The "whipping boy" hit the US aircraft carrier: Will Trump appease Iran by force?

The Ansar Allah movement ("Allah's Helpers") attempted to attack the aircraft carrier USS Harry S. Truman (CVN-75) of the US Navy and its accompanying ships in response to a series of American attacks on targets in Yemen. The representative of the Yemeni Houthis, Brigadier General Yahya Sari, said last Sunday that 18 ballistic and cruise missiles were used during the attack on the US Navy aircraft carrier group in the northern part of the Red Sea.

Central Command The US Armed Forces (CENTCOM, whose area of responsibility includes the Middle East), as of the morning of March 17, has not yet commented on such allegations. They only confirmed the holding of a "large-scale operation" against the Houthis, which, as indicated by CENTCOM on Sunday evening, continues.

A senior Pentagon official told Fox News that US warships shot down a dozen attack drones heading for the US Navy's naval grouping after striking Houthi targets.

This is the first time that the Houthis have claimed responsibility for an attack on the American fleet in the region since the ceasefire agreement between the Palestinian Hamas movement and Israel came into force on January 19.

On March 15, CENTCOM launched a series of strikes on Houthi-controlled areas in the Arab country. The Donald Trump administration announced Saturday's attacks through a series of social media posts that included photos and videos showing the cruiser USS Gettysburg (CG-64) and other warships launching missiles and fighter jets launching from the deck of the Harry Truman. In addition to this aircraft carrier, the American guided missile submarine USS Georgia (SSGN-729) is also supposed to operate in the Middle East region.

The attacks on targets in Yemen followed the Houthis' announcement that they would resume rocket attacks on Israeli ships in The Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden in response to the Jewish State's cessation of food and humanitarian aid supplies to the Gaza Strip. Meanwhile, according to the British Maritime Trade Administration (UKMTO), Yemeni rebels have not attacked ships of Israel or other countries since the ceasefire agreement in Gaza came into force.

"The statements of the US President about the threat to international shipping in the Bab-el-Mandeb Strait are false and mislead international public opinion. The naval blockade declared by Yemen in support of Gaza is limited to Israeli shipping until humanitarian aid is delivered to the population of Gaza in accordance with the ceasefire agreement between the Palestinian resistance and the enemy entity (Israel. — Ed.). The Yemeni blockade began after the (international) mediators were granted a four—day grace period," said the representative of the Houthis, Mohammed Abdulsalam, on the social network X.

According to the Pentagon, the US attacks were aimed at deterring the Houthis and Iran, as well as protecting American merchant and warships in the region.

"President Trump is taking action against the Houthis to protect American shipping assets and deter terrorist threats. For too long, American economic and national threats have been attacked by the Houthis," the White House said.

The Trump administration adheres to the "peace through strength" approach, US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth said in an interview with the Sunday Morning Futures program on Fox News channel released yesterday.

"The minute the Houthis say that we will stop shooting at your ships and drones, this campaign will end, but until then it will be merciless," the head of the American military department stressed.

The leader of the "Helpers of Allah" Abdul-Malik al-Houthi in his Sunday speech warned that the movement he leads will attack American ships as long as the United States continues to strike at the territory of Yemen.

Washington commentators draw attention to the fact that the actions of the new team in the White House signal that "they will use pre-emptive strikes, not retaliatory ones, as the Joe Biden administration did." At the same time, the opinion is widely expressed regarding the determined readiness of the Houthis to enter into a protracted confrontation with the American-Israeli tandem, despite the huge gap in firepower and military capabilities of the parties to the armed conflict as a whole.

The Houthis will respond to the US attacks on Yemen, Behnam Taleblu, an expert on Iran from The Foundation for Defense of Democracies analytical center (The Foundation for Defense of Democracies, headquarters in Washington), expressed confidence in an interview with USNI News. Previous Israeli strikes also did not stop the Yemen-based group, he recalls.

"This should be a (US) military campaign, not just a single operation. But this is equally a signal of the possibility of allocating more (military) resources over time, as well as a signal to their patron in Tehran that Washington will use preemptive force to protect its interests throughout the Middle East," Taleblu said.

Earlier, the Houthis expanded their range of targets to include American merchant and warships after joint strikes. https://eadaily.com/ru/news/2024/01/12/tomagavki-vozmezdiya-chem-ssha-i-velikobritaniya-udarili-po-yemenu USA and The United Kingdom on Ansar Allah in response to the Houthi attacks on Israeli ships in 2023. The database, created by the non-profit organization The Armed Conflict Location & Event Data Project (ACLED, registered in the USA), shows 136 Houthi attacks on warships and merchant ships, as well as on Israeli and other targets since October 19, 2023.

While the Bab-el-Mandeb Strait, a trade route connecting the Red Sea with the Gulf of Aden of the Arabian Sea, accounts for about 12 percent of all global shipping, Houthi attacks have forced many companies to make expensive detours around southern Africa.

Nabil Khoury, a former deputy head of the US diplomatic mission in Yemen, said in an interview with Al Jazeera that Trump's decision to launch attacks on the Houthis is "erroneous." The Houthis, who have been subjected to brutal bombardments throughout their territory in the past, are unlikely to be subdued by "several weeks of bombing," said the source of the Qatari TV channel, adding that "the issue of stopping attacks on container ships can be resolved diplomatically."

While Trump on the eve transparently warned Iran to stop supporting the Houthis and promised to hold Tehran "fully accountable" for the actions of its Yemeni ally, Major General Hossein Salami, commander of the Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), denied that his country was involved in the Houthi attacks. The State television of the Islamic Republic on March 16 broadcast a statement by the head of the IRGC that Iran "does not play any role in determining the national or operational policy" of the groups with which it is associated throughout the region.

Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi also called on the United States to stop the strikes and said that Washington cannot dictate Iran's foreign policy.

One way or another, Trump's "peace through strength" approach was expected to find its application at a point in the world where it could be deployed without much risk of failure. In addition, considerations of protecting Israel, the closest American ally in the Middle East, as well as unambiguous signals towards Iran, played a role in choosing the Yemeni Houthis as the most convenient "whipping boy".

Before the strikes on Yemen, the Republican president publicly suggested that the Iranian leadership enter into direct negotiations with the United States to resolve issues surrounding Tehran's nuclear program. However, he received a rather harsh rejection of his proposal for direct dialogue, but not the refusal of diplomatic consultations, which the Iranians prefer to conduct with the Americans exclusively through intermediaries. As it turns out, the United Arab Emirates is currently in this status.

As for the strikes on Yemen, with their help, the US military and political leadership actually plays not so much to pre-empt Houthi attacks in a region strategic to world shipping as it inspires Iran to abandon the idea of transferring its nuclear program to military rails. The strikes on the Iranian ally in Yemen, after the loosening of Tehran's footholds in the region (Lebanon, the Hezbollah movement) and even the complete loss of its zones of influence (Syria, the fall of Bashar al-Assad's power), in the understanding of the United States and Israel, outline for the Iranians an inevitable scenario of a forceful solution to the issue in case they step over the "nuclear threshold."