US President Joe Biden has said that attacks on the Houthis will continue even as he acknowledged that the group have not stopped their Red Sea attacks.
The US carried out a fifth round of strikes on Yemen on Thursday after a US ship was struck by a Houthi drone.
White House spokesman John Kirby told reporters that US forces “took out a range of Houthi missiles” that were about to be fired towards the Red Sea.
He said the American attacks took place on Wednesday and again on Thursday.
On Wednesday, a Houthi drone hit a “US owned and operated bulk carrier ship” which later had to be rescued by India’s navy. It came as the US designated the Houthis as a terrorist organisation.
“Well, when you say working are they stopping the Houthis? No,” Mr Biden told reporters in Washington DC on Thursday before he left for a speech in North Carolina.
“Are they gonna continue? Yes.”
From the position trying to secure the best strategic outcome, though, what does that tell us? That sounds like a lot of opinions on the past, but what guidance do you take from all that?
Direct confrontation still fulfills their strategic objectives, and presents a nearly unwinnable situation. Instead, what would limit their willingness and ability to fight?
One thing would be ending our support for Israel’s wildly unpopular violent occupation. I hear people say that the Houthis are just cynically seizing on this morally and emotionally powerful cause to maintain popularity among the people of Yemen. And even if that’s true, it still serves our strategic interest to take that valuable asset away from them.
The Houthis assisted in the planning and carrying out of the October 7 attack. They’ve been Iranian proxies and ideological allies of all sorts of fundamentalist terrorists since they came into existence.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Houthi_movement
Nothing will limit their willingness to fight. But drone strikes can end their ability to threaten their neighbors. Push them back into their hole, let them scream “death to America” into an increasingly smaller spit of empty desert with dwindling prospects for continued habitability. Maybe their people will get tired of not having nice things or will realize “death to America” won’t put food on the table. Maybe not, and eventually their neighbor is going to get sick of their bullshit and swallow them up.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran–Saudi_Arabia_proxy_conflict
This feels like a bunch of Bush era talking points.
They aren’t orcs. There’s this notion that our adversaries are unable to demonstrate the self control they need to make environments safe to raise kids but possess motivation for self destruction that is inexaustible.
After exclusively putting more and more weight on the boot on their collective neck with nothing buts decades of successive failure, let’s try something else.
For those unmotivated by Christian mercy, I suggest what I am going to call “Machiavellian kindness”.
What if their appetite for death is actually weaker than advertised? What if we try to give them a taste of comfort and security with the diabolical awareness that people who become accustomed to weekends of rest and full bellies, who watch their kids reach milestones lose their edge. They get gluttonous and lazy. They become attached to material comforts and the expectations of retirement and grandkids.
Perhaps my cynical machinations are too wicked. But in desperate times when all else has failed, I think they’ve given us no other choice.
This feels like a bunch of Bush era talking points.
They aren’t orcs. There’s this notion that our adversaries are unable to demonstrate the self control they need to make environments safe to raise kids but possess motivation for self destruction that is inexaustible.
After exclusively putting more and more weight on the boot on their collective neck with nothing buts decades of successive failure, let’s try something else.
For those unmotivated by Christian mercy, I suggest what I am going to call “Machiavellian kindness”.
What if their appetite for death is actually weaker than advertised? What if we try to give them a taste of comfort and security with the diabolical awareness that people who become accustomed to weekends of rest and full bellies, who watch their kids reach milestones lose their edge. They get gluttonous and lazy. They become attached to material comforts and the expectations of retirement and grandkids.
Perhaps my cynical machinations are too wicked. But in desperate times when all else has failed, I think they’ve given us no other choice.