January 25, 2022 | The Wall Street Journal
Yemen’s Houthis Belong on the Terror List
The Biden administration removed them in an effort to appease Iran.
January 25, 2022 | The Wall Street Journal
Yemen’s Houthis Belong on the Terror List
The Biden administration removed them in an effort to appease Iran.
Excerpt
The Biden administration’s Yemen policy is taking heat from Capitol Hill. Within days of the president’s inauguration last year, the administration pulled support from the Saudi-led effort to contain the Iran-backed Houthi terrorist group, officially known as Ansar Allah. The Biden team then removed the group from the State Department’s list of foreign terrorist organizations and lifted sanctions against them. Since then, U.S. policy can only be described as a quixotic pursuit of dialogue. Iran has used the opportunity to better arm and train its Yemeni proxy.
On Jan. 17 a Houthi drone attack killed three and injured six in Abu Dhabi. Nine Republican Senators responded by introducing legislation calling on the White House to reimpose the terrorist designation on Ansar Allah. Other legislators, including Democrats, also reportedly see some wisdom in a policy shift.
But Mr. Biden’s diplomats have bent over backward to appease Iran. Desperate to return to the 2015 nuclear deal, the administration wants to avoid any unpleasantness with Tehran’s clerical regime. Meantime, congressional progressives have had it in for the Saudis since they began fighting the Houthis in 2015, citing the large number of civilian casualties reportedly caused by Saudi airstrikes. The Saudi-led coalition launched a series of bruising counterstrikes against the Houthis in the aftermath of the Abu Dhabi attack.