Another War in Yemen
The US should stop bombing Yemen for the sake of Israel.
The Middle East has been even more volatile than usual lately due to military operations that Israel has been conducting in the Gaza Strip in response to the October 7, 2023, attack by Hamas. That attack resulted in the deaths of over a thousand Israelis, including hundreds of civilians, and ever since Israel has waged war on the Palestinians inside of Gaza through siege warfare, a ground invasion, and a massive bombing campaign. More than 25,000 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza — a large portion of which have been civilians — and many more will continue to die until some sort of ceasefire is successfully negotiated.
This has caused tensions in the region to rise significantly, and many people (myself included) have warned of the risk of escalation since the start of this conflict. The US has shown practically unconditional support for Israel despite that risk, while much of the world has condemned Israel’s excessive use of force and its blatant disregard for innocent civilians.
For now, most of the violence has been confined to Gaza, but the situation escalated almost immediately after it began and it has already spilled over into other parts of the region. For example, Hezbollah in Lebanon began militarily engaging Israel directly within days of October 7; various Shiite Muslim militias in Iraq and Syria have attacked US military installations in the region more than a hundred times over the last few months; and Ansar Allah in Yemen has been launching rockets and drones at Israel and has also been attacking Israeli-linked commercial ships in the Red Sea.
This situation could very easily erupt into a much larger conflict — more than it already has — and any one of these examples could be the spark that eventually causes that to happen. So far, it has been the current situation with Ansar Allah in Yemen that has really drawn the US empire further into this war, but only time will tell how far things will escalate from here.
Ansar Allah — more commonly known as the Houthis — is a group within Yemen that since 2015 has been fighting a civil war against the “official” Yemeni government, which has been supported by a coalition of countries led by Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates (UAE). That coalition, with US-provided support and weaponry, deliberately waged a war on the civilian population of Houthi-controlled Yemen by conducting airstrikes that often hit civilian targets like weddings and school buses, as well as through a blockade on much of the country that prevented regular access to food, water, and medical supplies.
The parallels between the Saudi-led war in Yemen and Israel’s war in Gaza are glaringly obvious.
Much like it has been with Israel’s onslaught on Gaza, the US government has been wholly complicit in the murder of the hundreds of thousands of people who have died from the Saudi-led war in Yemen.
As the great antiwar author and commentator Scott Horton explained on independent journalist Kim Iversen’s show recently, the main reason for the US’s involvement in that war was to “placate the Saudis” after the Obama administration began negotiating a nuclear deal with Iran — a deal which the US has since pulled out of.
The US had been conducting drone strikes and other military operations in Yemen even before 2015 in its fight against al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP). Some may be shocked to learn, however, that AQAP has actually been on the side of the Saudi-led coalition in its fight against the Houthis — to the point of fighting directly for the US-backed coalition.
“[T]he coalition cut secret deals with al-Qaida fighters, paying some to leave key cities and towns and letting others retreat with weapons, equipment and wads of looted cash,” The Associated Press (AP) reported in 2018. “Hundreds more were recruited to join the coalition itself.”
The report goes on:
The deals uncovered by the AP reflect the contradictory interests of the two wars being waged simultaneously in this southwestern corner of the Arabian Peninsula.
In one conflict, the U.S. is working with its Arab allies — particularly the United Arab Emirates — with the aim of eliminating the branch of extremists known as al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula, or AQAP. But the larger mission is to win the civil war against the Houthis, Iranian-backed Shiite rebels. And in that fight, al-Qaida militants are effectively on the same side as the Saudi-led coalition — and, by extension, the United States.
After nearly a decade of fighting and hundreds of thousands of lives lost, both the Houthis and the Saudi-led coalition agreed to a ceasefire in the spring of 2022. That ceasefire eventually expired but it had more or less remained in effect this whole time. Further talks between Saudi Arabia and the Houthis took place in 2023, and peace finally appeared to be within reach. The current flare up of violence — in which Ansar Allah is an active participant — has damaged that possibility, and now the idea of peace in Yemen appears to be as far away as ever.
The current situation started shortly after October 7, when the Houthis began firing drones and rockets toward Israel. The group has publicly stated that the attacks will continue until Israel’s war on Gaza comes to a ceasefire. Not long after that, the Houthis began attacking and seizing Israeli-linked ships in the Red Sea. There have been a number of attacks in the Red Sea that have since been attributed to Ansar Allah — many on ships with ties to various countries other than Israel — and it’s this disruption of global trade that finally prompted a firm response from the US empire.
