20th January 2024
Thousands march for Peace in Palestine – London 13th January 2024
The US offensive against the Houthi group in Yemen, with Britain as usual clutching American foreign policy coat tails, represents a further escalation of tension in the Middle East. Ten days ago the initial bombardment of the capital Sana’a and other Yemeni cities added to the destruction already inflicted by the Saudi led and Western backed coalition, which has waged war in Yemen since 2015, displacing and killing thousands.
The Western attacks are in response to Houthi attacks upon merchant shipping in the Red Sea, which has forced ships to take longer trade routes and therefore added to the price of goods. The Houthis defence is that they are targeting ships which are supplying Israel in its genocide in Gaza. In Yemen itself the situation was described by Oxfam as follows,
“The humanitarian situation in Yemen remains dire with almost 21 million people in desperate need of food, water and life saving aid. It is vital that peace be restored and further suffering prevented.”
The war in Yemen since 2015 has effectively pitted the Houthis, as Iran’s proxy, against Saudi Arabia in what the UN regarded as the world’s worst humanitarian crisis until the Israeli genocide in Gaza.
The Houthi’s, who control the North and West of Yemen, are backed by Iran so are by no means paragons of democratic practice. On the contrary their much repeated slogan, “God is the greatest, death to America, death to Israel, a curse upon the Jews”, hardly marks them out as the most enlightened of Middle East factions.
However, the US/British bombing campaign has arguably been the trigger for the more direct engagement of Iran in the Middle East conflict, thus destabilising further an already volatile situation and dragging a wide range of other players into the conflict. Attacks upon locations in Pakistan, Syria and Iraq by the Iranians in the past week are fuelling an already unstable situation.
As a regional nuclear power Pakistan has the potential to take the conflict to an even more dangerous level, posing a threat not just to the region but to world peace.
While US Secretary of State, Anthony Blinken, claims to have sent a private message to Iran, telling them to back off, this does not appear to have had any more impact than exhortations to Benjamin Netanyahu in Israel, to avoid killing civilians in Gaza. Netanyahu’s response has been to take the number of dead over the 24,000 mark, 70% being women and children according to the UN, the vast majority civilian non-combatants.
Only this week Netanyahu has been explicit in his opposition to the establishment of a Palestinian state. This is in direct contradiction to the stated US position of supporting a two state solution.
The United States has now designated the Houthis as ‘global terrorists’ in a further twist in the escalation of regional tension. The designation will make it harder for humanitarian aid organisations to access those in need.
US National Security Advisor, Jake Sullivan, justified the move saying that it was in response to attacks on commercial shipping in the region saying that recent attacks “fit the textbook definition of terrorism”.
However, the US and other Westen powers remain unwilling to act upon the fact that Israeli Defence Force (IDF) operations in Gaza and the ongoing Israeli occupation of the West Bank are at the heart of tensions in the region. Is the killing of over 24,000 people and the displacement of 1.6 million more not a “textbook definition of terrorism”?
Until the question of Palestine is addressed the prospects for peace in the region will remain slim. The refusal of the US and Israel to engage in serious dialogue with the Palestinians over many decades has directly led to Hamas gaining control in Gaza, increased Iranian influence in both Lebanon and Palestine, and fuelled tensions across the Arab world.
The US has tried to use such tensions to its advantage, by playing one group or state off against another, the eight year long Iran-Iraq war being a case in point, arming reactionary groups in Afghanistan, which eventually became the Taliban, another. Engineering uprisings against Gaddafi in Libya and Assad in Syria add to the list.
In none of these situations has US imperialism increased its influence and has often had to resort to massive force just to hold onto its position. In every instance the consequences for the people of the region have been catastrophic, resulting in war, collapsed states or dictatorship.
As tensions in the Middle East increase, and the response of Britain and the US remains one of sending in gunships, the situation can only get worse. The warmongering response of NATO is a further reason for any incoming Labour government to have withdrawal from the military alliance in its manifesto along with a commitment to a non-aligned foreign policy.
Also, mass mobilisation of the people, like the 13th January demonstrations, are essential to bring pressure to bear upon the West to adopt a strategy aimed at reducing, not increasing tensions. Without such an approach the prospects for peace will remain in the balance.
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