The US side ignored dozens of attacks. The history calculus shows at some point the houthis will figure they’re untouchable and escalate and whose fault will that be then?
Sometimes there are no good choices, only more shitty and regular shitty
Escalate to what? They’re already doing all kinds of pirate stuff, and I don’t think they’re strong enough to threaten anything else the West cares about on their own. What seems like the obvious Western play would be to keep intercepting attacks from warships for at least a few weeks. It’s more expensive, but would give critical time to deal with all the other, bigger issues in the Middle East.
The US side ignored dozens of attacks. The history calculus shows at some point the houthis will figure they’re untouchable and escalate and whose fault will that be then?
Sometimes there are no good choices, only more shitty and regular shitty
Escalate to what? They’re already doing all kinds of pirate stuff, and I don’t think they’re strong enough to threaten anything else the West cares about on their own. What seems like the obvious Western play would be to keep intercepting attacks from warships for at least a few weeks. It’s more expensive, but would give critical time to deal with all the other, bigger issues in the Middle East.