Allied Houthi rebels in Yemen’s Iran attacked again over the weekend and launched drone and missile attacks on two Saudi oil facilities. It was the latest sign that President Joe Biden’s efforts to get Tehran to control his pawns are not working.
In fact, this is the second attack by a militia formed by Iran since Biden launched airstrikes against a group in Syria in late February, an action the administration said was aimed at deterring the attacks, especially against U.S. forces in Iraq.
The Biden strike (one of two scheduled, and the other called at the last minute out of concern for possible civilian casualties) was a response to a Feb. 15 rocket attack on a U.S. military base. of Iraq that killed a contractor and other wounded.
Undaunted by Biden’s response, another Tehran puppet militia on March 3 fired 10 rockets at Ain al-Assad air base in western Iraq, which hosts some 2,000 U.S. troops. There were no fatalities, but Washington has yet to respond.
And now the challenges are growing, with Sunday’s attack on the Saudis, which Riyadh claimed did not cause any damage or casualties. But he went to the oil tanks of the port of Ras Tanura and a residential area of Aramco, the latest of the houthi leg shots that include more than 500 drone attacks and more than 300 missile assaults.
Of course, Iran and its henchmen might think Biden would accept attacks on the Saudis, as he gained direct U.S. military support for his anti-Houthi coalition in the bloody Yemen war.
In addition, Washington last month released an old information report stating that Saudi Crown Prince Muhammad bin Salman explicitly accepted the assassination of Saudi emigrant journalist Jamal Khashoggi in October 2018. As the report only had circumstantial evidence, the world read it like another Biden team. sign that is at the exit with Riyadh.
Meanwhile, Bidenites are practically begging Iran to start talking about reopening Obama’s nuclear deal. Washington ignored the endless violence sponsored by Iran while originally negotiating this agreement; Undoubtedly, the Iranian rulers hope to get the same leeway, as Biden has already been doing it mostly.
In short: a single half-strike with Iranian pawns will do nothing. Instead of playing games with calibrated strength, Biden has to use his imagination, as the Trump team did in bringing out the head of terror in Tehran, General Qassem Soleimani, in January 2020.
Again, the current top advisers to Biden then warned that the Trump strike could start a regional war, in the same way that they insisted that moving the U.S. embassy in Israel to Jerusalem would cause disaster.
They proved utterly wrong in both respects, but Biden’s lame approach so far to the conflict in the Middle East suggests that they have learned nothing.