Beginning last November, the Yemeni Houthi movement has effectively strangulated maritime traffic coming through the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden, much to the dismay of US imperialism.
Despite hastily assembling an international coalition to fight the Houthis – including secret partners among the Arab states – the US-UK mission is showing itself to be a costly failure.
The Bab-el-Mandeb Strait once carried 15-20 percent of world trade through its waters. This has been throttled by 70-90 percent since December 2023.
This has had an enormous impact on shipping lines, doubling global shipping costs, and directly impacting Israel, whose economy has slumped since its latest war on Gaza began.
The Israeli Red Sea port city of Eilat has been hit particularly hard, with economic activity down by 80 percent and up to half of the port workers threatened with sudden layoffs.
Since October last year, Houthi forces have launched more than 100 attacks against ships off Yemen’s coast, the overwhelming majority of which are linked to Israel or the United States.
To date, there have been only three deaths. Compare this to the US-UK bombing campaign, which only since January has made over 452 strikes in Yemen, killing approximately 40 people – including civilians.
While the imperialists are keen to present this as all going according to plan, and is ‘degrading’ the Houthis’ ability to attack, the truth is quite different when we peer beneath the surface.
For one thing, the attacks have not been stopped. The Houthis are adamant that the Red Sea will be closed to enemy vessels until there is a permanent ceasefire in Gaza and humanitarian relief for millions of starving Palestinians.
Bogged down
Moreover, the US military – despite being the biggest and best-equipped in the world – is unable to keep up.
It has long been known that the economics of the US’ highly-sophisticated expensive weaponry being deployed against poor countries armed with old Soviet guns and cheap mass-produced drones doesn’t add up.
In just a few months, this has been made abundantly clear in the Red Sea. Since October, the US Navy has accumulated a $1 billion black hole in its budget according to the Navy Secretary.
The crew of the USS Eisenhower have complained of being overwhelmed by the Houthis’ drone and missile bombardment, with Captain Dave Wroe calling it “relentless” and the most intense aircraft carrier deployment since WWII.
F/A-18 fighter jets take off from the deck of the Eisenhower over 100 times each day, costing $22,000 per hour.
It costs the US treasury over $2 million a month just to feed the crew, who are rumoured to be demoralised by having already spent seven months at sea at their battle stations almost every day, with no end in sight.
Concessions
It is no wonder then that the US has been seeking a ‘diplomatic solution’ to the Red Sea crisis, behind closed doors.
In secret talks with Iran, conducted via Yemen’s neighbour Oman, the US has tried to propose an offer of removing the ‘global terrorist’ designation from the Houthis, unfreezing bank assets, and lifting the siege of the port of Hodeidah.
US diplomats call this an ‘off-ramp’ for the Houthis. But the need to de-escalate is mutual, and the US is prepared to concede everything except official recognition of the Houthi government.
These ‘terrorists’ – that the US has sworn never to negotiate with – have the upper hand, forcing the US to offer some kind of normalisation. This once again exposes the overstretched and weakened state of US imperialism in the Middle East.
