Military action against land-based targets in Yemen moves a step closer

Attacks on merchant ships can't be tolerated, period. That's a fact regardless of whether one thinks about Israel or the US role there. My take on this is pretty crass: I hope a coalition of whoever is interested and affected can help level as much as is necessary in Yemen and that mission is accomplished when shipping insurance rates return to what they were before. A ceasefire in Palestine is a good idea no doubt, but from my safe armchair it looks a lot more attractive to spend billions of dollars and risk a lot of collateral damage in land attacks in Yemen than give the impression that a ceasefire happened through blackmail.

I think that it&#x27;s not the job of US to escalate here. US is hurt by these attacks, but other countries are hurt much more - they should take the lead on &quot;solving&quot; this problem. For US, there&#x27;s too much risk and too little benefit to engage more.<p>(I&#x27;m not American BTW)

I read this and it resonated with me: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.bloomberg.com&#x2F;opinion&#x2F;articles&#x2F;2024-01-03&#x2F;us-can-strike-houthi-and-iranian-targets-to-protect-red-sea-shipping" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.bloomberg.com&#x2F;opinion&#x2F;articles&#x2F;2024-01-03&#x2F;us-can...</a>

The ever-excellent Perun has a video about Houthi attacks on shipping, and the effects that has on global trade : <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.youtube.com&#x2F;watch?v=8GKlKYQDDcQ" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.youtube.com&#x2F;watch?v=8GKlKYQDDcQ</a>

As Immortal Technique said in a recent interview, the US can&#x27;t really protect Israel, or anyone in the region. It can only attack and deliver weapons, but it has no (credible) diplomatic voice with which to pursue anything but more war. The US cannot tell anyone &quot;hey guys, you need to stop&quot; and even get a hearing. That&#x27;s not just because &quot;they&quot; all hate the US 24&#x2F;7, unchanged, regardless of what is done except killing everybody, that&#x27;s in part a result of how the US tends to interact with the region and the conflict(s).

Coincidentally was reading up on this last night. For anyone interested in a deep-dive on Yemen Houthi insurgents, some history, ... here is a great starter <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.academia.edu&#x2F;50126966&#x2F;Jihadi_Militancy_and_Houthi_Insurgency_in_Yemen" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.academia.edu&#x2F;50126966&#x2F;Jihadi_Militancy_and_Houth...</a><p>There are parallels with other conflicts the US has gotten involved in and with strong potential for it to become another forever-war.

I don&#x27;t think it matters what the US decides to do here. It&#x27;s a lost cause either way. If the last failed war in Afghanistan (and Vietnam) taught us anything, it&#x27;s that native bootstrapped insurgency is impossible to stop, as long as it&#x27;s cheap and persistent enough and can keep the recruits coming. Yemen&#x27;s Houthis are arguably gaining even more popular support than the Taliban ever had, across the entire Muslim world, Sunni and Shia united. The fact that the US&#x27;s closest allies, even Saudi Arabia who had previously fought the Houthis for years, are refusing to cooperate publicly on this one, is a sign of the massive popular support that the Houthis enjoy. They&#x27;ll have no trouble refilling their ranks.<p>Also doesn&#x27;t help that they have an indirect line to Russian military manufacturing via Iran.

What land-based targets in Yemen could be attacked, that would degrade drone launches? These things[0] are very small, gas-powered, and can launch from basically anywhere. And their entire supply chain is in Iran, not Yemen.<p>[0] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Samad_(UAV)" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Samad_(UAV)</a>

Don&#x27;t seriously expect much if anything to occur. The obvious downside is that after the initial bombing, they&#x27;d discover that running drones is cheap. Ultimately there&#x27;ll be a defensive solution for awhile.

It does look, like geopolitical strategist Peter Zeihan warned, that international ship lanes are likely to become more dangerous.<p>It will be interesting how the USA and the international community respond to increasing incidents.

Does it make any sense to think Russia can be behind all those moviments to stretch thin American political will and take American impulse out of the Ucranian front?

I think we should skip the middle man and attack the source directly. This means tomahawk&#x27;d Khomeini or Putin.

Wondering if 2024 will go down in history as the official start to WW3.

Given that the Houthis have said they are holding up ships they consider linked to Israel, and that everyone in the UN bar the US and Israel are calling for a ceasefire, and that South Africa have detailed a case for genocide against Israel, wouldn&#x27;t it be more useful to get a ceasefire, so then the Houthis can stop?<p>Generally this article is called doubling down, and the only people that get hurt in these scenarios are the inhabitants of these countries, who then become refugees knocking on other countries&#x27; doorsteps.

Is this perhaps just some weird, multi stage plan to get Saudi Arabia closer with the US?<p>Having Iran launch a proxy attack against merchant ships seems like the cover Saudi Arabia has wanted to escalate their attacks against this group.<p>I’m interested in Iran’s goal here, but don’t have a good analysis that doesn’t seem to be driving toward a particular narrative.

Hard to not feel like we are the baddies on this one.<p>The same coalition could push for a peaceful solution in Israel and Palestine, which would also eliminate Iranian influence in the region, but instead they let the far-right in Israel create a mess and we get pulled along for a big conflict with Iran.