The Biden administration is "crafting plans for a sustained military campaign" against Iran's Houthi proxies in Yemen, raising questions of exactly how Presidentish Joe Biden will screw up America's next big adventure.
In so many ways, gentle reader. In so many ways.
With apologies to J. B. S. Haldane, Joe Biden is not only a worse president than you imagine; he's a worse president than you can imagine. "Don't underestimate Joe's ability to f*** things up" is probably the only time I found myself in total agreement with Barack Obama — and the worst part is how often, as you're about to see for the umpteenth time.
“We are clear-eyed about who the Houthis are, and their worldview,” a senior U.S. official told the Washington Post Saturday, which the Biden administration designated this week as a terrorist organization.
There's the first screw-up because, contrary to what you read in the mainstream media, Biden did not designate the Houthis as a terrorist organization. Instead, Biden determined that they're a Specially Designated Global Terrorist (SDGT) entity, which comes with lighter sanctions than the full Foreign Terrorist Organization (FTO) designation. FTO is "the gold standard of terrorism sanctions," according to the Atlantic Council.
President Donald Trump listed the Houthis as an FTO, which Biden lifted. His redesignation of the Houthis under SDGT sanctions is weak sauce — the Whoopi Goldberg Prevarication between "rape" and "rape-rape."
By his own admission, Biden's missile strikes have had little apparent effect. "When you say working, are they stopping the Houthis, no. Are they going to continue, yes." That was four days ago. More precision strikes on spread-out forces in rough terrain aren't going to do much.
Might I suggest a MOAB or two, Mr. President? Just one seemed to work wonders against ISIS for Trump.
So far, Biden won't use legal tools like FTO against the Houthis, nor potentially decisive firepower like MOAB. In most ways, he's doing too little but, in one vital way, he's doing too much.
I suspect eventually we'll put some serious hurt on the Houthi pirates/terrorists. That's good and necessary — well, it's at least necessary. The long-term danger is that this country needs to be on something close to a war footing. Our production of everything from million-dollar Patriot antimissile missiles to simple 155mm artillery shells needs to be radically expanded.
Instead, Biden will continue to play Commander-in-Chief on the cheap, expending our scarce munitions with little care for what happens if NATO finds itself in a shooting war in Europe or with China in the Pacific — only to find that our shelves are bare, stripped clean by Biden's refusal to commit to either war or peace.
The shortages were obvious two years ago when Russian strongman Vladimir Putin's full-scale invasion of Ukraine exposed our inability to furnish enough common warfighting supplies to the smaller combatant in a medium-sized war.
Then Hamas launched its terror invasion of southern Israel. Then the Houthis expanded their war against commercial shipping. Biden isn't prepared for what his weakness has already forced us into, much less what might be coming.
Recommended: Who Had Iran-Pakistan Nuclear War on Their 2024 Bingo Card?
Join the conversation as a VIP Member