(Bloomberg Opinion) -- There are at least two views you can take on the US decision, joined by Britain, to strike Houthi targets in Yemen early Friday. Although they are entirely contradictory, both would be correct.
The first is that this was inevitable. Both politically and to retain credible deterrence against further hostile actions by Iran and its proxies, doing nothing was simply not an option for President Joe Biden. The second view, and doubtless the reason he hadย first hesitated, is that there is little likelihood of success and a measurable risk of escalation.
If the strategic goals of the US are to restore the free flow of trade through the Red Sea, to prevent the war between Hamas and Israel in Gaza from igniting a regional conflagration, and to thwart Iranian efforts to halt Israel's normalizationย intoย a new, more stable and prosperous Middle East, then this morning's fire and brimstone is likely to prove counterproductive.
In fact, one can't help but feel that the US, like Israel after Oct. 7, is dancing to a tune that was scripted for it by a rogue militia in a failed quasi-state that has little to lose.
Success here is not measured in terms of blowing things up. It would come as a shock if the US and UK pilots and gun crewsย did not do their job well; they're probably the best-trained and equipped in the world. But the chances that the Houthis lost all their missile strike capability overnight, much of it mobile and therefore hard to targetย without significant numbers of allied boots on the ground,ย are surely zero.ย They've survivedย years of aerial bombardment from advanced US jets flown by Saudi and United Arab Emirates pilots. If anything has changed, it's that the Red Sea may be on its way to becoming a war zone.
That has the potential to increase the impact on global markets. Although container shipping rates rose sharply since the Houthis began their harassment, they have yet to target oil tankers. Oilย markets were little impacted until today, when Brent crude rose as much as 3.5% to top $80 a barrel in London for the first time this year. After the strikes on Friday, the US warned all commercial shipping to exercise caution in the area.
Drawing fire from the โGreat Satan,โ asย America is known in Iran's so-called axis of resistance,ย under the guise of fighting for the Palestinian cause will have been part of the Houthi game plan.ย The Houthis have now pledged a response, declaring all US and UK interests fair game, and it would be โfoolish,โย to use their word, to doubt them. Like Hamas, the Houthis are very bad at governing and unpopular in peace time. This fight is expected to raise their status at home and abroad.
The Rand Paul-connected US think tank Defense Priorities is as reliable as a stopped clock in its opposition to the use of US military force abroad, but this is one occasion where its skepticism happens to be right. โIn underlining their claim to be battling Israel and its US backers in defense of Gaza, the airstrikes may actually be welcomed by Houthi leaders,โ and as they double down, invite further US escalation, the think tank's policy director Benjamin H. Friedman said in a statement Friday morning. Moreover, the actual threat being responded to was not that crippling to world trade. โThe fact is that the Houthi attacks on shipping have not been particularly effective, nor are they a major economic issue.โย
That situation might well have changed if the Houthis were allowed to continue. But if you doubt thatย the main aim of Iran and its proxies is to stoke anger at the US, listen to Hezbollah's response to the US action. โThe American aggression confirms once again that the US is a full partner in the tragedies and massacres committed by the Zionist enemy in Gaza and the region,โย the Lebanon-based group said in a statement on Friday.
Hamas, Iran and their allies are looking to inflame distrust and hatred of Israel and the US across the Middle East, to the point where any connection with them becomes so toxic that leaders from Saudi Arabia to Egypt are forced to distance themselves. The so-called Arab street was already incensed against Israelย and favored Houthi actions in the Red Sea as a defense of Gaza's suffering Palestinian population.ย The kind of economic and security rapprochement that had been underway before Oct. 7ย would become politically impossible.
In a poll of 8,000 people across 16 Arab countries, published by the Doha-based Arab Center for Research and Policy Studies on Jan. 10, 36% gave suspending relations or normalization with Israel as their top measure for pressuring it to end its war in Gaza. Of the eight other options on offer, the next most popular โย delivering aid to Gaza without Israel's approval โย scored well under half that figure. Meanwhile, 89% opposed Israel's recognitionย and 77% saw either the US or Israel as the region's greatest security threat. By contrast, only 7% saw Iran, an ancient and current Arab rival, as the top threat to stability. The war in Gaza has shifted those numbers against the US significantly.
Foreign policy is not a popularity contest, but soft power matters and hatred of the US and Israel constrains what Arab leaders can say and do. There remains no evidence that Iran instigated Hamas's Oct. 7 savagery, but it has so far been a beneficiary of the Israeli and US responses.ย No matter the verdict, the fact that Israel โย of all countries โย is now on trial for alleged genocide at the UN's International Court of Justice in the Hague is another win for opponents of the Jewish state.
The counter to all this is, of course, thatย the US and its allies taking military action beforeย wasn't working. The Houthis were becoming bolder in their strikes against international shipping, including the naval vessels that the US and others sent to protect the roughly 12% of global trade that passes through the Red Sea every day. And although the Houthis have proven themselves extraordinarily resilient as a fighting force, they are not immune to attack.
As Seth Jones, director of the international security and transnational threats programs at the Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies put it to me just hours before the air US strikes, โthe ambition here isn't to stop the Houthi attacks โ I'm not sure you can โย but to degrade their capability to carry them out and to punish them.โ
Jones expects the Houthis to fire into the shipping lanes again, and for the US to go on hitting launchers and missile depots in response, with the goal of imposing enough cost on the Houthi's missile capabilities that it might eventually erode their will to continue. That, at the same time, should signal to Iran and Hezbollah that when the US sets red lines against the Gaza war's expansion, they will be enforced. I expect the same, forย better and worse.ย So too, no doubt, do the Iranians and the Houthis.
More From Bloomberg Opinion:
- Wars Are Becoming Existential, Like It or Not: Marc Champion
- Red Sea Dangers Grow for America's Wary Allies: Lionel Laurent
- Retailers Can Manage Red Sea Shipping Delays โ for Now: Felsted & Miranda
This column does not necessarily reflect the opinion of the editorial board or Bloomberg LP and its owners.
Marc Champion is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist covering Europe, Russia and the Middle East. He was previously Istanbul bureau chief for the Wall Street Journal.
More stories like this are available on bloomberg.com/opinion
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