A sense of mission: Fighting the Houthis and Iran
Military action in Yemen and against Iran and her proxies more widely is entirely justified, but the US and allies need to stay clear on how effective it will be
When the United States, modestly assisted by the United Kingdom, first struck at Houthi targets in Yemen last month, I said I supported the move, and I haven’t changed my position one jot. Without claiming any great foresight, I’d suggested after Christmas that the growing crisis in the Red Sea was going to be a major challenge for the global community, because it’s such a vital commercial route, and I’ve been exasperated (to put it mildly) by those who have used the Houthi opposition to Western interests as reason enough to cast them as underdog heroes. Whatever your stance on Israel, Gaza, American imperialism or the whole capitalist project, the Houthis are a seriously grim movement and should have absolutely no support anywhere in a civilised society.
Deciding what to do about the unrelenting attacks on commercial shipping was, I’m sure, not easy. It was reasonably pointed out that Sauid Arabia had unleashed its potent military on the Houthis in a far more gloves-off way that the US and UK have for seven years, and had not defeated them, so occasional precision air and missile strikes were unlikely to bring the conflict in the Red Sea to an end. In fairness, the initial action was couched in modest language, with the US secretary of defense, Lloyd Austin, making it clear that the initial purpose was to try to end the crisis.
This action is intended to disrupt and degrade the Houthis’ capabilities to endanger mariners and threaten global trade in one of the world’s most critical waterways. Today’s coalition action sends a clear message to the Houthis that they will bear further costs if they do not end their illegal attacks.
In reality, there cannot have been much hope in Washington or London that a short, sharp shock would be enough to deter the Houthis. But it had to be tried.
Since that first operation on 12 January, the United States has kept up a limited but persistent drumbeat of attacks, generally modest in scale, although on 3 February, Australia, Bahrain, Canada, Denmark, the Netherlands and New Zealand joined the US and the UK in a series of strikes on 36 targets across 13 locations. They targeted “deeply buried weapons storage facilities, missile systems and launchers, air defense systems, and radars”, but again it was emphasised that these were “proportionate and necessary”, and “intended to disrupt and degrade the capabilities that the Houthis use to threaten global trade, and the lives of innocent mariners”.
President Joe Biden has made it very clear from the beginning that he regards these military operations as actions of self-defence, “defensive action [which] follows this extensive diplomatic campaign and Houthi rebels’ escalating attacks against commercial vessels”. He has to do this for three reasons: firstly, to forestall accusations at home and abroad that the US in engaging in reckless and aggressive tactics in the Middle East; secondly, to attempt to stay within the boundaries of international law; and thirdly because, while Article I of the US Constitution reserves to Congress the power to initiate military action, including “to define and punish Piracies and Felonies committed on the high Seas, and Offences against the Law of Nations”, the president, as commander-in-chief, has the power under Article II to undertake defensive action.
For what it’s worth, while I’m not a lawyer, I’m perfectly comfortable with the idea that these operations are, in the president’s phrase, “in direct response to unprecedented Houthi attacks against international maritime vessels in the Red Sea”. The US and UK were not previously involved in the conflict in Yemen, but the attacks on shipping, and the fact that the Houthis have been largely indiscriminate in choosing their targets, satisfies me that they are a clear threat. There is no dispute over who is responsible, so I think we are entitled to take the action we have.
Some have questioned why the UK has become involved, especially as our contribution has been modest: for the first operation on 12 January, we committed four Typhoon strike aircraft from RAF Akrotiri in Cyprus, as well as two Voyager air-to-air tankers, and we struck two targets, at Bani and Abs Airport. We acted again on 22 January and then on 3 February. Generally, however, the US has conducted the attacks alone. At a time when our military resources are stretched painfully thin, as laid brutally bare yesterday by a report from the House of Commons Defence Committee, are we adding value by sending a handful of aircraft to assist a much larger US effort?
