Besides discussing the latest escalation in Yemen, with the U.S. and U.K. carrying out airstrikes against targets in a Yemeni port city Al-Hudaydah and Sana’a, I am posting today’s intel roundtable with Ray McGovern and Judge Napolitano as well as my chat with Ania K.
I recall my boss at State Counter Terrorism — retired USMC Colonel Dick Gannon — saying, “You can’t fix stupid.” The U.S. and U.K. airstrikes on Yemen are absolutely stupid and is likely to ignite a spiral of violence that will leave Americans and Brits dead. The cable news shows absolutely love this story. They get to show video footage of F-18s zooming off the deck of a carrier and pictures of boiling clouds of black smoke risking above the cities of Sana’a and Al-Hudaydah (see above).
But what does this accomplish? From a military standpoint, it is unlikely that these bombings destroyed or damaged any Houthi rocket/drone/missile warehouses. Why? Because Antony Blinken briefed the leaders of Turkey, Greece, Jordan, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia on the U.S. plan to hit Yemen. What are the odds that at least one senior person in the know passed that info along to folks in Yemen? I put it at 100%.
So what? That gave Yemen time to disperse its assets or hide them in a secure location. I wonder if Shakespeare had Joe Biden in mind when he penned this observation in Macbeth:
Life’s but a walking shadow; a poor player, that struts and frets his hour upon the stage, and then is heard no more: it is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.”
This bombing is unlikely to achieve any meaningful degrading of Yemeni missile and drone capabilities, but it will rally more of the global Arab and muslim street to the side of the Houthis. It also raises the risk that the Houthis, who up until now had only targeted ships linked to Israel, will expand targets to include U.S. and U.K. vessels.
Important to remember that the U.S. and U.K. ships can only spend a limited time in the Red Sea before they have to set sail for a port, such as Dubai, where the destroyers can replace the empty VLS missile tubes. I think it also is likely that U.S. and U.K. embassies, consulates will be attacked and that commercial enterprises viewed as U.S. or U.K. will be targeted. Nabil Khoury, a former deputy chief of the US mission in Yemen, appeared on Al Jazeera and observed, “the attacks on Yemen are a “failure of American diplomacy.” He also noted that as a result of these actions:
the US and UK bombing of Houthi targets in Yemen, the Biden administration effectively became “a direct participant in the war in Gaza,” Khoury told Al Jazeera. “The situation can only get worse from here,” he said. “I think this is a serious mistake. I think more effort should have been made to contain the Houthis… If the US and Britain think this will silence the Houthis, I think they have something else in mind.”
I agree with Mr. Khoury. Punching Yemen in the nose is not a knock out blow. Moreover, the Houthis have 9 years of war experience under their belts. They ain’t afraid to fight Washington and London from the relative secure confines of Yemen. Keep your eye on USCENTCOM — the U.S. miitary element responsible for military operations in the Middle East. CENTCOM normally conducts regular exercises for its own forces and with the forces of friendly nations. If the exercises currently on the calendar are executed then that is a signal that the CENTCOM commander does not expect much fallout from these strikes. However, if CENTCOM moves to cancel exercises then that signals the U.S. military is buckling up for an extended conflict.
And that raises a more serious and significant question — how does the U.S. sustain naval combat operations when it is already running low on inventories of missiles? When the U.S. and U.K. warships run out of missiles and bombs — and they will run out if Yemen is able to launch sustained drone and missile attacks for two weeks without pause — the American and British naval forces will be compelled to withdraw in order to rearm. This will be perceived in Yemen and other sympathetic nations as a retreat. The ball is now in Yemen’s court. What will be their next volley?
There also is an interesting legal question about the legitimacy of Biden ordering this strike. It does not fall under the Authorization for Use of Military Force (aka AUMF) issued in 2001 in the wake of the 9-11 attacks. Although Donald Trump as President designated the Houthis as a terror group, which could be argued falls under the 2001 AUMF, Joe Biden de-listed the Houtis. Therefore, under what legal authority did Biden commit and act of war against Yemen without Congressional approval? There are several members of the President’s own party raising hell about this tonight.
