Earlier this year, it was reported that more than half of the population of Yemen, referred to as the poorest country in all of the Middle East, were facing starvation. It comes as a bit of a surprise that a country facing such dire economic and humanitarian crises would then, less than a year later, choose to launch a missile attack against such a formidable opponent as the United States Navy.
This is the official story being told, despite an outright denial from the Houthi rebels that the missiles originated from their territory. The Houthis are a group of Shiite Muslims who came about following a 2004 uprising led by Hussein Badr al-Din al-Houthi which subsequently resulted in his killing. The U.S. has long suspected that the Houthis have been receiving clandestine aide from the Iranian government. Iran has adamantly rebutted this accusation.
As a result of the alleged attack, the U.S. decided to get involved in the ongoing conflict by means of retaliatory strikes, the first in the region against the Houthis. Among the various sites to receive Tomahawk cruise missiles were three radar stations currently under control of the rebel group. This just continues the ongoing violence in the war torn country which began in March of 2015, when a group of countries led by Saudi Arabia and backed financially by the United States and United Kingdom began a bombing campaign against the Houthis.
In turn, the Iranian government, viewing the strikes as nothing more than impetuous hostility, deployed a fleet of ships to the Gulf of Aden. The act of aggression over an event that is still being debated and investigated is eerily and historically similar to the means by which the United States entered the Vietnam War.
While Yemen is of little importance to the United States, the country is in a geographically key position for other possible future endeavors. The event just furthers the ongoing notion previously evidenced in both the South and East China Seas and Syria that everything eventually leads back to Russia. Additionally, many countries have condemned the United States for backing Saudi Arabia, a country with a history of human rights violations, and have either withdrawn support for the US or have outright pledged their support to Russia.
More and more in recent years, it seems as though the United States is preemptively preparing for an escalated conflict with Russia. There is still no word from the long-quiet anti-war left, although with the way the official story has been portrayed this should come with little surprise.
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