Wars cannot end, until the enemy is defeated, and there is no stomach in the West for the necessary operations…
With the reelection of Donald J. Trump to the Presidency of the United States, even as Progressive, Left-wing pundits around the world launched into publicly televised hysterical meltdowns (that were subdued, compared to those of the many programmed victims of their psychological manipulations of the last few decades), heads of state around the world – the sane ones, at least – broadcast their congratulations to Trump.
In the Middle East, this was also true, for the most part. However, in both Iran and Yemen, reactions were mixed. Neither state is particularly happy about Trump’s victory, as both know that Trump is a diehard supporter of Israel, far more so than the ineffectual and vacillating Democrat administration of Joe Biden has been. This bodes ill for Trump’s immediate foreign policy options.
Since October 19, 2023, the Shi’a Muslim Houthi faction in Yemen has “done a yeoman’s work” in supporting the Hamas terrorist group that attacked and slaughtered defenseless civilians – including pregnant women – in their October 7th invasion of southern Israel that year.
While Yemen is physically separated from Israel and Gaza by a very considerable distance, one could be forgiven for assuming that the Houthis would only be able to offer kind words to Hamas. However, this is the 21st Century, and the Houthis are being supported by the Shi’a Muslim mullahs ruling Iran, to the north…and who have supplied the Houthis with not only Iran-designed derivatives of the ancient Soviet SCUD missiles, but with anti-ship missiles as well.
And it is that last group of weapons that is going to present Donald Trump with his most serious challenge, the first of a series of messes left for him to clean up, much as he found in 2017, when he had to pick up the pieces of Barack Obama’s eight-year long “bombing-fest”.
This time, though, Trump will have a far harder time. Trump’s first administration, as hard as Liberal news organs try to deny it, was marked as being the first Presidency in living memory to have not resulted in the United States becoming embroiled in any new military conflicts – every military action during the “Trump Years” of 2017-2021 were part of conflicts he inherited from Barack Obama.
The US and Western militaries in general, have been critically weakened as a result of the staggering incompetence of the last four years of mismanagement from Washington and NATO capitals. The aloof and disconnected-from-reality “ivory tower” political elites in the West have floundered as their intricate “house of cards” strategies for global dominance have collapsed, as those people they discounted as backwards, uneducated “camel jockeys”, simply declined to play by the script those elites had written for them.
Their first stumble was pushing Vladimir Putin’s Russia into invading Ukraine – the Western elites never imagined that Putin would actually invade – they assumed that he would either meekly acquiesce, or that he would launch a new Cold War, one that would boost the elites’ defense industry stock portfolios into orbit (literally)…The notion that Putin would actually commit to massive, “main force” combat on a scale not seen since 1990-1991 was never on their “bingo cards”.
Next came Africa, as local state armies – usually led by Western-trained officers (sparking delightfully daft conspiracy ravings from Left-wing talking heads) – in the “Coup Belt” of the Sahel Region decided that tossing out Western – primarily French – influence for good, via military action, was worth the risk. The elites were left slack-jawed to discover that what they had considered their racial and cultural inferiors had had enough of their paternalistic ravings, and told them to get out. So “uppity” has Africa gotten, that the Ugandan government publicly and messily refused to bend the knee to the United States over imposing visa restrictions on its officials over the country’s anti-LGBTQ policies – and had to watch as most African countries lined up behind the Central African state. Then, the Sahel nation of Niger – one of the most recent “Coup Belt” states – non-too politely told the US State and Defense departments to ‘pound sand’ over what they described as threats to the country if they did not immediately restore the corrupt government installed by French corporations – then told them that the DoD to remove the $100 million drone operations base at Agadez…To paraphrase a certain comic book-cum-movie character: “…Not a good plan, America…”
And then, there is Ukraine. It does not matter in the slightest, whether you support Ukraine, or Russia, or neither. That is literally irrelevant. All that matters, are three things:
- Despite obscene amounts of Western monetary and material support, Ukraine is losing the war. Deal with it.
- The nuclear saber rattling from both sides has brought the world closer to and intentional nuclear exchange than at any time in history.
- The United States and NATO defense establishments have demonstrated their categorical inability to supply even basic war materials – this is not Star Trek, and there are no replicators here
To this context, we must add the fact that North Korea – which was at least willing to listen to Trump, at some level – smelled weakness in Washington, and moved swiftly to capitalize on that weakness. (NB: The Freedomist covered this on its monthly subscription side, as well.)
…Which brings us back to Yemen.
Yemen is a truly ancient nation, with its recorded history stretching back at least 7,000 years, with much of that history revolving around the sea. Like most of the states and people’s in the region, Yemenis of all tribes and religious sects understand one of the core truisms of warfare: “A ship’s a fool to fight a fort.” (Attributed to Admiral Horatio Nelson.)
While some modern naval pundits have tried to dismiss this wisdom in the modern day – much as their recent ancestors though that “capabilities based planning” was a better idea than traditional strategic thinking – the current effort by Yemen’s Houthis has proven how true it really is, if one has the ability to think about warfare on multiple levels.
The Houthis have no defined “fort” to fight – the operate their missiles as a kind of “shell game”, shuttling them around the countryside, much as the original US strategy for the Minuteman Missile system of the 1980’s. That idea works, as sea-launched land-attack missiles have trouble finding those targets.
As a result, Houthi missiles fired into the Bab al Mandeb Strait have seriously damaged both world commerce, as well as local economies, with traffic through the Suez Canal dropping by c.65% overall, and with port calls to Red Sea ports falling by a staggering 85%. Naval missile attacks have done little to even slow the rates of attack in the region, much less stop them…because they can’t.
Added to this, has been the recent escalation in the Israel-Hamas war, first with the Iran-backed terror group Hezbollah launching multiple attacks into northern Israel, with the Israeli’s hitting back just as hard, if not harder.
Iran responded to these events by attacking Israel, several times. Now, as of November 15, 2024, Israel has attacked another Iranian nuclear facility.
But…What does this have to do with Yemen?
In fact, very little, at least at first glance. The problem is that Yemen is a fantastic foil for Iran against the United States and its allies: it forces Israel and those Western powers hostile to Iran to split their forces between theaters, while limiting their ability to shift naval forces. At the same time, the Houthis – and thus, Iran – have been able to critically damage the commercial system that the West depends on, and all without Iran becoming directly involved.
This situation has no solution, other than a very messy, and very bloody “boots on the ground” invasion of the Houthi-controlled areas of Yemen…by Trump…With all that implies, given the last twenty-five years of war.
This is because neither the Houthis, nor the Iranians, are willing to actually negotiate any sort of peace agreement, unless Israel agrees to undue everything it has done in reply to Hamas and Hezbollah…Which is simply not going to happen.
Because of the failures of the Biden administration, small but hostile powers states have launched wars because they saw the weaknesses of the United States and the West, and sought to capitalize on that weakness…and they know that Trump will not be able to fix those problems before the 2026 mid-term elections in the US.
If one were a conspiracy theorist, one could almost think that this was a deliberate ploy to undermine a Trump victory.
But that’s just crazy-talk.
Right?
