Has the West Succeeded in Containing Houthi Red Sea Attacks?

This handout photo released by the US Defense Visual Information Distribution Service (DVIDS) shows US Navy F/A-18F Super Hornet fighter aircraft of the Carrier Strike Group 2 (CSG2), deployed to support maritime security in the Middle East region, flying over the Red Sea on June 11, 2024. (US Navy/AFP)
This handout photo released by the US Defense Visual Information Distribution Service (DVIDS) shows US Navy F/A-18F Super Hornet fighter aircraft of the Carrier Strike Group 2 (CSG2), deployed to support maritime security in the Middle East region, flying over the Red Sea on June 11, 2024. (US Navy/AFP)
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Has the West Succeeded in Containing Houthi Red Sea Attacks?

This handout photo released by the US Defense Visual Information Distribution Service (DVIDS) shows US Navy F/A-18F Super Hornet fighter aircraft of the Carrier Strike Group 2 (CSG2), deployed to support maritime security in the Middle East region, flying over the Red Sea on June 11, 2024. (US Navy/AFP)
This handout photo released by the US Defense Visual Information Distribution Service (DVIDS) shows US Navy F/A-18F Super Hornet fighter aircraft of the Carrier Strike Group 2 (CSG2), deployed to support maritime security in the Middle East region, flying over the Red Sea on June 11, 2024. (US Navy/AFP)

The US and western powers appear “incapable” of containing the attacks by the Houthis in Yemen against commercial ships in the Red Sea eight months after the Iran-backed militias started launching their operations.

The Houthis have been carrying out drone and missile strikes on shipping lanes since November, saying they are acting in solidarity with Palestinians in Israel's war in Gaza.

The US, UK and European powers have since dispatched missions to the region to counter these attacks with apparent little success as the Houthis have upped their operations, with their strikes even reaching the Mediterranean.

Dr. Najeeb Ghallab, undersecretary at Yemen's Information Ministry, said the West still wrongly believes that the Houthis can be “rehabilitated” and employed to combat terrorism.

US envoy to Yemen Tim Lenderking said in April that a military solution was not possible to resolve the problem in Yemen.

Ghallab added that the US, West and even China have “all failed” in containing the Houthi attacks in the Red Sea and their threats to international navigation.

“The Houthis are a suicideal phenomenon that is more dangerous than ISIS, the Taliban and al-Qaeda. These groups did not threaten international trade the way the Houthis are doing now. In spite of this, the West is still incapable of taking firm decisions,” he went on to say.

The Houthis are labeled as “reckless”, not “terrorist”, when they violate the interests of the Yemeni people and the entire world, he lamented.

“The Americans have a blind spot in handling the Yemeni file. They are still following Obama’s approach and favoring Iran’s agents in the region,” Ghallab stressed.

The Americans and UK have carried out around 530 strikes against the Houthis since January, leaving 58 of their members dead and 86 injured, according to the militias.

The Houthi attacks have so far hit 27 ships, sinking two.

Ghallab wondered why western powers have yet to strike the Houthi command and control centers. The US is only targeting command and control centers from where the rockets are being fired, but they have yet to attack critical Houthi locations.

Have the western powers struck a deal with the Houthis as part of a plan to legitimize them in Yemen and turn them into a partner with all national powers? he asked.

He dismissed the possibility, stressing that the Houthis are extorting the Arab coalition, legitimate Yemeni government and international community.

Moreover, he warned that the world is facing in the Houthis “an organized and professional terrorist” group, meanwhile, “no one is prepared to support the legitimate powers in Yemen to end the Iran-made crime in the country.”

“The world remains blind when it comes to Yemen. Yes, the Houthis may be claiming victories now, but, at the end of the day, they will be defeated,” he remarked.

Asked about the best way to confront the Houthis, he replied: “The answer may be impossible, but it is simple. We have a real force on the ground in Yemen, not just in regions held by the legitimate government, but in Hodeidah, Saada and Sanaa. Everyone there is looking for salvation from the Houthis.”

“Are foreign powers prepared to support the real forces so that a Yemeni state can be formed?” he wondered, while noting that the West “is opposed to the idea of freedom and revolution in Yemen.”

“This is a western problem, not a Russian or Chinese one. This isn’t a conspiracy,” he went on to say. “Rather, the West is strategically blind to the situation.”



What to Know about the Tensions between Iran and the US before Their Third Round of Talks

The flags of US and Iran are displayed in Muscat, Oman, 25 April 2025. Iran and US will hold third round of nuclear talks on 26 April 2025, in Muscat. (EPA)
The flags of US and Iran are displayed in Muscat, Oman, 25 April 2025. Iran and US will hold third round of nuclear talks on 26 April 2025, in Muscat. (EPA)
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What to Know about the Tensions between Iran and the US before Their Third Round of Talks

The flags of US and Iran are displayed in Muscat, Oman, 25 April 2025. Iran and US will hold third round of nuclear talks on 26 April 2025, in Muscat. (EPA)
The flags of US and Iran are displayed in Muscat, Oman, 25 April 2025. Iran and US will hold third round of nuclear talks on 26 April 2025, in Muscat. (EPA)

Iran and the United States will hold talks Saturday in Oman, their third round of negotiations over Tehran’s rapidly advancing nuclear program.

