The United States and the United Kingdom on Thursday night launched strikes against targets in Yemen used by Houthi rebels to antagonize the global shipping industry in the Red Sea, raising fears of further escalation of the simmering conflict in the Middle East over Israel’s war in Gaza.
The strikes were the most significant action the US has taken against the Houthis — a militant group in control of much of northern Yemen, who are funded and trained by Iran, and who sympathize with the Palestinian cause — thus far. Their Red Sea operations, they say, are protesting Israel’s war in Gaza, which has killed more than 23,000 Palestinians so far. In other words, the US/UK strikes are both part of and responding to the ongoing regional conflict that has included operations like targeted US attacks in Iraq and Syria for months. And as Thursday’s strikes demonstrate, that ongoing conflict shows little sign of slowing.
US officials said the airstrikes, as well as missiles launched from ships and at least one Tomahawk cruise missile launched from a submarine, hit 60 targets, including Houthi weapons depots, drone and missile launch sites, and radar outposts. “These targets were very specifically selected for minimizing the risk of collateral damage,” a senior Pentagon official told reporters Thursday night. “We were absolutely not targeting civilian population centers. We were going after very specific [capabilities] in very specific locations with precision munitions.”
Houthi attacks on commercial vessels have been ongoing since mid-November, and have had serious effects on global trade. They have successfully deterred shipping giants like Maersk from traveling through the Red Sea and Suez Canal, an important route for trade between Asia and Western countries. The group claims it only targets ships headed to or affiliated with Israel to protest that country’s war in Gaza, though it seems to be abandoning that principle as the attacks continue. The Houthis have carried out at least 27 attacks since November 19, and though they don’t typically cause casualties or damage, many companies have deemed the Red Sea route too risky and chosen to take the longer, more expensive route around Africa’s Cape of Good Hope, driving up prices for consumer goods. The US began threatening retaliatory strikes against the Houthis over the past week, after the group ignored a “final warning” from the US, and continued its attacks on ships.
In addition to the UK, Australia, Bahrain, Canada, and the Netherlands also took part in coordinating the strikes, though their roles in the operation are not yet clear. But regional partners, including Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, expressed concern about maintaining stability in the region and the possibility that the situation could spiral even more out of control. Some within the US government, like Reps. Ro Khanna (D-CA) and Val Hoyle (D-OR) questioned the constitutionality of the move, and Jeremy Corbyn, former leader of the UK’s Labour Party, denounced it. The US Department of Defense has not yet released information about casualties and continues to assess the success of the strikes. The Houthis claim the attacks killed five of their troops and wounded six others.
The Houthis, for their part, have promised to retaliate, saying that “all US, UK interests have become ‘legitimate targets.’” And according to James Jeffrey, chair of the Middle East Program at the Wilson Center and former special envoy to the Global Coalition to Defeat ISIS, while Thursday’s strikes hit some significant targets, “they certainly didn’t take down the Houthis’ ability to launch these attacks into the Red Sea.”
So while there might not be a risk of confrontation between the US and Iran, there are likely more — and potentially larger — tit-for-tat attacks to come.
Expect continued, simmering hostilities in the future — but not an all-out war
While the strikes represent an escalation on the part of the US and its allies — marking a move from rhetoric to violence — they are unlikely to lead to a full-fledged war with the Houthis, or their sponsors in Iran, and may not change the reality on the water. The Houthis could continue to antagonize ships in the Red Sea, despite the known consequences, because they have much to gain by doing so — and little to lose, Jon Alterman, director of the Middle East Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, told Vox.
“It’s hard to [eliminate targets] that the Houthis find valuable,” he said. “You can spend a lot of money trying to destroy some very cheap installations.”
What’s more, the US-led strike (and any future actions against the group) can be interpreted as the Houthis being elevated on the global stage, giving them a legitimacy and prestige they previously lacked. That symbolic victory is only strengthened by the perception among some supporters of Palestine and the Palestinian Islamic Jihad that the Houthis are the only force willing to take big risks on behalf of the Palestinian cause. “They’ve become consequential when few other groups are, and they’ve done it from a pretty low base,” Alterman said.
A large part of the reason Thursday’s strikes probably won’t lead to an all-out war with Iran, according to Ali Vaez, the Iran director at the International Crisis Group, is that “there is only so far [Iran’s] command and control extend across its network.” Whereas Hezbollah in Lebanon is in lock-step with the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, there’s a spectrum of control that Iran has over its proxy groups. “It has the least amount of control of the Houthis,” Vaez said. And with its actions in the Red Sea, the Houthis are establishing themselves on their own terms, “painting themselves not as Iranian proxies,” Alterman said.
Iran has no appetite for an expanded conflict, Vaez said. But looking out over the wider region over the past week, it’s clear that lower-level conflict is already occurring on several fronts — in the Red Sea, in Lebanon, and in Iraq. So rather than Israel’s war in Gaza leading to a larger war between global and regional powers, it currently seems more likely the conflict could take the shape of “open-ended hostilities that you can’t find a reason to stop,” Alterman said.