I think we are: our military contribution may be modest, but the US appreciates us being there. When Secretary Austin announced the establishment of Operation Prosperity Guardian, a maritime mission to ensure freedom of navigation through the Red Sea, the response of allies was disappointing and frankly a bit shoddy: the French and Italian governments stressed that the assets they had in the area would not be part of the mission but would operate unilaterally, while Spain said it would only participate in operations led by NATO or co-ordinated by the EU, and dismissed the idea of involving the existing EU anti-piracy mission in the region, Operation ATALANTA. The United Kingdom, however, signalled that it would commit HMS Diamond, the Type 45 air defence destroyer already in the area and involved. This has been noted in Washington, as well as being, in my view, the right thing to do.
The whole issue became more complicated when, on 28 January, a drone launched by the Islamic Resistance in Iraq, struck a US military facility in Rukban, in northern Jordan. Three US soldiers were killed in the attack, the first American service personnel to be killed by hostile in the crisis, although two US Navy SEALs had drowned off the coast of Somalia on 11 January when they intercepted a dhow carrying weapons to the Houthis in Yemen. The Islamic Resistance in Iraq is an umbrella group of Shia militants which is backed by Iran, so this completed a chain which many had hoped to avoid, one starting in Tehran and ending in the deaths of American soldiers.
Iran denied involvement in the attack, a spokesman for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs saying that “these groups decide and act based on their own principles and priorities as well as the interests of their country and people”. It may in fact be true that the régime in Tehran did not specifically direct, plan or approve the attack in Jordan, but President Biden expressed a clear view. He called the strike “despicable and wholly unjust”, and warned “have no doubt—we will hold all those responsible to account at a time and in a manner our choosing”.
That time and manner was a series of air strikes on 2 February against Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps personnel and Iranian-backed militia in Syria and Iraq: in total, 85 targets were hit across seven sites, three in Iraq and four in Syria. Almost as a reminder of the reach of American power, the attacks were carried out by two B-1B Lancer strategic bombers operating from Dyess Air Force Base in Texas, a non-stop round trip of 15,000 miles, lasting 44 hours.
The following day, Saturday, saw another round of operations against Houthi targets, as US and UK forces attacked 36 targets across 13 sites, including underground storage facilities, command and control centres, missile systems, UAV storage and operational sites, radars and helicopters. They were, as before, according to United States Central Command:
intended to degrade Houthi capabilities used to continue their reckless and unlawful attacks on US and UK ships as well as international commercial shipping in the Red Sea, Bab Al-Mandeb Strait, and the Gulf of Aden.
As before, the British contribution was RAF Typhoons dropping Paveway IV laser-guided bombs, supported by Voyager air-to-air refuelling aircraft.
In the wake of the attacks on Iran’s interests, Biden’s national security advisor, Jake Sullivan, did the media rounds, and carried a very specific message. While he stressed to NBC News’s Meet the Press that “the President… is not looking for a wider war in the Middle East”, he reinforced that Biden was “determined to respond forcefully to attacks on our people” and was not “going to get into what’s on the table and off the table when it comes to the American response”, but promised that there would be “further strikes”. If the words about not wanting a broader conflict seemed grudging, the main thrust of Sullivan’s approach was emphatic: Iran should not rest easy at any time, because further punishment might come from the skies.
Sullivan also wanted to maintain a distinction between the action taken against the Houthis in Yemen and the strikes against Iran and her proxies. Central Command even sought to distinguish them from the maritime security effort, “separate and distinct from the multinational freedom of navigation actions performed under Operation Prosperity Guardian”. The joint statement from the participants in the air strikes of 3 February was almost laborious in its justification:
The Houthis’ now more than 30 attacks on commercial vessels and naval vessels since mid-November constitute an international challenge. Recognizing the broad consensus of the international community, our coalition of likeminded countries committed to upholding the rules-based order has continued to grow. We remain committed to protecting freedom of navigation and international commerce and holding the Houthis accountable for their illegal and unjustifiable attacks on commercial shipping and naval vessels.
