Biden's Iran and Houthis blunders roil the Middle East

 Breitbart:

Secretary of State Antony Blinken attempted to mend President Joe Biden’s increasingly strained relationship with Gulf states on Tuesday in a meeting with Abu Dhabi Crown Prince Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, following a conversation with Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Faisal bin Farhan.

Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) have both expressed increasing frustration with the Biden administration’s failure to address the potential global implications of the seven-year-old Yemeni civil war, which overflowed into Saudi Arabia last week as the Iran-backed Houthi terrorist organization bombed oil facilities belonging to the Saudi state oil corporation Aramco. Saudi officials have repeatedly warned that Houthi attacks on oil assets could threaten the global fuel supply at a time in which the war between Russia and Ukraine has triggered shortages and record-high prices.

The Houthi movement is a Shiite jihadist organization that seized Yemen’s capital, Sana’a, at the onset of the civil war. Human rights groups have accused the Houthis of blocking shipments of food and other critical aid to the country, prompting what has rapidly become a famine. The Houthis fight under the slogan “Allahu Akbar, Death to America, Death to Israel, a Curse on the Jews, Victory to Islam.”

President Biden stripped the Houthis of their Foreign Terrorist Organization designation as one of his first acts in office last year, greatly expanding their ability to access “humanitarian” funding.

Prior to this week’s Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) meeting, Saudi Arabia raised its oil prices yet again, apparently rejecting pleas from Biden to both produce more oil and lower prices. The Gulf states, especially UAE, have also ignored Biden’s calls to marginalize Russia in light of the Ukraine war. Biden’s ban on importing Russian oil to the United States, alongside “green” energy policies that limit domestic production, have led to severe gas price increases in America.

As recently as three weeks ago, anonymously sourced reports indicated that Saudi and Emirati leaders were simply refusing to schedule phone calls with Biden officials.
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“Washington’s Arab allies chafe at what they see as declining US commitment to security in their region in the face of Iranian involvement in Yemen, Iraq, Syria and Lebanon which has nudged them into common cause with former arch-foe Israel,” the Saudi outlet reported. “Gulf states have for years been frustrated at what they see as US inaction in confronting Iran’s role in the region, but their concerns have grown since Joe Biden became president 14 months ago.”
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Blinkin has a tough job trying to rationalize Biden's irrational lifting of the sanctions against the Houthis.  It was an incredibly bad decision that directly endangers US allies in the region in an attempt to placate the Iranian genocidal religious bigots.  No wonder some of those allies refuse to take Biden's calls.

BTW, if Biden wants to lower the price of oil he should stop blocking US energy production on US-controlled sites.  That is how Trump lowered the price.  But that wan another bad decision by Biden that he refuses to reverse.