Iran is “very directly involved” in ship attacks that Yemen’s Houthi rebels have carried out during Israel’s war against Hamas, the U.S. Navy’s top Mideast commander told The Associated Press on Monday.
Vice Adm. Brad Cooper, the head of the Navy’s 5th Fleet, stopped short of saying Tehran directed individual attacks by the Houthis in the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden.
However, Cooper acknowledged that attacks associated with Iran have expanded from previously threatening just the Persian Gulf and its Strait of Hormuz into waters across the wider Middle East.
“Clearly, the Houthi actions, probably in terms of their attacks on merchant shipping, are the most significant that we’ve seen in two generations,” he told the AP in a telephone interview. “The facts simply are that they’re attacking the international community; thus, the international response I think you’ve seen.”
Yeah I have been paying like a tiny amount of attention and it’s super obvious that there’s a high degree of simpatico among them.
The lines are being drawn for the next great conflict around a few key pinch points of global status quo. I feel like I’m seeing it coming years ahead of most and I’m just going to suffer for it helplessly.
You might ask why Iran would do this. As it turns out, sponsoring terror is an extremely cost effective form of international diplomacy. Instead of spending billions on defense to attack and intimidate regional rivals, the government of Iran can spend several orders of magnitude less, say a few hundred million in guns and cash for extremist groups.
Iran doesn’t have to recruit or pay the soldiers, because someone else will do it for them; doesn’t have to finance or strategize an invasion, because the militants are already in the enemy’s territory; doesn’t have to face moral culpability on the world stage, because they can claim clean hands.
This is not just ideological for Iran. It is simple dollars and cents (or rials). Persia is a 5000 year old civilization, and they are happy to gradually carve away at their enemies until there’s nothing left.
As it turns out, sponsoring terror is an extremely cost effective form of international diplomacy
Indeed, this is why Osama bin Laden had CIA backing in the 1980s. Same thing for the Taleban on Afghanistan.
This is the best summary I could come up with:
JERUSALEM (AP) — Iran is “very directly involved” in ship attacks that Yemen’s Houthi rebels have carried out during Israel’s war against Hamas, the U.S. Navy’s top Mideast commander told The Associated Press on Monday.
Vice Adm. Brad Cooper, the head of the Navy’s 5th Fleet, stopped short of saying Tehran directed individual attacks by the Houthis in the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden.
Since November, the Iranian-backed Houthis have launched at least 34 attacks on shipping through the waterways leading up to Egypt’s Suez Canal, a vital route for energy and cargo coming from Asia and the Middle East onward to Europe.
That meant lower revenue for Egypt through the Suez Canal, a vital source of hard currency for the country’s troubled economy, as well as higher costs for shipping that could push up global inflation.
Back then, American naval ships escorted reflagged Kuwaiti oil tankers through the Persian Gulf and the strait after Iranian mines damaged vessels in the region.
Gen. Yahya Saree, in a recorded address, claimed an attack in the Gulf of Aden on the Ocean Jazz, a U.S.-flagged ship managed by Seabulk, a company in Fort Lauderdale, Florida.
The original article contains 1,011 words, the summary contains 195 words. Saved 81%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!
Let the liberation begin!