The talks follow a first round held in Muscat, Oman, where the two sides spoke face to face. They then met again in Rome last weekend before this scheduled meeting again in Muscat.

Trump has imposed new sanctions on Iran as part of his “maximum pressure” campaign targeting the country. He has repeatedly suggested military action against Iran remained a possibility, while emphasizing he still believed a new deal could be reached by writing a letter to Iran’s 85-year-old Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei to jumpstart these talks.

Khamenei has warned Iran would respond to any attack with an attack of its own.

Here’s what to know about the letter, Iran’s nuclear program and the tensions that have stalked relations between Tehran and Washington since the 1979 revolution.

Why did Trump write the letter? Trump dispatched the letter to Khamenei on March 5, then gave a television interview the next day in which he acknowledged sending it. He said: “I’ve written them a letter saying, ‘I hope you’re going to negotiate because if we have to go in militarily, it’s going to be a terrible thing.’”

Since returning to the White House, the president has been pushing for talks while ratcheting up sanctions and suggesting a military strike by Israel or the US could target Iranian nuclear sites.

A previous letter from Trump during his first term drew an angry retort from the supreme leader.

But Trump’s letters to North Korean leader Kim Jong Un in his first term led to face-to-face meetings, though no deals to limit Pyongyang’s atomic bombs and a missile program capable of reaching the continental US.

How did the first round go? Oman, a sultanate on the eastern edge of the Arabian Peninsula, hosted the first round of talks between Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi and US Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff. The two men met face to face after indirect talks and immediately agreed to this second round in Rome.

Witkoff later made a television appearance in which he suggested 3.67% enrichment for Iran could be something the countries could agree on. But that’s exactly the terms set by the 2015 nuclear deal struck under US President Barack Obama, from which Trump unilaterally withdrew America.

Witkoff hours later issued a statement underlining something: “A deal with Iran will only be completed if it is a Trump deal.” Araghchi and Iranian officials have latched onto Witkoff’s comments in recent days as a sign that America was sending it mixed signals about the negotiations.

Yet the Rome talks ended up with the two sides agreeing to starting expert-level talks this Saturday. Analysts described that as a positive sign, though much likely remains to be agreed before reaching a tentative deal.

Why does Iran’s nuclear program worry the West? Iran has insisted for decades that its nuclear program is peaceful. However, its officials increasingly threaten to pursue a nuclear weapon. Iran now enriches uranium to near weapons-grade levels of 60%, the only country in the world without a nuclear weapons program to do so.

Under the original 2015 nuclear deal, Iran was allowed to enrich uranium up to 3.67% purity and to maintain a uranium stockpile of 300 kilograms (661 pounds). The last report by the International Atomic Energy Agency on Iran’s program put its stockpile at 8,294.4 kilograms (18,286 pounds) as it enriches a fraction of it to 60% purity.

US intelligence agencies assess that Iran has yet to begin a weapons program, but has “undertaken activities that better position it to produce a nuclear device, if it chooses to do so.”

Ali Larijani, an adviser to Iran’s supreme leader, has warned in a televised interview that his country has the capability to build nuclear weapons, but it is not pursuing it and has no problem with the International Atomic Energy Agency’s inspections. However, he said if the US or Israel were to attack Iran over the issue, the country would have no choice but to move toward nuclear weapon development.

“If you make a mistake regarding Iran’s nuclear issue, you will force Iran to take that path, because it must defend itself,” he said.

Why are relations so bad between Iran and the US? Iran was once one of the US’s top allies in the Middle East under Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, who purchased American military weapons and allowed CIA technicians to run secret listening posts monitoring the neighboring Soviet Union. The CIA had fomented a 1953 coup that cemented the shah’s rule.

But in January 1979, the shah, fatally ill with cancer, fled Iran as mass demonstrations swelled against his rule. The revolution followed, led by Khomeini, and created Iran’s theocratic government.

Later that year, university students overran the US Embassy in Tehran, seeking the shah’s extradition and sparking the 444-day hostage crisis that saw diplomatic relations between Iran and the US severed. The Iran-Iraq war of the 1980s saw the US back Saddam Hussein. The “Tanker War” during that conflict saw the US launch a one-day assault that crippled Iran at sea, while the US later shot down an Iranian commercial airliner that the American military said it mistook for a warplane.

Iran and the US have see-sawed between enmity and grudging diplomacy in the years since, with relations peaking when Tehran made the 2015 nuclear deal with world powers. But Trump unilaterally withdrew America from the accord in 2018, sparking tensions in the Middle East that persist today.