A drone attack by the Iran-backed Yemeni Houthi militia on Monday, January 17, hit an oil tanker storage area killing three people in the United Arab Emirates (U.A.E.). The airstrike also caused a fire at Abu Dhabi's international airport. It was another of many such incidents targeting oil storage facilities in the U.A.E. and Saudi Arabia, U.S. partners in the region. Houthi officials were quick to take credit.
These assaults on U.S. regional allies creates a conundrum for the Biden foreign policy team. Early in the administration, Liberty Nation reported the U.S. State Department notified Congress that it intended to remove the designation Foreign Terrorist Organization (FTO) from the Houthi militia, also known as Ansarallah. LN made the following point: "The Trump administration designated the Houthi militia a terrorist organization because it did what terrorists do." Obviously, that observation continues to be true.
In recent years Houthi, militants have carried out numerous terrorist acts against the U.A.E. and Saudi Arabia. In 2019, Ansarallah rebels targeted the Saudi oil field storage tanks and refineries. As a result, production was disrupted for several months. These relentless assaults create real problems for the president’s diplomatic initiatives in the Middle East. First, the U.S. national security team must address the immediate issue of attacks on the Emirates and Saudi Arabia. Second, Biden's State Department must confront Iran supplying the weapons and training enabling Houthis to carry out the attacks.
According to The New York Times, White House National security Advisor Jake Sullivan stated:
"The Houthis have claimed responsibility for this attack, and we will work with the U.A.E. and international partners to hold them accountable. Our commitment to the security of the U.A.E. is unwavering, and we stand beside our Emirati partners against all threats to their territory."
Those are strong words of support, but do they ring hollow? Liberty Nation's analysis of the Foreign Military Sales of American-made F-35 fifth-generation jet fighters to the U.A.E. reported, "The Biden State Department wants to tell the U.A.E. how and where it can use the weapons." According to LN, Foggy Bottom "put restrictions on where and how the F-35s and other weapons can be used. For example, they can't be used against the Iran-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen." The apparent duplicity makes the average man on the street scratch his head wondering what "Our commitment to the security of the U.A.E. is unwavering" actually means. Furthermore, how does the U.S. persuade Iran not to provide the means for the Houthi militias to carry out, as one Emirati official put it, "cowardly act[s] to spread terrorism and chaos in the region?" It's a sticky problem for Secretary of State Antoni Blinken, who wants to resurrect nuclear disarmament talks with Iran.
The Iranians will explain that what they are doing in Yemen has nothing to do with giving new life to the old Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA). Underscoring that point, Ghaida Ghantous and Parisa Hafezi writing for Reuters, quoted a senior Iranian official, who explained: "The attacks would not impact the nuclear talks in Vienna. These are two separate issues. What happened yesterday was the result of [the] ongoing crisis in Yemen." The Iranian official was being disingenuous; everything that happens in the Gulf region is connected in some way. When a person in one country sneezes, someone in another pulls out a handkerchief.
If history is any indicator of where the U.S. will come down, Biden’s State Department will not hold Iran accountable for assisting Houthis' activities. The U.S. will not leverage its participation in a resurrected JCPOA to move Tehran to stop supporting the Yemeni terrorist militia. The Biden administration will not behave with any more backbone than the Obama team. After all, both sets were made up of mostly the same people.
What Yemen's Houthi terrorist militias have accomplished, besides destroying some oil storage tankers and killing innocent civilians, is to highlight the U.S. foreign policy dilemma. Unfortunately, it is a difficulty of the Biden administration's own making. To recover, the State Department should redesignate Ansarallah and associated Houthi terrorist groups as FTOs and explain to the Tehran leadership that no JCPOA redux will take place until Iran cuts ties with them. Lastly, when it comes to U.S. Middle East allies, the national security team cannot say one thing and behave differently.
The views expressed are those of the author and not of any other affiliation.
~ Read more from Dave Patterson.
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