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(LifeSiteNews) — On December 31, rebels from the war torn country of Yemen launched a further attack on merchant shipping passing through the Suez canal. The drone assault on the Maersk Hangzhou was the second attack on the ship in two days – after the Danish-operated container vessel was struck by a missile on December 30.
The ship was hit twice despite a heavy United States Navy presence to defend international shipping. The attacks persist, and are undertaken in retaliation for Israel’s ground assault in Gaza. Global shipping giant Maersk, though Danish, maintains three offices in Israel.
U.S. Navy response
A U.S.-led naval initiative, known as Operation Prosperity Guardian, has so far failed to prevent this retaliation. The attacks are led by a Yemeni rebel faction, which has vowed to continue to target all Israeli-linked merchant shipping until a ceasefire in Gaza is announced.
The operation, declared by U.S. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin on December 19th, features the U.S. Navy’s Carrier Strike Group 2, which is headed by flagship aircraft carrier USS Dwight D Eisenhower. Whilst ships from the group have destroyed attacking small boats, they have been incapable of preventing the assaults and have failed to secure this major trade route.
Attacks continue
According to U.S. Central Command, which directs U.S. military operations in the region, this was the “23rd attack on international shipping in the area since such strikes began with the dramatic hijacking of the Israeli-owned car-carrier Galaxy Leader on November 19th.”
The attacks have been carried out by Ansur’Allah, a Shia rebel group which rules much of eastern Yemen. Known as the Houthis, this group has used small boats with outboard motors, cheap drone technology and hand-held rocket propelled grenades to thwart the U.S. Navy’s attempt to secure this major passage for global trade. The group has vowed to maintain the attacks as long as the Israeli ground operation in Gaza continues.
Global shipping rerouted
Maritime newswire Gcaptain reported on December 30 that the attacks have cut shipping traffic through the Suez canal in half. With major operators like Maersk now rerouting vessels round Africa to avoid the region, costs will rise for all goods transported on this much longer passage between the West and its major trade partners such as China.
Despite the intervention of the world’s most powerful navy global trade has been seriously disrupted – by weaker technology operated by a group of dedicated antagonist. This is a lesson the U.S. military has failed to learn in Vietnam, Afghanistan and in all its other adventures.
Escalation to (another) war?
The Houthis behind these attacks – on shipping linked to Israel – are often described in the mainstream media as “Iran-backed rebels.” The mainstream media stresses what is at best a tenuous link to Iran, whose government is sympathetic to and does aid the Houthis – but does not direct their operations.
The link to Iran is made to frame the crisis as a pressing case for yet another war. Senator Lindsey Graham has called for parts of Iran to be wiped off the map, with leading neoconservative John Bolton pressing for a full-scale war. In a December 28 article in the U.K.’s Daily Telegraph, Bolton uses the Houthi attacks to urge an immediate declaration of war on Iran, saying the West may “have no alternative” than to do so.
Bolton and Graham have long campaigned for the U.S. to attack Iran. It would be welcome news to their sponsors in the industry of forever war, whose influence has rotted U.S. democracy and society from within. U.K. Foreign Secretary David Cameron repeated the Iran link, as he warned on December 31 of imminent U.S. and U.K. air strikes on the Houthis in Yemen.
Cameron, whose actions as U.K. Prime Minister led to the destruction of Libya, has denounced the Houthis along with Hezbollah and Hamas as “proxies” of Iran. His framing is intended to position Iran as the problem, to be solved – of course – by yet another war. Whilst there are strong links to Iran to all three groups, the Houthis are fiercely independent, and U.S. ally Qatar’s leading role in funding Hamas is overlooked for reasons of convenience.
The unspeakable truth
In reality, and outside these feverish advertisements for another military and humanitarian disaster, the real reason for this crisis is the Biden administration’s support for Israel. Iran and Israel have been attacking each others’s ships for years, the escalation by the Yemeni Houthis is simply a sign that the backlash to Israel’s actions is now growing.
It is impossible for any major U.S. politician to point this out, such is the staggering influence of the Israel lobby in U.S. politics, which has effectively bought most U.S. presidents in recent memory.
Read more: Israel’s staggering influence over US politics
Yet it is clear to anyone capable of reading that the reason for these attacks is outrage at the atrocities committed by Israel in Gaza. The situation is out of the control of the U.S. State Department, as are the consequences of a crisis to which its chief diplomat Antony Blinken initially gave full backing. Speaking alongside Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on October 12, he said:
The message that I bring to Israel is this: You may be strong enough on your own to defend yourself, but as long as America exists, you will never, ever have to.
Blinken has now changed his mind, but he cannot compel Netanyahu to change direction.
U.S. losing control
As the attacks on shipping mounted, the Biden administration began to pressure Israel to wrap up its war in Gaza. Yet the Chief Diplomat of the U.S. did not succeed in this mission, with his efforts to persuade Netanyahu resulting in a humiliating climbdown. On December 7, Secretary of State Antony Blinken conceded that it was for Israel – and not the US – to decide when to end the war in Gaza.
As The Times of Israel reported, Blinken’s statement in Washington brought a defiant response from the Israeli Prime Minister, as Netanyahu repeated his October warning of a long war in Gaza.
The message is clear: Blinken can see the dangers in Netanyahu’s reckless provocations, but he is powerless to prevent them. All he can do is commit the U.S. – and the wider West – to carrying the can for an Israeli government whose strategy relies on escalation.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu faces prosecution on leaving office, and his entire political career has been staked on the destruction of the Palestinian peace process. The war we witness today has been thirty years in the making. Israel cannot win this war alone. It is Netanyahu’s strategy to provoke a regional escalation so severe as to make U.S. intervention inevitable.
With global trade disrupted, and war drums beating at home, it seems that no one in the U.S. government is capable of preventing the outbreak of a major war in the Middle East. Netanyahu’s political life depends on the deaths of others. The weakness of the Biden administration is defending his career at a human cost which threatens to become uncountable.
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