Yemen’s Iran-allied Houthi rebels struck again over the weekend, launching drone and rocket attacks on two Saudi oil plants. It was the latest sign that President Joe Biden’s efforts to get Tehran to restrain its pawns are not working.
This is actually the second attack by a military trained by Iran since Biden launched airstrikes on a group in Syria in late February – an action that the government says is intended to repel attacks, especially on US troops in Iraq. .
The Biden strike (one of the two planned, while the other was dropped at the last minute over concerns about possible civilian casualties) was a response to a 15-year-old rocket attack on a U.S. military base in northern Iraq that a contractor and others wounded.
Undeterred by Biden’s response, another of Tehran’s puppet militias fired ten rockets at Ain al-Asad Air Force Base in western Iraq on March 3, which houses about 2,000 U.S. troops. There were no deaths, but Washington has yet to respond.
And now the challenges are growing with the attack on Saudi Sunday, which according to Riyadh did not cause any damage and also did not inflict casualties. But it was aimed at petroleum tanks at Ras Tanura Harbor and an Aramco residential area – the latest in years of Houthi pot shots that include more than 500 drone strikes and more than 300 missile strikes.
Of course, Iran and its henchmen could conclude that Biden would accept attacks on the Saudis, as he drew direct US military support for their anti-Houthi coalition in the bloody Yemeni war.
In addition, Washington last month released an old report alleging that Saudi Crown Prince Muhammad bin Salman explicitly endorsed the assassination of Saudi emigrant journalist Jamal Khashoggi in October 2018. indicates that it is going on with Riyadh.
Meanwhile, the Bidenites are virtually begging Iran to start talking about reopening the Obama nuclear deal. Washington ignored endless violence sponsored by Iran while originally negotiating the deal; The rulers of Iran no doubt now expect to get the same space now, as Biden has mostly done so already.
In short: a single, half-hearted strike by Iranian pawns will do nothing. Instead of playing games with calibrated force, Biden should use imagination, as Team Trump did in January 2020 to defeat the terrorist head of Tehran, Genl. Qassem Soleimani, to take out.
Then Biden’s current top advisers again warned that the Trump strike could start a regional war, just as they insisted that the US embassy in Israel be moved to Jerusalem.
They both proved wrong, but Biden’s lame approach so far in the Middle East conflict suggests that they have learned nothing.