by Clarice Feldman
The Administration has backed off its historic mission of protecting freedom of navigation in the Red Sea. Instead, it keeps choosing appeasement.
Watching our response to Iranian aggression against us and our allies, I’m reminded of Sherlock Holmes mystery, “The Curious Case of the Dog That Didn’t Bark.” Turns out the watchdog didn’t bark because it knew the thief, and my supposition is that there is a good reason why we have behaved as if Iran and its proxies merit no more meaningful response: This Administration -- as did Obama’s -- has been thoroughly compromised respecting the ayatollahs.
In a lengthy post, Hussain-Abdul-Hussain, who analyzes such things for the Foundation for the Defense of Democracy, summarized the recent provocations of Iran.
This week, Iran attacked without provocation Pakistan, later claiming preposterously that the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) launched the attack without the knowledge of Iran’s foreign minister. It’s a pattern -- after attacks by the IRGC in Iraq, and from Lebanon, Gaza, and Yemen, the regime claims these were done without its knowledge. No one there, it seems, contrary to evidence, is accountable for the damage. “If their people are happy living with these 'resistance' garbage models, then they should not complain of the misery and wars they are living in.”
The Administration has backed off its historic mission of protecting freedom of navigation. Instead, it keeps choosing appeasement.
Direct aggression against the U.S. and its allies by the Houthis in Yemen are clearly backed by Iran, causing substantial disruption of sea passage in the Red Sea, and yet the allied response has been too weak to eliminate the Houthi aggression.
Despite three American and British attacks on Houthi missile launch sites in the past two weeks, the Yemeni terrorist group continues to target shipping in the Red Sea. Only days ago a Houthi ballistic missile hit the Gibraltar Eagle, an American-owned and -operated cargo ship. The attacks may have depleted the Houthi arsenal, which includes Chinese-built anti-ship missiles, but they clearly have not eliminated it.
Many observers have noted that it indeed will be exceedingly difficult for the United States, the United Kingdom and their supporting partners to silence the Houthi rockets, missiles and drones that have forced major shipping lines to reroute their ships past the southern tip of Africa. The Houthis operate numerous mobile launchers that “shoot and scoot” back into hiding. Targeting them, therefore, is no small challenge.
Moreover, the Houthis have demonstrated their resilience in the face of unrelenting air attacks. Constant Saudi and Emirati bombing, backed by American command and control and related capabilities, in support of the internationally-recognized Yemeni Government, did not stop Houthi advances on the ground against government forces.
In theory, the United States and Britain, which possess total air superiority, could support armed airborne drones on a round-the-clock basis. [snip]
There are numerous difficulties with pursuing such a course of action, however. There are insufficient drones available to support continuous operations that could handle attacks on more than a limited number of targets. Moreover, there is only one aircraft carrier, the Dwight D. Eisenhower, currently deployed in the Red Sea…
Iran can, in sum, keep supplying the Houthis with the missiles and launchers, which it does by sea, “burying the weapons inside humanitarian supplies to the impoverished country.” Not only is this response insufficient to end the shelling of commercial traffic on the Red Sea, we are financing it. “The Biden administration has, in effect, financed Tehran’s supply chain to the Houthis” by relaxing its sanctions on oil sales from Iran. “These funds have enabled Tehran to continue to supply its proxies and allies in Iraq, Lebanon and, of course, the Houthis.”
So obvious has this become, that this week, the Administration announced it was reimposing sanctions on the Houthis, sanctions Trump imposed and that the Biden administration immediately lifted when it took office. Like most Biden moves, it was more cosmetic than real.
The Biden administration’s recently announced sanctions on the Iran-backed Houthi rebels will include a carveout that permits the terror group to engage in lucrative energy and fuel-related transactions with Americans, a decision that congressional critics say effectively neuters the sanctions.
A license issued by the Treasury Department and circulated to Congress this week authorizes "transactions related to refined petroleum products in Yemen involving Ansarallah," otherwise known as the Houthi militant group. This includes authorization for the "sale of refined petroleum products for personal, commercial, or humanitarian use in Yemen."
The decision to grant this carveout is already attracting congressional concerns, with GOP lawmakers telling the Washington Free Beacon they have begun pushing the House Oversight and Foreign Affairs Committees to investigate the license, which they say undermines sanctions that are intended to choke off the terror group’s resources.
The sanctions on the Houthis, which will go into effect next month, have already drawn fierce pushback from Republican officials for being issued under a weaker federal statute that does not criminalize support for the terrorist group or force banks to seize their assets, the Free Beacon reported on Wednesday. [snip]
One senior GOP congressional source familiar with the matter said it is "puzzling" that a "broad license" allowing these types of transactions with the terror group is being issued.
The United States is not the only entity captured by Iran. There are the International Atomic Energy Administration (IAEA) and the United Nations. At the international blabfest in Davos, which was enlightened only by the warning that it’s gone off the rails by Argentina’s new president, the head of the IAEA warned that it is unable to exercise oversight of Iran’s nuclear program because of Tehran’s refusal to cooperate even as it expands its operations. IAEA inspectors “have suggested that Tehran has stockpiled enough enriched uranium to make ‘several’ warheads.”
Iranian officials continue to frustrate International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA)inspectors, who have suggested that Tehran has stockpiled enough enriched uranium to make "several" warheads.
"Though it may be drowned out due to all the other bad news out of the Middle East involving Iran, the regime is getting closer and closer to establishing itself as a threshold nuclear state," Behnam Ben Taleblu, a senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD) with a focus on Iranian security, told Fox News Digital. [snip]
Iran has seemingly benefited from what the Wall Street Journal termed President Biden's policy of "conciliate to evacuate," or developing agreements with Iran to reduce U.S. presence and responsibility in the Middle East. [snip]
In addition to increased attacks from Iranian proxies over the past few months, Iran withdrew the designation of "several experienced Agency inspectors," according to Grossi, which amounted to "effectively… about one-third of the core group of the agency’s most experienced inspectors designated for Iran."
Tehran then sped up enrichment in Dec. 2023 following a monthslong slowdown that many attributed to back channel agreements with the U.S. that led to the release of American citizens held in Iran. The IAEA also determined that Iran had enough uranium enriched up to 60% - close to weapons-grade – to produce three nuclear bombs.
At the same time that Iran is frustrating inspections and increasing its production of weapons-grade uranium, the UN astonishingly announced that Iran will preside over its ‘Conference on Disarmament.”
“This is outrageous! The regime that’s sent arms to Putin in Russia’s war against Ukraine, planned the Oct. 7 Hamas attack on Israel, and provided missiles to Yemen’s Houthis to disrupt global shipping will be in charge of monitoring global nuclear weapons disarmament. The irony of ironies… Islamic Republic is rapidly moving to develop nuclear weapons of its own.”
I can’t think of any international organization doing what it was designed to do. The World Economic Forum is even more ridiculous, if that’s possible, than the United Nations. When it isn’t telling us to eat bugs, it’s proposing we all get brain implants which can be measured (and controlled by the WEF, I suppose). The great Iowahawk (David Burge) compares this to a “big International Bond villain conference” with “Blofeld [Klaus Schwab], Rosa Kleb [Ursula Von der Leyen], Jaws [John Kerry], and Odd Job [Xi]”
Maybe the ayatollahs have already inserted Klaus Schwabian implants into the heads of the western world’s leaders. It’s otherwise hard to imagine such idiocy.
Clarice Feldman
Source: https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2024/01/our_weird_passivity_toward_irans_aggression.html
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