It's increasingly clear that President Biden's attempts to form and use an international coalition to stop Iran-backed Houthi rebels from attacking ships transiting the Red Sea have not been successful. Shipping vessels continue to come under attack as they sail past Yemen's coast and the terrorists have even fired at U.S. forces that are supposed to be deterring aggression.
Now, amid the failing attempts to stop the Houthi attacks, the Biden administration has issued another scolding letter. Joined by the governments of Australia, Bahrain, Belgium, Canada, Denmark, Germany, Italy, Japan, Netherlands, New Zealand, and the United Kingdom, the White House released a statement that begins by acknowledging the current efforts have failed.
The joint communication says that "in light of ongoing attacks, including a significant escalation over the past week targeting commercial vessels, with missiles, small boats, and attempted hijackings," the countries "hereby reiterate the following and warn the Houthis against further attacks." Ah, yes. Another warning. The kind of thing terrorists are known to specifically ignore.
The ongoing and escalating attacks launched by the Houthis and the Biden administration's failure to lead a coalition in stopping these attacks are also outlined in the joint statement.
"Ongoing Houthi attacks in the Red Sea are illegal, unacceptable, and profoundly destabilizing," the governments scold in the statement. "There is no lawful justification for intentionally targeting civilian shipping and naval vessels," it added, as if terrorists care about international maritime law. "Attacks on vessels, including commercial vessels, using unmanned aerial vehicles, small boats, and missiles, including the first use of anti-ship ballistic missiles against such vessels, are a direct threat to the freedom of navigation that serves as the bedrock of global trade in one of the world’s most critical waterways," the statement reiterates, underscoring the cost of failed deterrence.
"Nearly 15 percent of global seaborne trade passes through the Red Sea, including 8 percent of global grain trade, 12 percent of seaborne-traded oil and 8 percent of the world’s liquefied natural gas trade," the statement continued. "International shipping companies continue to reroute their vessels around the Cape of Good Hope, adding significant cost and weeks of delay to the delivery of goods, and ultimately jeopardizing the movement of critical food, fuel, and humanitarian assistance throughout the world," explains the joint warning of what continued attacks will mean for the world.
One might expect, given the stakes, that Biden would be doing a little more than issuing repeated unheeded warnings to a terrorist group that, unsurprisingly, does not care that its actions are illegal or jeopardizing global supply chains.
In an attempt to show some muscle to back up its warning, the joint communication states that the Houthis "will bear the responsibility of the consequences should they continue to threaten lives, the global economy, and free flow of commerce in the region’s critical waterways" and that the countries "remain committed to the international rules-based order and are determined to hold malign actors accountable for unlawful seizures and attacks."
The problem, of course, is that such warnings from Biden don't carry much deterring effect. Whether it's the Houthis or other Iran-backed proxies in Iraq and Syria, Biden has not given these terrorists a reason to believe the cost of continuing attacks outweighs the potential benefit of launching those attacks.
So far, the Houthis have managed to effectively establish a blockade of this critical shipping route, and all they've paid is the loss of a few of their fighters. That's a great deal for these Iran-backed terrorists, and that's why this supposed deterrence hasn't deterred much of anything.
If Biden and his international coalition expect to preserve freedom of navigation through the Red Sea, they need to do something — not just issue statements. A good start would be using aerial surveillance to find the locations from which ballistic missiles, rockets, kamikaze drones, and terrorist-carrying boats are being launched and turn them into smoldering craters. Then figure out where the Houthis' weapons are being stored and light the stockpiles up like the Fourth of July. Once that's done, figure out how new weapons are getting into the terrorists' hands and take out the infrastructure, vehicles, and people facilitating the arming of the Houthis. For good measure, it wouldn't hurt to figure out who's arranging for the Houthis to get such weapons or giving them orders to attack ships in the Red Sea and give that person (or persons) the Soleimani treatment.
Commenting on the situation, Bradley Bowman, the Senior Director of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD) Center on Military and Political Power said this week that "the real question is whether the White House will grant the U.S. military permission to target Houthi infrastructure in Yemen that the group is using to conduct these attacks." Indeed.
It's not difficult to project needed strength. Joe Biden has the greatest and most lethal fighting forces in the world at his disposal. As former President Trump demonstrated with the drone strike that killed Soleimani four years ago this week, such actions shut down terrorist ambitions pretty quickly. Free travel through the Red Sea could resume within days if Biden only took action. But he hasn't.
As a result, the Houthis are still carrying out their attacks on shipping vessels, using new and more serious weapons to do so, and thumbing their nose at Biden & Co. for thinking that appealing to the nonexistent better angels of terrorists can convince them to stop breaking laws. Now, Iran is joining the party by deploying a warship, the Alborz, in the Red Sea. Another statement like the one released on Wednesday, or 500 more for that matter, won't stop the terrorists or their Iranian backers. Only decisive American strength can restore and maintain peace on the Red Sea.