Leveling Iran-backed Shiite Houthi rebels’ radar sites off the Yemen coast in the Red Sea, President Barack Obama responded to missile attacks Sunday, Oct. 9 and Monday Oct. 10 on the Destroyer U.S.S. Mason. Backed by Iran, Houthis seized April 2, 2015 Yemen’s Port of Aden and Presidential Palace, after Saudi Arabia started bombing Houthis March 26, 2015. Stalemated for nearly two years, bombing Houthi radar installation allows Saudi Arabia to move more freely in the Port of Aden to attack Houthis. When an Oct.8 air strike struck a Houthi funeral in the capital of Sanaa killing 140, the Houthis have been on the warpath, firing missiles at the U.S.S. Mason. Obama rightly responded to the unproved attack in international waters, putting Houthis and Iran on notice that aggressive acts will be answered. Hitting three radar sites with Cruise missiles, the U.S. showed its range and precision.
Launched the U.S.S. Nitze Arleigh Burke-class Destroyer, Houthis go a taste of U.S. naval firepower. “These limited self-defense strikes were conducted to protect out personnel, our ships and our freedom of navigation in this important maritime passageway,” said Pentagon Press Secretary Peter Cook. With talk of confrontation between Russia and the U.S. in Aleppo, the U.S.S. Nitze puts U.S. firepower on full display for Russia or any other country believing the 2016 campaign rhetoric that the U.S. Navy has lost its capability. Whatever the size of the fleet, U.S. warships are equipped with the world’s most lethal weapons. “The United State will respond to any further threat to our ships and commercial traffic, as appropriate, and will continue to maintain our freedom of navigation in the Red Sea, the Bab el-Mandeb and elsewhere around the world.”
Cook’s statements telegraph to the Chinese that any interference with navigation or commercial travel through the South China Sea would also be met with a decisive U.S. response. Rejecting Beijing’s claim July 12 to sovereignty over waterways in the South China Sea, an international tribunal at The Hague rejected China’s military installations built in the shallow Spratly Islands in the South China Sea. U.S. Cruise missile strikes in Yemen prompted Iran to send two warships to the Gulf of Aden. Yemen’s state news agency under Houthi control denied that Houthi forces fired on the U.S.S. Mason. “Such claims are part of the general context of creating false justifications to escalate assaults and cover the continuous crimes committed by aggression against the Yemeni people, along with the blockade imposed on it, and other the increasing condemnations to such barbaric and hideous crimes against Yemenis.”
No matter where on globe, propagandists divert attention from what really happened. Fired on again Wednesday from the Houthi-controlled coast, the U.S.S. Mason took defensive action requesting back-up from the U.S. Nitze, firing Cruise missiles at Houthi radar installations. “These unjustified attacks are serious, but they will not deter us from our mission,” said Adm. John Richardson, defending U.S. actions to take out Houthi radar. While there’s been no response from Iran suspected of arming Yemen’s Houthi rebels, the U.S. sees Yemen as another battleground between Iran’s Shiites and Saudi Arabia’s Wahhabis. Syria’s war involves Saudi-backed Wahhabi rebels seeking to topple the Shiite government of Bashar al-Assad. It’s no secret that the Obama White House backs the Saudi proxy war against al-Assad, pitting the U.S. against Russian and Iran.
Hitting radar sites in Yemen, the White House hopes to undermine GOP nominee real estate magnate Donald Trump’s claim that the military under Obama has grown feckless. While there’s little risk of retaliation from the Houthis, there’s potential backlash from Rusia with whom relations have hit Cold War lows. Calling the Oct. 8 missile strikes on a Sanaa funeral “war crimes,” London-based Human Rights Watch wants a thorough investigation of who launched the strike. Found at the scene were fragments of American-made missiles, something either fired by the Saudis or other U.S. surrogates. White House officials said they’d investigate to see whether or not the attack was consistent with U.S. rules of engagement. Iran denies that it backs the Houthi rebels, despite the U.S. navy intercepting Iranian ships loaded with Arms heading the Houthi government in Aden.
Successfully striking an UAE swift-boat in the Port of Aden Oct. 5, Houthi rebels showed they could inflict damage on commercial vessels passing through the Red Sea’s Mab el Mandeb strait toward the Suez Canal. Hitting Houthis’s radar sites fires a shot across the bow to ambitions rebels trying to block commercial vessels, especially oil tankers, heading from North African and Mideat to Europe. “Houthi relations with the Islamic Republic of Iran resembles the Iran-Hamas relationship more than Iran-Hezbollah relationship—that is, the Houthis are autonomous partners who usually act in accordance with their own interests . . .” wrote the Washington-based Institute for Near East Policy. Unlike Syria where striking Russian or Syrian targets could escalate the conflict, hitting Houthi radar isn’t likely to do much. Obama at least served notice that the U.S. can hit military targets at will.
