirby, the spokesman to the White House, told MSNBC that the airstrikes have sought to target the Ansarullah’s ability to stockpile, launch and guide missiles and drones, stressing that bombing Yemen is not escalating the war. 

“We are not interested in.... a war with Yemen,” he told the broadcaster, “adding that the US does not seek a conflict with Iran and “there is no reason to escalate it beyond what happened in the last few days.” 

The US is in the presidential election year and in the middle of major internal challenges for the Democrats to face off Trump, especially given Joe Biden’s questionable physical condition, one of the many problems of the White House is in the foreign policy which will certainly undergo criticism of the public opinion, Republicans, and even Biden’s fellow party members. 

In the foreign policy, after scandalous exit from Afghanistan and the failure to check Russian field victories in Ukraine war, Biden’s Middle East policy can rise as an Achilles heel for the president given the Arab leaning to Russia and China as the international rivals of the US and Gaza war and its security and economic blowbacks for Washington. Actually, Biden administration can be accused of failing to protect American bases in West Asia, failing to contain rallying oil prices, and embroiling Washington in an unjustified war in Yemen. 

That is why the White House officials insist they do not seek an escalation or long-term operations in Yemen and with Axis of Resistance— a regional bloc led by Iran and comprised of Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Yemen, and Palestine. 

However, the standing of Ansarullah shows no signs of compromise to the Americans and the movement has announced its readiness to defend itself and continue military operations in Gaza support. 

In a televised speech following the American-British attacks, Ansarullah leader Sayyed Abdul Malik al-Houthi said that while the movement ramps up its attacks on the Israeli commercial ships in retaliation to crimes in Gaza, it will not allow the American strikes on Yemen go unanswered. 

He vowed responses to any American attacks and threatened that the response would go beyond the latest attack on the US navy ship that was launched with 20 drones and a number of missiles. 

“We are determined to strike ships affiliated with the Zionist entity and will not walk back,” he said. 

For its part, Yemen’s Sana’a-based Supreme Political Council said that all American and British interests are now legitimate targets for Sana’a. Hussein al-Izzi, the deputy foreign minister of National Salvation Government (NSG) warned Washington and London of a “high price.”

Earlier on Friday, Director of US Joint Staffs General Douglas Sims said the Houthis fired an anti-ship ballistic missile in retaliation for Thursday night’s attacks. 

Fabian Hinz, a research fellow at the International Institute for Strategic Studies, rejected the claim that Ansarullah’s drone and missile capabilities had been undermined after the US and British air operations, saying that the scale of the US attacks was not symbolic but if we look at the drones and missiles used against the Israeli ships, we can witness them as dynamic and movable and the Yemenis are experts in concealing. 

This shows that the attacks on Yemen were fruitless and in the short run the promise of Hezbollah leaders to continue maritime pressure on the Israeli regime and retaliatory actions against the US and Britain is realizable. 

Ansarullah and the Yemeni army, with 9 years of resistance against the all-out aggression of the Saudi-led Arab coalition in the midst of a complete economic blockade, in addition to winning the war against the aggressors have greatly improved their military capabilities in such a way that attacks on commercial ships of Israel and the launch of rockets at the Israeli ports have caught international observers by surprise. Therefore, it does not seem that the short-term operation of a few days or a few weeks will check the military actions of Sana’a and grant the US a full control over the Red Sea and the Bab-el-Mandeb Strait. 

On the other hand, claims of protecting the maritime routes in the Red Sea that according to figures hosts 10 percent of global maritime trade and 20 percent of total global container transport comes as various shipping lines continue suspension of their activities in the Red Sea and choose a longer route through Cape of Good Hope in Africa. 

In this regard, after the American and British attacks on Yemen, the Guardian newspaper quoted Thomas Kazakos, the director of the Cyprus Chamber of Shipping (CSC), a key company in maritime transportation with the representation of about 200 domestic and foreign companies, as saying that “these attacks can have an impact; a negative one on economies and prices around the world.”

This issue is like Biden moving on the brinks with an involvement in a long-term war with Yemen given the sensitivity of the economy and fuel prices to the American voters.

Another political issue that influences the American military action in Yemen is the Arab decline to support the operation. Arab countries such as Saudi Arabia not only have declined invitation to join the new naval coalition, but also have pressed Washington for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza, arguing that this is the only way to prevent war spillover to Red Sea. 

Riyadh highlights the regional stability and security in the Red Sea and calls freedom of navigation an international demand. 

The Saudi approach shows that this country does not consider the tense situation useful for its interests, especially in the field of advancing peace talks with Ansarullah and also the reconciliation process with Iran, which began in March last year. It is on this basis that Ansarullah’s chief negotiator said in an interview with Reuters on Thursday that the movement’s attacks on commercial ships in the Red Sea do not threaten the country’s peace talks with Saudi Arabia and that Israel’s war on Gaza is the cause of the regional disputes. 

From another aspect, the White House faces rights criticism and public opinion in advancing its West Asia agenda. The Biden administration is already under fire for disloyalty to its obligations of pursuing human rights in foreign policy. Like other parts of the world, Gaza war has damaged the sentiments of many Americans who want an end to the American support to the Israeli crimes in Gaza. Actually, it is because of these public pressures that in recent weeks the White House officials have been calling for end of war and giving opportunity to diplomacy for release of Israeli prisoners held by Hamas. In these circumstances, war against an already war-ravaged country whose people have been killed by American-supplied bombs will sharpen the voices denouncing Biden’s rights policy. This comes while on the Yemeni side, the situation is different and Ansarullah operations against Israeli ships and ports have been met by wide-ranging public support, and even after American airstrikes, masses took to the streets of various Yemeni cities, chanting “death to America” and “death to Israel” and calling for continuation of support to the Palestinians. 

Netanyahu’s deceit of Biden 

Biden decided to take the risk of strikes on Yemen under the excuse of UN Security Council resolution while no country has agreed to join the military operation, and though American officials named Australia, Bahrain, Canada, and the Netherlands as partners to the operation, the support was just in words and not in practice and these countries have exercised the necessary shrewdness to avoid being caught in the trap Netanyahu and his orbit set for the so-called coalition. 

In recent weeks, the careless actions of the Israelis, including assassination of resistance commanders in Syria and Lebanon and also plotting terrorist attacks in Iran at the anniversary of General Qassam Soleimani in Kerman were described by analysts as actions by Netanyahu’s hardline cabinet to escape defeat in Gaza war through fanning the flames of a regional war and embroiling the US in it. 

It seems that Netanyahu has managed to lure Biden into the war while tensions in the Red Sea cannot be defuse by a military action and Biden could avoid this costly challenge with show of self-restraint and caution as Gaza war turns attritive and Israel begins to accept defeat, though not necessarily publicly. 

The current conditions signal that the new American-led alliance is incapable of checking Yemeni attacks and Gaza war has spilled over to the Red Sea willy nilly and it is open to expansion with recent anti-Yemeni operation and things could slip out of Israeli and American control.