Why Not Put Paid to the Houthi Threat?

The Houthis — a Shi’a group that has been engaged in a civil war in Yemen against the national government consisting largely of Sunni Muslims — are supported, with money and weapons, by Iran, as part of its archipelago of proxies and allies that include the Houthis in Yemen, the Kata’ib Hezbollah militia in Iraq, the Alawite-led Syrian army, and Hezbollah in Lebanon. For years, the Saudis have sent weapons and money to Yemen’s government, and Saudi planes have bombed Houthi positions, indiscriminately, killing many civilians. The Houthis did not yield, and the Saudis have stopped bombing them. They remain in their redoubt in northwestern Yemen.

Recently, following directions from Tehran, the Houthis have been attacking with drones both commercial shipping (chiefly container ships) and American naval ships in the Red Sea, declaring that all ships heading to Israel will be targeted. But of course it’s not possible to know which ships in the Red Sea are heading to Israel, or to the port of Aqaba in Jordan, or to Egypt’s Suez Canal. The result has been a complete rerouting of oil tankers, container ships, and other merchant shipping that normally travel from Asia to both Europe and North America by sailing up the Red Sea and through the Suez Canal. There are American warships in the Red Sea, and the warships of our allies, the U.K. and France. American warships have shot down, in recent weeks, 16 Houthi drones; the French and the British have each destroyed a single Houthi drone. Nonetheless, the Houthis have continued to launch attack drones, and those attacks have led to oil tankers and container ships alike avoiding the Red Sea, and instead to go all the way around Africa to reach both Europe and the Americas, increasing the time required, and the cost, of getting that oil and those goods to their intended destinations. This has imposed an enormous cost on world trade, requiring more time for those ships to travel to their destinations, and greater expense to fuel and man those ships forced to take the long way round Africa.

The Biden administration can no longer be satisfied with shooting down Houthi drones. Defensive actions are clearly not enough, because until the threat of Houthi attacks on ships is completely eliminated, merchant ships will continue to be rerouted around Africa. The Americans must go on the offensive and attack, in concert with NATO allies, the Houthis in Yemen itself, both to destroy their vast store of drones before they can be launched at commercial shipping, and to raze their storehouses of other weapons. Furthermore, the allies should kill large numbers of Houthi fighters, so that those remaining will be forced to halt their attacks on Red Sea shipping.

Seth Mandel discusses the Houthi threat to the world economy here: “Biden Has No Choice But To Stop the Houthis,” by Seth Mandel, Commentary, December 20, 2023:

…The Houthis are Iran’s proxy in Yemen. They have been firing upon merchant ships that pass through the Suez Canal, sometimes via drone. Attacks have increased since Israel’s latest war with Hamas began in October. The U.S. announced this week it is sending a multinational naval force to accompany ships through the troubled waters. That is a start but it won’t be enough: Naval escorts will likely slow the flow of commerce through the waterway and therefore aren’t a long-term solution to the market disruption. Biden & Co. have to be prepared to do more.

Each day, about fifty ships travel up the Red Sea to the Suez Canal. Will that naval task force be able to escort fifty ships a day through that route? How many ships will be in that task force? And how complicated will the logistics be, with those navy ships accompanying huge container ships and oil tankers all the way up to the Suez Canal as escorts, and then having to turn around and travel back to the narrow passageway, the Bab al-Mandeb Strait, at the beginning of the Red Sea, where they then must turn around again to accompany a new group ships safely to the Suez Canal?

One reason the West’s hand is forced here is economics. One-fifth of all global container trade, as the Wall Street Journal reports, passes through the canal. Oil giant BP has for now stopped sending its ships through that route; others have started to follow suit. According to the New York Times, crude oil has already risen 8 percent since mid-December.

It is not just the Europeans and Americans who are beginning to suffer economic damage from the rerouting of ships from the Red Sea to sailing around the Cape of Good Hope to get to Europe and North America. So does Jordan, because if ships stop using the Red Sea, they will not be able to use that country’s Port of Aqaba. Egypt, too, will lose out, because the funds it now receives from the Suez Canal traffic will be reduced to zero, if merchant shipping goes instead around Africa.