Whatever problems we may have with Saudi Arabia - and I know there are many - you have to give them this: They're serious about stopping Iran from propping up the militias threatening the regime in Yemen. The Saudis have been active in bombing militia supplies, and want the U.S. to back their play by preventing Iran from re-arming them.
Well. President Obama has ordered the aircraft carrier USS Theodore Roosevelt to the Yemeni coast, ostensibly to send a message to our "partners in peace" in Teheran that they had best back off, or else. But that begs the question: Or else . . . what? The White House won't actually commit publicly to taking action in the event the Iranians defy us and try to resupply the rebels anyway, which has the Saudis wondering if Obama is going to hang them out to dry:
“I’m not telegraphing anything,” said a Pentagon spokesman about what the U.S. might be prepared to do.
That won’t reassure the Saudis, who on Tuesday pressed the pause button on their military campaign against the Houthis after destroying a huge Houthi arms cache near San’a. The Saudi move follows pressure from Washington to ease up on the bombing, which has caused civilian casualties, along with rumored back channel talks between Riyadh and Tehran.
But Riyadh won’t forbear for long if the Iranians can resupply by sea what the Saudis are destroying by air. The Saudis are also looking for evidence that the U.S. is still prepared to back them as Iran continues to arm the Kingdom’s enemies in Yemen, Iraq, Syria and Lebanon. Mr. Obama has insisted that the nuclear negotiations with Iran will not affect broader U.S. Mideast policy or reshape U.S. regional alliances. Stopping the Iranian ships would be a good way to prove the President means it.
All the more so given Mr. Obama’s track record of trying not to offend Tehran. In Syria the U.S. has gone out of its way not to hit regime targets or make good on its promises to arm the Free Syrian Army because it feared upsetting Bashar Assad’s patrons in Tehran.
Tell me again why we're trusting Iran to live up to the terms of this nuclear deal Obama and Kerry insist on completing, would you? Not only are they continuing to threaten their neighbors in Yemen as we see here, but they are also going full-bore in their support of Hamas - an issue Obama refuses to tie to the nuclear deal as he thinks it would be "unrealistic" to expect our partners in peace to stop backing terrorism.
We ask nothing of the Iranians. And when they make trouble in the region, we won't even commit to using the forces we send there to take action to stop them.
Obama likes to talk about how the U.S. won't get drawn into wars in the Middle East by assuring us that the nations over there can do the fighting, and we'll back the up when we feel like it with air support or whatever. But you could have fooled me. It doesn't look like we're prepared to back them up in any way at all. Obama is so concerned about never offending Iran that our true allies in the region can never be confident we will have their backs.
By the way, when you send U.S. troops into harm's way and order them not to engage, you're basically making them sitting ducks. I don't suppose Obama cares about the fact that he's putting our people in jeopardy so he can pretend to demonstrate resolve, but I thought maybe some of the rest of you might.