This is entirely understandable. The United States and the United Kingdom believe, and I am wholly in agreement, that military action against the Houthis is justifiable legally, morally and politically; and that action against Iran can similarly be justified but is distinct. They also know that the Houthis have sought to justify their actions on the grounds of Israel’s policy in Gaza, but we have seen that the attacks on shipping have been more or less indiscriminate.
In the long run, I think the West will struggle to maintain a coherent narrative that the two missions are separate, while also insisting that Iran is implicated in the actions of the Houthis. It is simply too complicated, too nuanced, too dependent on fine detail to work as a piece of strategic communications. I’m also not sure that it matters a great deal. I wrote recently that we expend inordinate effort on not offending or provoking Iran, when, firstly, the régime in Tehran has no compunction about provoking or antagonising others, and, secondly, the bottom line is that they are existential, definitional enemies of the West. The Islamic Republic of Iran is never going to be a polity with which we can or would want to do business, and I think it would be more honest if we accepted, at least in our own minds, that a long-term policy ambition should be the removal of the régime and, ideally, its replacement by some kind of representative government. We may, for practical political or diplomatic reasons, choose not to articulate that in public, but I don’t see that our approach can ultimately be anything else.
Yet the United States finds itself in a strange kind of half-conflict with Iran. The rhetoric is sharp. In a speech in November, the Iranian supreme leader, Ali Khamenei, said that a US plan to create a “new Middle East” had failed, that the Hamas atrocities of 7 October aimed to “de-Americanise” the region and that he hoped that American influence in the Middle East would be “eliminated”. This is quite apart from the habitual characterisation of the United States as the “Great Satan”. Meanwhile President Biden is explicit about his view that Iran is assisting proxy organisations to attack the United States and her allies, and kill US personnel, and he maintains that military action against Iran will continue. He has refused to rule out strikes within Iran itself.
There is a common theme in commentary that the United States and Iran could, to quote a recent Politico article, “end up in a war they don’t want”. We are familiar with the notion of an inexorable drift towards war, especially as a characterisation of the events of 1914 which led up the First World War, but it is dangerous to give up that degree of agency. The idea that the United States, the most powerful nation on Earth, could end up engaged on a war it did not, on any level want or at least accept, is absurd. It is more plausible, however, to imagine a conflict arising which the US felt was undesirable but unavoidable. In a sense, this has already happened.
It has been suggested that the military strikes against the Houthis are ineffective in broad terms and will not significantly degrade the Houthis’ capability nor deter them in political terms. Let us suppose for a moment that is true. What other reaction should the United States have offered? Assuming that the White House was never likely to accept wholesale the political position of the Houthis and devote all its efforts to making the Israeli government stop its military campaign, it seems hardly sustainable just to have maintained a defensive posture in protecting shipping. Simply trying to intercept any and all munitions launched at commercial vessels would have been an enormous task, but also doomed to failure: sooner or later, a missile or drone would get through, and if a ship were sunk or if there were significant loss of life, the US might well have been asked whether it had done everything it could.
I think in truth a kinetic response was inevitable and necessary. Making that assumption, it has probably been the right course of action to begin with narrow surgical strikes against military installations, minimising civilian casualties. The scope and severity can be increased much more easily than it can be decreased. In the same way, beginning action against Iran with strikes against IRGC and proxy units in Syria and Iraq rather than hitting targets physically within Iran is sensible. The threat of escalation remains in hand.
It is difficult to plot a detailed strategy from here, however. I said earlier that I think the removal of the Islamic régime in Tehran should be the West’s long-term objective, but there is clearly no appetite at the moment for an Operation Iraqi Freedom-style war of liberation, deploying a substantial ground army to invade and occupy Iran. If that is beyond the scope of America’s current aims, it should define those aims very carefully and realistically. What is the end-game for the US? What does victory look like from President Biden’s point of view? There seems little prospect of Tehran making its apologies and withdrawing support from its proxies in Yemen, Syria, Iraq, Gaza and elsewhere.
