U.S. President Donald Trump has re-designated the Houthi rebels of Yemen as a foreign terrorist organization. That they deserve the label is indisputable.
Trump put the Houthis on the list of Foreign Terrorist Organizations during his first term in office. President Biden, soon after moving into the White House, removed that well-earned black mark.
Why? He said it was for humanitarian purposes, to facilitate aid deliveries into Yemen.
The Houthis were soon seizing much of that aid for their own uses. Why did Biden anticipate another result?
The Houthis call themselves Ansar Allah, which means helpers or supporters of Allah. Their governing slogan, or sarkha, which means “collective outcry,” does not mince words: “Allah is the Greatest, Death to America, Death to Israel, A Curse Upon the Jews, Victory to Islam.”
After Hamas invaded Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, the Houthis began rocketing ships off the coast of Yemen—hundreds of missiles and drones fired over the past 15 months.
The Houthis are now saying that, so long as the ceasefire between Hamas and Israel holds, they’ll refrain from striking ships not carrying goods to or from Israel.
Executives of the large shipping companies are skeptical and have no plans to send their vessels near Yemen anytime soon.
Before this ragtag band of rebels began attacking international shipping, close to 15% of global trade and 30% of global container traffic passed through the Suez Canal which connects the Mediterranean Sea to the Red Sea and, via the Bab el-Mandeb Strait, to the Arabian Sea and Indian Ocean beyond.
The cost of rerouting ships—taking the long voyage around the southern coast of Africa—has been estimated at more than $40 billion over the past year.
Under President Biden, the U.S. military response to Houthi bellicosity was technologically impressive, expensive and strategically ineffective. An estimated billion dollars was spent intercepting and destroying incoming Houthi missiles—an approach akin to shooting incoming arrows.
That may have frustrated the Houthis, but it was no way to defeat them.
A preferable approach—one Biden pursued only intermittently—would have been to shoot the archers.
Even better than that—or simultaneously—Biden could have instructed Iran’s rulers to stop supplying rockets and drones to the Houthis.
If he told them “don’t!” and they continued to do, he would then have needed to order airstrikes to turn Tehran’s missile-and-drone factories into rubble—which is probably why he decided against telling them to stop.
President Trump should now do the job that President Biden was not bold enough to do.
He also should sink ships attempting to deliver weapons to the Houthis and—this is long overdue—put holes in the hull of the Iranian ship that has been providing the Houthis with targeting intelligence. Moscow also has reportedly been providing targeting data. So Moscow, too, should suffer serious consequences.
If the Houthis are not soon defeated, the image of American weakness will be reinforced and—even more significantly—a precedent will be set.
I mentioned above the Bab el-Mandeb, the narrow strait where most of the Houthi attacks have taken place. It’s one of the world’s most strategic waterways.
Another highly strategic waterway is the Strait of Hormuz, which connects the Persian Gulf to the Arabian Sea. It’s the primary route for oil exports from Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait, Iraq and Iran.
A third hugely strategic waterway: the Strait of Malacca and South China Sea, through which one-third of global shipping passes.
Not coincidentally, Iran’s navy has been harassing ships in the Strait of Hormuz and China’s navy has stepped up harassment of ships in the South China Sea.
Freedom of the seas is a fundamental and longstanding principle of international law. The dictators in Beijing will doubtless decide that if Yemeni and Iranian jihadis can violate it, they can, too.
Doing so undermines the international system that the United States has built and led since the end of World War II.
That benefits China’s ruler, Xi Jinping, who is determined to establish what he has called “a new world order”—one in which the People’s Republic of China displaces the United States as the dominant global superpower.
Those allied with him can then make whatever rules they like and enforce them as they see fit.
One example already in operation: Tehran, Moscow, Pyongyang and Hamas take innocent civilians as hostages. Nations that abide by international law, such as the United States, Israel and Italy, will not do the same. Instead, they trade for convicted terrorists and criminals or pay huge ransoms.
This is called—and, in effect, normalized as—“hostage diplomacy.”
Another example: Qassem Soleimani headed Tehran’s Quds Force, deemed a foreign terrorist organization by the United States. According to the Pentagon, he was “responsible for the deaths of hundreds of American and coalition service members” and planned to kill many more.
In 2020, President Trump ordered an airstrike that eliminated him— imposing punishment for, and preventing additional acts of, terrorism and mass murder.
In response, Tehran threatened to assassinate Trump and several former U.S. government officials involved in Trump’s decision. The regime was saying: “We get to kill Americans. We expect you to take it and shut up. We make and enforce the rules.”
Trump would be well advised to very publicly warn Iran’s rulers that if any Americans are harmed by their agents—if he even suspects they’re behind an attack on an American citizen—there will be “hell to pay,” and the bills will be delivered to Tehran.
An America that is great again enforces at least some laws in the world, understanding that if it doesn’t, its enemies will.