No. of Recommendations: 1
It's in favor of it. The Houthis are breaking maritime law by attacking commercial vessels. The Iranian government, though, is not directly engaged in that activity.
You mean other than giving them the murder weapons and the time/place the victims hang out? That's called an Accessory in most places.
You think it's just a phone call to some government? Another consequence is that the Chinese Navy starts boarding all of the ships traversing the sea lanes in Southeast Asia on some pretense, using the precedent set by the US that this is legal.
Are those pesky Filipinos shooting missiles at random ships traversing the straits there?
Navys board ships all the time during the course of perfectly legal anti-piracy operations, btw.
Or perhaps Iran calls up the Chinese PLAN and asks for help escorting their ships in the area, leading PLAN to bulk up their resources in their base in Djibouti and start expanding their footprint in the Gulf of Aden.
And the Chinese would politely take the call, would tell the Iranians they'll consider the offer, and hang up. Then laugh themselves silly. That's not how the Big Dragon rolls. They don't want to tip their hands before 2027. Nor are they going to risk this kind of stand off with the US over the Houthis because China's entry into the conflict - on the side of the Iranians - would reverberate through the region in ways you wouldn't believe.
Hilariously it would see a light-speed reopening of the Abraham Accords.
To say nothing of the very real possibility that Iran starts send military vessels to escort their cargo ships and they decline the US permission to board....leading to a risk of an actual conflict breaking out.
Uhhh, sure. Talk about tantamount to admitting they're trucking weapons to Yemen for us on us.
Yeah - forced boarding of foreign-flag vessels in violation of international law is not a costless endeavor. A little more complicated that Superman punching a bully.
Superman doesn't punch bullies; that's what Super Breath is for. The analogy holds up quite well - having the Coast Guard board and seize weapons-carrying vessels is a fraction of our capabilities.
Again, you have to pay attention to who "they" is. The Houthis are a rebel group that's trying to overthrow the existing Yemeni government, which is supported by Saudi Arabia and the rest of the Gulf states. So we're not being attacked by the Yemeni government or the Yemeni military, but instead by rebel forces that the official government is trying to suppress. So we're not going to declare war on Yemen or blockade their ports.
You're the only one raising the possibility of invading Yemen or blockading their ports. The goal here is to interdict Iran's ability to attack US shipping. Our armed forces aren't engaged in active combat in Iraq on the scale they were...we have resources enough to send messages.
Reagan understood that.
