Response to Houthis attacks suspect

TTN:

US-Led Coalition To Defend Shipping Against Houthi Attacks Doesn’t Hold Water, Experts Say
A U.S.-led coalition to deter the Houthi rebels based in Yemen from continuing to strike commercial vessels and largely shut down trade through a crucial waterway has left experts perplexed and doubtful the coalition will succeed.

The Iran-backed rebel group that controls parts of Yemen launched so many missile attacks against commercial shipping vessels in the Red Sea — and sent U.S. warships scrambling to their rescue — that major companies ordered their ships to stop transit through one of the world’s most important shipping lanes. Aimed at safeguarding maritime security, Operation Prosperity Guardian announced on Monday merely deploys a smokescreen over the Biden administration’s unwillingness to address the roots of the threat, experts told the Daily Caller News Foundation.

“I think it will be irrelevant — it won’t change the realities in the region nor will it stop future attacks. It may better coordinate limited humanitarian response to ships in distress after an attack or during an attempted hijacking,” Brent Sadler, the senior research fellow for naval warfare at the Heritage Foundation, told the DCNF.
...

The ISW reports: 

...

Iranian state media claimed that the US-led Red Sea security coalition, Operation Prosperity Guardian, is collapsing.[10] An Iranian state Arabic-language media outlet claimed that France, Spain, and Italy’s decision to operate outside of Operation Prosperity Guardian was evidence that they and other countries in the coalition are unwilling to be the "aggressor” in the Red Sea to protect Israeli economic interests.[11] The outlet reiterated the Houthi’s false claim that its fighters only target ships en route to Israel. Recent Houthi attacks have targeted many commercial ships not traveling to Israel. US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin announced the establishment of Operation Prosperity Guardian on December 18 as a multinational security force to address security challenges in the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden following Houthi attacks threatening freedom of navigation.[12] Austin reported that the coalition is composed of the United Kingdom, Bahrain, Canada, France, Italy, Netherlands, Norway, Seychelles, and Spain.[13] Italy and France released separate statements announcing that their forces would operate independently in the Red Sea to secure freedom of navigation and would not operate under Operation Prosperity Guardian.[14] Spanish officials said separately that their forces would only operate under a NATO- or EU-led operations.[15]
...

I suspect one of the major problems with the response to Irnaian and Houthis aggression is it mostly defensive in nature.  Rather than mainly using expensive missile defense equipment they should attack the Houthis in Yemen and also attack Iranian support operations.  Iran is the main provocateur in the region and it should pay a price for its aggression.

See also:

Israel Blames Iran For Drone Strike On Tanker Near India

And:

 US intelligence suggests Iran involved in planning attacks in Red Sea

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Should Republicans go ahead and add Supreme Court Justices to head off Democrats

Washington Post: Some Democrats eye adding more justices to the Supreme Court to change its ideological bent The once-remote idea has gained the attention of liberals angered by the GOP push to remake the federal courts. Probably the easy way to defeat this court-packing scheme is for Trump to propose doing the same thing now.  It would lead to Democrat denunciations and claims that it would be wrong, thereby blowing up any attempt by them in the unfortunate event of Democrats winning a presidential election.
Read more

29 % of companies say they are unlikely to keep insurance after Obamacare

Conn Carroll: A new survey of 368 midsize to large companies found that 29% of them are considering terminating their active employee health care plans when Obamacare is full implemented in 2014. Only 71% of employers surveyed said they did not expect to drop their health coverage, while 20% said they did not know and 9% said they were planning to exit. The latest survey, conducted by Towers Watson, echoes an ealier survey by McKinsey & Co. finding that 30% of private-sector employers were planning to drop their employee health insurance coverage by 2014. When the Congressional Budget Office crunched Obamacare's spending numbers, they estimated that only 7% of employees currently covered by employer-sponsored plans would lose their plans. ... This means the cost of the health care fiasco will be hundreds of billions more than estimated by the CBO and Congressional Democrat. It is also clear that Obama's pledge that you could keep your health care plan if you wanted t
Read more

Bin Laden's concern about Zarqawi's remains

James Robbins: ... Bin Laden suggests that President Bush should allow Zarqawi’s body to be returned to his family in Jordan, but this is a matter that is up to the Jordanian government, which so far has not shown much interest in facilitating a homecoming. Bin Laden mocks King Abdullah II, calling him a Coalition minion, and asking “w hat scares you about Abu Musab after he’s dead? You know that his funeral, if allowed to happen, would be a huge funeral showing the extent of sympathy with the mujahedin.” A large crowd would definitely turn out, though most people would be on hand to demonstrate their anger and disgust. Last November’s hotel bombings in Amman , masterminded by Zarqawi, are still fresh in people’s memory, and mentioning them to Jordanians has the same visceral impact as memory of the 9/11 attacks does here. Jordan has adopted a zero-tolerance policy towards those who choose to mourn the country’s least favorite son, and four opposition members of parliament who paid con
Read more