US-UK attacks on Houthis fuel ‘dangerous situation’ in Middle East amid Israel-Gaza war

The course of events will affect Washington’s credibility as a stabilising force in the Middle East as it comes under pressure from allies and adversaries, analysts say

The US could find itself dragged into another Middle Eastern war as the strikes could trigger more involvement from the region’s armed groups, they add

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Houthi fighters and tribal supporters during a protest against recent US-led strikes on Houthi targets, near Sanaa, Yemen, on Sunday. Photo: Reuters

Published: 10:05pm, 15 Jan 2024

Exchanges of fire between Yemen’s Iran-backed Houthi rebels and Anglo-American forces in the Red Sea since Thursday show the Israel-Gaza war is escalating into a simmering regional war, Middle East analysts have said.

Whatever happens in the coming weeks will determine whether the 101-day-old conflict will conflagrate into all-out war between Israel and Iran and its Axis of Resistance allies, who include the Houthis, Lebanese Hezbollah and Shia militias in Iraq and Syria, the observers added.

The course of events will also either undermine or underline the credibility of the United States as a stabilising force in the Middle East.

“The current situation, in general, is a very significant historical test for Washington’s credibility as a stabilising force and security guarantor in the Middle East,” said Hussein Ibish, a senior resident scholar of the Arab Gulf States Institute in Washington.

That’s under pressure from Washington’s adversaries like the Houthis and Hamas, but also “purported friends and long-standing allies like Israel, and especially those in its war cabinet who want to expand the war to involve Hezbollah”, he said.

American and British air strikes would have done relatively little to degrade the ability of the Houthis – known formally as Ansarullah – to attack commercial shipping passing through the Bab El-Mandeb Strait, which connects the Indian Ocean to the Red Sea and Suez Canal, analysts told This Week In Asia.

Ansarullah “is very accustomed to war and being under pressure and has spread its military infrastructure throughout Yemen” due to the experience of facing air strikes during the country’s civil war between 2015 and 2022, according to Giorgio Cafiero, CEO of Gulf State Analytics, a Washington-based risk consultancy.

“Thus, I can’t imagine these US and UK air strikes effectively establishing deterrence over the Houthis” who had already responded with attacks in the Gulf of Aden, he said.