'Strikes against Houthis were justified - but we must be ready for reprisals'
Military action should never be taken lightly. It is a last resort and should only be authorised if it is necessary, legal, and proportionate.
The decision to launch targeted strikes against the Houthis by the UK and US satisfied all these tests – it was the right thing to do.
With twenty-six Houthi attacks since November, including the largest attack on a Royal Navy warship in decades, this action is a coercive effort to terminate the threat to naval and merchant ships and re-establish deterrence.
It is preventative, not punitive, and a direct response to the rising threat to freedom of navigation.
The Houthi’s have been using the areas they control in Yemen to launch attacks on shipping in the 16-mile-wide Bab-el-Mandeb (Gate of Tears) strait in the Red Sea. Thirty percent of all global shipping containers pass through this strait on the way to and from the Suez Canal. The Houthi attacks have made it impassable, with goods having to travel around South Africa instead. They are attempting to sever a vital artery of commerce and trade upon which our livelihoods depend.
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We have already seen the impact on the global economy with Tesla pausing production in Germany for two weeks and shipping costs rising by over 300% since November. If this trend continues, we will see inflation increase and all the progress we have made since the pandemic be reversed. The blockage of the Red Sea caused by the Iranian Revolution and Iran-Iraq war in the 1970’s resulted in a global depression, causing misery in the UK and around the world. We cannot afford a repeat of those difficult years.
The importance of shipping is set out in Article 51 of the UN Charter, which makes clear that there is a legal right to self-defence to ensure maritime freedom. Theses strikes were not just necessary they were imperative. The International community demonstrated its support yesterday when The UN Security Council passed a resolution calling for an immediate end to Houthi attacks. Whilst the US has led the response with the support of a coalition of other countries, particularly the UK, the consequences of inaction would be felt everywhere.
Marcus Aurelius said, “you can commit injustice by doing nothing” and I fear that if we had not acted the Houthi’s would have continued their attacks, eventually succeeding in striking a vessel and causing a maritime disaster. We have watched in horror over the last decade as this evil group hijacked the Arab Spring for its own extreme aims, pretending to engage in Yemen’s post dictatorship future whilst launching a brutal war of conquest.
Not content merely with expansion, the Houthi’s revel in blowing up the houses of their victims, sometimes condemning whole villages to destruction. As cowardly as they are evil, they have coerced thousands of children to fight in their unholy war and to die for their warped beliefs. The Houthi rallying cry and flag ‘death to America, death to Israel; curse the Jews’ summarises their hateful ideology, sponsored by the Iranian Ayatollah as part of his self-proclaimed ‘Axis of Resistance.’ Those brave Yemeni’s who dare to resist them face torture and death.
Faced with such a group, the limited US and UK strikes are undoubtedly justified, as well as necessary and legal. It is also clear that they were proportionate, targeting specific military infrastructure to stem the attacks on the Red Sea. Steps were also taken to minimise collateral damage and protect civilians from harm, an approach in stark contrast to that taken by the Houthi’s towards innocent Yemenis.
What is vital now is that the government is transparent and does not allow Iran and the Houthi’s to present these strikes as unjustified. The Houthi’s will continue to claim that they act on behalf of the Palestinians. It is all our duty to see through their propaganda and familiarise ourselves with their insidious deeds and aims. Working in league with Iran, the Houthi’s seek only to sow chaos, plunge the global economy into recession and continue their blood-soaked march towards power in Yemen.
We must prepare ourselves for any attempts at reprisals on UK personnel and allies, most likely by Iranian backed militias in Iraq. I hope that these strikes will send a clear message of deterrence to the Houthi’s and that we will see shipping feely pass through the Red Sea once more. For now, I am satisfied that the steps taken were necessary, legal, and proportionate, and therefore, at this point, I support this action.
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