WASHINGTON, August 30. /TASS/. The US military campaign against Yemen’s Houthi rebels in the Red Sea is not working, Jon Hoffman and Benjamin Giltner, analysts at the Cato Institute, argue.
"Washington’s approach to the Houthis is the epitome of strategic malpractice. It won’t work, costs too much, jeopardizes the lives of American servicemembers stationed in the region to protect primarily foreign vessels, and risks further destabilizing Yemen as well as the broader region," the analysts wrote in an opinion piece for Responsible Statecraft as they emphasized that the United States’ military campaign against Yemen has not been authorized by Congress.
According to the political scientists, "Washington’s refusal to acknowledge Israel’s war in Gaza as the original catalyst of the Houthis’ attacks prevents any hopes of stopping these attacks in the Red Sea." The United States "should immediately end its military activity against the Houthis, press European and Asian states to take a more proactive role in protecting their own shipping vessels, and stop subsidizing Israel’s war in Gaza in the hopes of deescalating rising tensions across the Middle East," Hoffman and Giltner insist.
Since November 2023, they said, Ansar Allah has delivered roughly 200 attacks on vessels associated with the Jewish state. The military operation against Houthi militants being conducted by Washington and its allies, designed to put an end to attacks, has in fact led to more intensive attacks instead. "America’s military campaign is arguably making the situation worse, fueling the conflict and resulting in more ships coming under fire from the Houthis," they emphasized.
Continued military exchanges between the US and the Houthis risk "exacerbating growing regional tensions, pushing the Middle East toward region-wide war" and further destabilizing Yemen, the analysts warned.
Following the escalation of the conflict in the Gaza Strip, Ansar Allah warned that it would bombard Israeli territory and prevent associated ships from sailing through the Red Sea and the Bab el-Mandeb Strait as long as the operation in the Palestinian enclave continued. Since last November, the Houthis have been attacking civilian ships in the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden.
In response, the US and its allies launched Operation Prosperity Guardian aiming to ensure both the freedom of navigation and the safety of maritime traffic in the Red Sea. Subsequently, the allied armed forces began to deliver major strikes targeting Yemen’s military and civilian infrastructure.