Joe Biden’s Minimum-Pressure Campaign Concessions to the Houthis encourage more Houthi attacks.
https://www.wsj.com/articles/joe-bidens-minimum-pressure-campaign-11615332864?mod=opinion_lead_pos4
“Appeasement rarely works as a military or diplomatic strategy—especially not in the Middle East.”
Step one in the Biden Administration’s peace campaign in Yemen: Take the Houthis off the U.S. terror list and reach out to their patrons in Iran for a new nuclear deal.
Step two: End U.S. support for the Arab coalition supporting the internationally recognized government fighting the Houthis in Yemen, put U.S. arms sales to the Saudis on hold, and talk loudly about a “recalibration” of U.S.-Saudi relations.
Step three: The Houthis go on the offensive and on the weekend launch missiles and drones at several Saudi cities and Saudi Aramco facilitiies. The coalition says it intercepted most of the missiles and drones, but the attacks briefly caused an oil price spike. This incident followed other Houthi attacks and U.S. State Department lectures that the Houthis should cease and desist. They didn’t get the message.
Is anyone outside the U.S. State Department surprised? The Houthis are growing bolder as they understandably assume that the Saudis have lost U.S. support. Rather than negotiate, they’re looking to expand their territorial gains in Yemen and keep the military pressure on the Arab coalition. The attacks on Saudi cities and oil facilities are likely to increase, and sooner or later they could do serious harm.
The stakes here are larger than a brawl over real estate on the Saudi peninsula. Oil prices are rising for several reasons, not least growing global demand as the pandemic eases. But significant damage to Saudi production could send oil prices much higher given the pandemic slump in drilling capacity in U.S. shale.
“We have a policy in recent years of so-called ‘maximum pressure’ on Iran that has not produced results,” Secretary of State Antony Blinken said last month of Donald Trump’s sanctions campaign against Tehran. “The problem has gotten worse.” Perhaps, but so far President Biden’s minimum-pressure policy has rewarded Iran while the problem has gotten even worse.
The White House desire to negotiate an end to the humanitarian disaster that is the Yemen war is understandable. But that prospect ebbs if the Houthis think they’re winning. President Biden and Mr. Blinken hoped the U.S. concessions would reduce tensions, but they seem only to have emboldened Iran and the Houthis while making the Saudis wonder about U.S. reliability.
It’s the same story across the Iran portfolio. The U.S. withdrew its claim to “snap back” sanctions on Tehran at the United Nations, and Europe has scrapped a plan to rebuke Iran for reducing cooperation with inspectors from the International Atomic Energy Agency. Yet the Iranians refuse to negotiate, and on Monday the U.N. agency said Tehran recently began enriching even more uranium with another cascade of advanced centrifuges.
In February Mr. Biden struck back against Iran-backed Shiite militias, which have been attacking U.S. interests and endangering American lives in Iraq. Yet Pentagon spokesman John Kirby insists on referring to such groups as “Shia-backed militias.” The Defense Department would rather blame an entire religious group than acknowledge that Tehran is trying to kill Americans through its proxies.
Appeasement rarely works as a military or diplomatic strategy—especially not in the Middle East.
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