Bombing the Houthis
Posted: Fri Jan 12, 2024 12:44 pm
The Saudis spent much of the last several years bombing the Houthis to pieces, but it was a complete failure. Despite this large-scale military attack on them, the Houthis extended their control from a small area of NW Yemen to cover most of the western highlands, including the capital Sanaa. This area is where the great majority of Yemen's approx 35m people live. (Yes, there are more people in Yemen than in Saudi Arabia.) The Saudi bombing is estimated to have killed about 20,000 people. The Saudis eventually gave up, as it was killing lots of people and not achieving any practical military objective, and attracting widespread condemnation.
So is it just pointless and unnecessarily provocative for the US and UK to bomb them? They have specifically attacked the missile launching sites which were used to attack shipping, and avoided killing lots of civilians. But is that going to have much effect on a nation that has continued major missile attacks despite all the Saudi bombing? Can we really be any more militarily effective than the Saudis were? Such excellent records we have in places like Afghanistan.
But the Houthis are attacking passing shipping, and more generally acting as Iran's provocateurs. So is it necessary to demonstrate that we won't just sit passively without response to this? Clearly we should have responded much sooner and much more actively to Putin's foreign adventures, and when we didn't he picked off more and more. So many people failed to see Putin for what he is for so long.
The Iranians themselves have just hijacked another ship. How should we respond to that?
Should the US and UK have sought wider international support for this response? In Iraq, it was a huge mistake for the US and UK to act on their own, without that wider international support.
And Putin laughs at us, delighted at the expanding distractions from his own international misbehaviour.
So is it just pointless and unnecessarily provocative for the US and UK to bomb them? They have specifically attacked the missile launching sites which were used to attack shipping, and avoided killing lots of civilians. But is that going to have much effect on a nation that has continued major missile attacks despite all the Saudi bombing? Can we really be any more militarily effective than the Saudis were? Such excellent records we have in places like Afghanistan.
But the Houthis are attacking passing shipping, and more generally acting as Iran's provocateurs. So is it necessary to demonstrate that we won't just sit passively without response to this? Clearly we should have responded much sooner and much more actively to Putin's foreign adventures, and when we didn't he picked off more and more. So many people failed to see Putin for what he is for so long.
The Iranians themselves have just hijacked another ship. How should we respond to that?
Should the US and UK have sought wider international support for this response? In Iraq, it was a huge mistake for the US and UK to act on their own, without that wider international support.
And Putin laughs at us, delighted at the expanding distractions from his own international misbehaviour.