In its first weeks in office, the Biden government rebuked Saudi Arabia and made concessions to Iran. How have things been so far?
On Monday, Israel accused Iran of being responsible for an explosion on an Israeli commercial ship. Over the weekend, Tehran refused pleas from the United States and Europe to renegotiate the nuclear deal, while the Iran-backed Houthi militia intensified its attacks on Yemen’s Saudi Arabia with missile and drone launches.
Biden’s team seems to have hoped that “recalibrating” the US relationship with Saudi Arabia, which fought the acquisition of the 2015 Hutis in neighboring Yemen, would end the war there. The Houthis have other ideas. In early February, the State Department said it would reverse the group’s designation as a terrorist organization, but days later it had to issue a statement that it was “deeply disturbed by the continuing Houthi attacks”.
The attacks persisted and Foggy Bottom’s language is now more direct: “The United States strongly condemns the Houthis’ attacks on population centers in Saudi Arabia on Saturday, February 27,” he told State on Sunday. “We call on the Houthis to end these blatant attacks.”
But why would the Houthis listen, when the US legitimized them with an extension of sanctions in exchange for nothing, and when they publicized a strategy to accommodate their patrons in Tehran? Meanwhile, Saudi Arabia is on the defensive while Washington downgrades the alliance and restricts arms sales.