On the other hand, it has in some ways been surprising how weak the Iranian response to American action has been. Any small acts of aggression have been made through semi-detached proxies, and Iran itself has made no effort to intervene directly in Gaza to support Hamas or the Palestinian people. Nor has it taken significant action against Israel. It may be that the Iranian government recognises its lack of capabilities in political and military terms, and the weakness of its economic position. If that is that case, an American policy designed to achieve substantial containment of Iran, and to limit its influence throughout the region, could be a sensible objective.
In the Red Sea, the objective is rather clearer. However it is achieved, the route from the Gulf of Aden to the Suez Canal must be protected and kept open at a level of safety which most ship operators regard as acceptable. The Red Sea and the Strait of Hormuz remain two of the world’s most vulnerable chokepoints, and Iran has the ability to put pressure on them both. (The other major vulnerabilities, I would suggest, are the Panama Canal, the Bosphorus and the Strait of Malacca.) That degree of economic control in malign hands is not a situation America can allow to endure. As far as Yemen is concerned, therefore, the US objective must be to use military and diplomatic power to achieve an acceptable degree of security, and, ideally, to broaden substantially the participation in Operation Prosperity Guardian.
Everything America does at the moment is overshadowed by the knowledge that victory for Donald Trump in the presidential election in November would change everything, though not necessarily in predictable ways. We should expect a second Trump to diminish or end military assistance to Ukraine, perhaps to recognise the Russian occupation of eastern Ukraine and Crimea, to place much less emphasis at the very least on the US’s relationship with NATO and to treat international obligations and treaties much less seriously than has been the case.
On the other hand, during his first presidency, Trump took a firm line on Iran: he withdrew from the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, which in effect had done little to limit Iran’s long-term aggression, and reinstated the sanctions against Iran which had previously been in place. He also oversaw the assassination in January 2020 of Major General Qasem Soleimani, commander of the IRGC’s Quds Force which is responsible for extraterritorial and clandestine operations. Iran threatened dire retribution for Soleimani’s killing, but in the end went little further than issuing an arrest warrant for President Trump and requesting assistance from Interpol to execute it.
No government except for the most autocratic can plan infinitely far into the future, but Biden is peculiarly constrained by electoral uncertainty. It is not so much his chances of re-election, though they are not currently looking much higher than evens, but the existence of such an extraordinary, cartoonish, recognisable figure like Donald Trump waiting in the wings. Whatever you do, America’s enemies may think, the whole board may be upended in a few months’ time.
The emerging conflict between the United States and her allies on the one hand and Iran on the other will not be a short one. It has been coming arguably since the first days of the Islamic Revolution in 1978, and it will only really come to an end when one of the two parties, either the United States or Iran, radically changes either its character or its conception of self-interest. That could mean the fall of the Islamic régime, which is certainly the outcome for which I would hope, or a decision by the United States essentially to withdraw from the region. But a long, protracted conflict can, as did the Cold War, exist in different states and at different levels of intensity. The current situation between the United States and Iran is warm, but it need not become hot. Washington should very clearly construct, at least for itself and its allies, a short- to medium-term plan with achievable goals and work out how to succeed.
In the long run, I think the Islamic Republic of Iran will be defeated, or will fall to the will of its own people. But its fate, I suspect, will run at best in parallel to the West’s relations with it. What America and her allies should do is calculate at every point what course of action is most likely to weaken, undermine or challenge the Iranian régime, whether that is limiting its military capacity, encouraging the government’s opponents at home and abroad or tightening the screws on Iran’s ailing economy. The appalling government in Tehran can be defeated, degraded and undermined, but that will have to happen in a careful and methodical way, and the West will need to have patience. We can do this, but we can’t necessarily do it now. But I reflect on at leastv the first half of the motto of Sunderland, where I grew up: Nil desperandum Auspice Deo. Do not despair, have faith in God.