Recent U.S. strikes in Yemen against the Iranian-backed Houthis represent a failure of the Biden administration’s policies in the Middle East. Continued appeasement of Iran under the guise of preventing the spread of war has predictably entrenched Iran and its allies, while U.S. passivity creates a leadership void that Ayatollah Khamenei is only too eager to fill.
President Biden should instead pursue a strategy of neutralizing Iran’s military and financial capacity to threaten U.S. allies and interests in the Middle East, and then contain Iranian aggression.
The U.S. should share detailed, actionable targeting information on all of Iran’s weapons depots and training camps in Lebanon, Syria, Iraq and Yemen with a coalition of allies, including the UK, Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Israel. Those targets must be destroyed to cripple Iran’s ability to continue leveraging its terrorist proxies to fight on its behalf.
Likewise, the Biden administration must redesignate the Houthis (known as Ansar Allah) as terrorists.
At the same time, the U.S. must drop the pretext that Iran is a trusted player and can be induced with financial carrots to cooperate. All banking and financial sanctions should be reinstated in coordination with the European Union. And Iran must not be permitted to sell oil, which accounts for $40 billion used to fund its war machine. Likewise, the U.S. should officially freeze and redirect the $6 billion in a Qatari bank currently earmarked for humanitarian assistance for Iran. That $6 billion should instead fund reconstruction of the Gaza Strip and Yemen.
Policies falling short of cutting off Iran’s financial resources undermine any U.S. responses to the threats Iran poses.
No sooner had Biden been inaugurated than former Obama-era policy backbenchers-turned-leaders began sowing the seeds of the tumult that has unfolded since Oct. 7.
Biden had kicked off his presidential campaign by alienating longtime ally Saudi Arabia with a promise to turn it into a “pariah state” as punishment for the murder of Jamal Khashoggi, asserting that Crown-Prince Mohammad bin Salman was personally responsible for the reporter’s death. Once president, he slapped travel bans on 76 Saudi citizens purportedly involved in the plot to kill Khashoggi, a move designed to “recalibrate” relations.
But Biden’s bravado had buckled by 2022, when he gave the prince a friendly fist-bump. He was on a trip to Saudi Arabia, begging the Saudis to delay cuts to oil production. Bin Salman of course ignored Biden’s request, prompting Biden’s threat to “reassess” the U.S. relationship with Saudi Arabia. A month later, Biden reassessed the relationship by declaring that bin Salman had immunity from prosecution in Khashoggi’s death. This was a full reversal of all the threats and hectoring with which Biden had by then pointlessly alienated a key ally.
Meanwhile, Biden picked up where former President Barack Obama had left off with attacks upon Egyptian President Abd al-Fattah al-Sisi’s leadership. Promising to end “blank checks” to Egypt, Biden publicly blustered, using the Obama-era tactic of reducing U.S. military support to Egypt by 10 percent, or $130 million, because of Egypt’s human rights record. Less than a month before the Oct. 7 attack on Israel, the Biden Administration decided to repurpose $85 million of military support designated for Egypt toward Taiwan instead, noting that Egypt had not made progress in releasing political prisoners.
Then Oct. 7 happened. Unsurprisingly, al-Sisi turned a deaf ear to U.S. pleas to let civilians out of the Gaza Strip. Egypt instead pursued its own interests, keeping the Rafah Gate closed. No doubt Egypt is negotiating behind the scenes for greater support from the U.S. before agreeing to take on a more significant role in the ongoing conflict.
Gone are the days of counting on Egypt’s immediate cooperation. Biden, like Obama, squandered goodwill with Egypt through persistent financial punishments against a longstanding ally, while rewarding the bad behavior of Iran and its proxies.
Yemen is proving to be Biden’s worst stumble yet, beginning with the removal of the Houthis from the U..S list of terrorist organizations. That designation had been given originally because the Houthis are trained and equipped by Iran’s terrorist-designated Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) with the assistance of terrorist-designated Hezbollah. Using weapons provided by the IRGC Qods Force, the Houthis attacked Saudi Arabia and targeted key U.S. interests in terms of the Saudi oil industry. After U.S. and UK strikes against Houthi positions in Yemen on Jan. 11, Biden suddenly expressed his belief that the Houthi are terrorists, just two years too late and with no acknowledgment of Iran’s role in the Houthi attacks.
The Biden Administration sought peace negotiations with the Houthis, which are sure to be ineffectual, given that the organization’s four-line motto includes the statement, “Death to America!” The supposed reason for talks would be to let the U.S. focus on concerns about al-Qaeda in the Arab Peninsula. But why worry about them while ignoring the much bigger and more immediate danger of Iranian and and Hezbollah assistance to the Houthis?
This exemplifies Biden’s determination to appease Iran at any cost, whether or not its regime corrects its behavior.
Biden’s use of only minimal force against Iran’s terrorist proxies attacking U.S. troops in Syria and Iraq was likely what emboldened Iran to challenge the U.S. off Yemen’s coasts. Typically, Iran prefers to avoid direct confrontations with the U.S. military, but Biden’s weakness has Ayatollah Ali Khamenei sensing an opportunity.
To this day, the Biden administration refuses to acknowledge that Iran helped plan and prepare the Oct. 7 massacre in Israel. Instead, officials insist on pretending that that attack, the more than 130 attacks against U.S. troops in Iraq and Syria, and the Houthi terrorism against shipping are discrete events without a common thread.
Iran is the common thread.
The IRGC is merely implementing a terrorism campaign 25 years in the making. Biden’s failure to act decisively threatens regional stability and allows Iran to dictate conflict through its terrorist proxies.
Bianca Adair is director of the Intelligence Studies Program in the Department of Politics at the Catholic University of America. She retired in 2022 as a CIA operations officer with an expertise in Iran after several overseas tours in the Middle East, including in Lebanon and Israel.