In December 2023, the US and nine other countries launched a military operation in the Red Sea in response to the Houthis’ attacks on commercial shipping. A few weeks later, the US and an even broader coalition of countries released a joint statement calling for “the immediate end of these illegal attacks and release of unlawfully detained vessels and crews.” The statement then says “The Houthis will bear the responsibility of the consequences should they continue to threaten lives, the global economy, and free flow of commerce in the region’s critical waterways.”
It didn’t take long for the world to see exactly what the US and its allies meant by “consequences”. The week following the release of that joint statement, the US and the UK launched strikes on Houthi military sites inside Yemen. The US followed up with another round of strikes shortly after. The Houthis, seemingly undeterred by those strikes, attacked a US-owned cargo ship in the Gulf of Aden in retaliation. In just a little over a week since the initial strikes, the US has bombed Yemen seven times, and the Houthis have attacked US-owned ships transiting through the region a second and third time.
This back-and-forth will likely continue for some time as Ansar Allah has shown no sign of backing down. The group has spent nearly a decade proving itself to be quite formidable in its fight against the Saudi-led, US-backed coalition, and even US officials have stated that the initial strikes did little damage to the Houthis offensive capabilities. Further US and UK strikes on Yemen are very unlikely to bring this situation to an end — as even President Biden has admitted — but as of now that appears to be the path that we’re on.
The Biden administration has faced criticism for these strikes from both Republican and Democratic members of Congress who have expressed concerns over Biden’s failure to get congressional approval before militarily involving the US in another conflict in the Middle East. All wars are supposed to be deliberated, voted on and declared by Congress, as required by Article 1 of the US Constitution, and not by Presidential decree. That hasn’t happened since World War II, and while Congress has passed several Authorizations for the Use of Military Force (AUMFs) over the years, the truth is that the Presidency has become far too capable — and far too willing — to unilaterally order military operations.
This tendency has plagued many administrations from both major parties, but it was during the Bush/Cheney administration after the 9/11 attacks that the Executive Branch really gained the ability to regularly engage in this unconstitutional practice — something many people have become far too accustomed to today.
The US has also faced calls for de-escalation from a somewhat unusual source. Saudi Arabia, which has led the US-backed coalition in the war against the Houthis since 2015, called on the US to show restraint immediately after the initial strikes by the US and the UK. In the weeks leading up to this latest escalation in Yemen, the Houthis and Saudi Arabia had been engaged in a United Nations (UN) -led peace process, and the US’s actions against the Houthis have threatened that process.
When Ansar Allah first began targeting Israeli-linked ships in the Red Sea, the group made it very clear that the attacks will continue until Israel ends its siege and bombardment of Gaza. One may disapprove of the tactics the Houthis have been using, but there’s no question of what the group’s goal is.
Instead of bombing Yemen and heightening tensions in the region, the US could’ve leveraged the unconditional support it has been giving to Israel throughout this conflict. Had the Biden administration made more meaningful attempts to prevent Israel from slaughtering thousands upon thousands of Gazans — by threatening to cut off military and financial aid to Israel, for example — then it’s possible the Houthi’s would’ve never even started attacking ships in the first place. Even after Ansar Allah’s attacks began, the US still could’ve tried to de-escalate the situation by putting pressure on Israel to decrease civilian casualties instead of resorting to military action. However, anyone who’s familiar with the way the US foreign policy establishment operates should find it unsurprising that the Biden administration chose militarism rather than diplomacy and de-escalation.
The US becoming more involved in Israel’s war on Gaza by striking the Houthis in Yemen showcases just how high the risk of further escalation truly is. Many of the groups somehow involved in this conflict — the Houthis, Hezbollah, the various Shiite militias in Iraq and Syria — all have a certain level of support from Iran, which means that any action the US or its allies take against those groups could trigger an Iranian response. Should that happen, this situation could quickly go from a regional conflict to a global one.
At this point in time, it’s crucial for all Americans to ask ourselves: Is it really in the US’s national interest to become increasingly entangled in Israel’s war on Gaza? What benefit is there for the US in providing Israel unconditional support as it murders countless Palestinians and raises tensions all across the region? Personally, I fail to see how any of this helps the US in any way as it appears to be damaging our standing on the world stage and putting more and more US service members stationed in the Middle East in danger.
The US should not continue to support Israel’s war on Gaza and it definitely shouldn’t continue bombing Yemen for Israel’s sake. Our involvement in the region only risks further escalation, and no good will come from this situation turning into a broader conflict. Unfortunately, the Biden administration seems committed to supporting Israel regardless of how immoral Israel’s actions are, or how costly that support ends up being for the United States of America.
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