Since 2014, Yemen has been locked in a vicious war between the Iran-backed Houthi rebels and forces supported by Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. The former have as their motto, “Allah is Great, Death to America, Death to Israel, Curse on the Jews, Victory to Islam.” Last week, President Biden promised to “cease all American support for offensive operations in the war in Yemen, including relevant arms sales,” and on Friday the State Department reversed its predecessor’s eleventh-hour designation of the Houthis as a foreign terrorist organization. Neither move is especially significant in itself, writes John Bolton, but as gestures they signal bad policy:
Despite Biden’s implicit effort to characterize [the war] as a brutal Saudi assault on an impoverished country, the central problem is Iran and its proxy, the Houthis. Biden’s decision to inhibit the Saudis and placate the Houthis will not contribute to peace, but will instead inspire the latter to stiffen further their position. Biden is following President Obama’s utterly erroneous notion that appeasing Iran will induce it to engage in more civilized behavior on nuclear and other issues, and that Yemen’s Arab neighbors are the real threats to regional peace and security.
In fact, Tehran and its allies will be delighted that the Biden administration’s giveaways have begun, and you can expect the mullahs to ramp up their bloody and destabilizing mischief throughout the region and the world.
The White House justifies its policy by citing humanitarian concerns, ignoring that Iran and the Houthis, far better at ideological propaganda than their opponents, are cynically manipulating Yemeni civilians and foreign aid workers for their own strategic purposes. Listing the Houthi as terrorists, for example, was not an obstacle to the distribution of food or medical assistance, or to peacefully resolving the conflict. The obstacle is that the Houthis are terrorists, seeking, with Iran, tactical advantage over their local enemies while reducing the external support they can call upon.
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More about: Iran, Joseph Biden, U.S. Foreign policy, Yemen