Washington’s attempt to put together a coalition against the Houthis is attracting almost none of the regional powers

华盛顿试图组建一个反对胡塞武装的联盟，但几乎没有吸引任何地区大国

In yet another case of blowback, reflecting the failure of Western military interventionism in West Asia, Yemen’s Ansarallah (Houthi) movement has inserted itself as an active participant in the ongoing war between Israel and Gaza. First launching batches of loitering munitions, ballistic and cruise missiles towards Israel, Ansarallah then moved on to prevent the passage of Israeli-owned or operated ships through the Red Sea, before announcing a complete closure of the shipping route for any vessels destined to dock at the port of Eilat.

在西亚的西方军事干预失败的又一个例证，也造成了反作用，也门的安萨拉（胡塞）运动已经成为以色列和加沙之间正在进行的战争中的积极参与者。首先向以色列发射了一批游荡弹、弹道导弹和巡航导弹，然后阻止以色列所有的拥有或经营的船只通过红海，最后宣布完全关闭运往埃拉特港口的任何船只的航线。

After the Houthis seized a number of ships, while attacking others with drone strikes, activity at Eilat has dropped some 85%. International and Israeli shipping companies have opted to take the long route, which in some cases takes an additional 12 days, to reach Israel with their cargo, a costly diversion to say the least. In opposition to this, US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin traveled to the region and announced the formation of a multinational naval task force to be deployed in the Red Sea. Despite talk of the coalition including Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and even the United Arab Emirates, the only Arab nation that joined was Bahrain.

在胡塞武装夺取了许多船只并用无人机袭击其他船只后，埃拉特的活动下降了约85%。国际和以色列的航运公司选择采取更长的路线，有时需要多花费12天的时间才能抵达以色列，这无疑是一项昂贵的转移。针对这一点，美国国防部长劳埃德·奥斯汀前往该地区，并宣布成立一个多国海上特遣队部署在红海。尽管有关该联盟包括沙特阿拉伯、埃及甚至是阿拉伯联合酋长国的谈话，但唯一加入的阿拉伯国家是巴林。

So, without a United Nations Security Council (UNSC) resolution to back them up, usually required to make the militarisation of a territory legal under international law, the US has launched yet another foreign intervention. This one is significant because it failed to convince any major regional players to join, demonstrating the decline in American influence, but has also elevated the status of Yemen’s Ansarallah.

因此，在没有联合国安全理事会（UNSC）的决议支持的情况下，通常需要根据国际法使一个领土军事化合法化，美国又发动了另一次外国干预。这次干预具有重要意义，因为它未能说服任何主要地区参与者加入，显示了美国影响力的下降，但也提升了也门安萨拉的地位。
原创翻译：龙腾网 https://www.ltaaa.cn 转载请注明出处


Under former US President Barack Obama, Washington backed the Saudi-led coalition’s intervention in Yemen back in 2015. Since then, some 377,000 people have died, largely as a result of the deadly blockade imposed on the majority of the country’s population, while some 15,000 civilians have died due to direct conflict. The obxtive of the Saudi-led intervention, which received the backing of the US and UK, was to remove Ansarallah from power in the nation’s capital, Sanaa. Although the group does not enjoy international recognition as Yemen’s governing force, it rules over more than 80% of the population, has the support of two-thirds of the nation’s armed forces, and operates a government out of Sanaa.

在美国前总统巴拉克·奥巴马的任期内，华盛顿支持了沙特领导的联军于2015年对也门的干预行动。自那时起，大约37.7万人死亡，主要是由于对该国大部分人口实施的致命封锁，而约1.5万名平民因直接冲突而死亡。沙特领导的干预行动得到了美国和英国的支持，旨在将安萨尔拉从也门首都萨那的权力中除去。虽然这个团体并未得到国际认可作为也门的执政力量，但它控制着80%以上的人口，得到了该国三分之二的武装力量的支持，并在萨那设立了政府。

Ansarallah came to power following a popular revolution against then-Yemeni President Abdrabbuh Mansour Hadi in 2014. Months later, Hadi resigned and fled the country after Ansarallah militants had decided to take over by force. In the midst of a seven-year war, the political, social and armed movement that is often referred to as “the Houthi rebels” operates as the de facto government of Yemen, but is yet to receive recognition at the UN, which instead recognises the ‘Presidential Leadership Council’ that was created in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, in 2022.

安萨尔拉在2014年针对也门总统阿卜杜·拉布·曼苏尔·哈迪的流行革命后上台。几个月后，哈迪辞职并逃离该国，因为安萨尔拉激进分子决定通过武力接管政权。在长达七年的战争中，“胡塞叛军”经常被称为政治、社会和武装运动，作为也门的事实上政府运作，但尚未得到联合国的认可。联合国反而承认了在沙特阿拉伯的利雅得于2022年成立的“总统领导委员会”。

The context above is crucial for understanding the capabilities of Yemen’s Ansarallah, which was downplayed as a band of “Iran-backed rebels” in Western corporate media for years. While the governments of the collective West have tried to pretend that the Yemeni group is insignificant, Washington’s recent decision to form a multi-national naval coalition to confront the Houthis is an admission that they are a major regional actor. In fact, Ansarallah is the only Arab movement that controls state assets and a standing army that is participating in the ongoing war with Israel.

以上背景对于理解也门安萨拉的能力至关重要，多年来，西方公司媒体将其淡化为“伊朗支持的叛军团体”。虽然集体西方国家的政府试图假装也门组织无足轻重，但华盛顿最近决定组建多国海军联盟来对抗胡塞武装，这意味着他们是一个主要的地区行动者。事实上，安萨拉是唯一控制国家资产和拥有常备军参与与以色列进行的战争的阿拉伯运动。

The reality that the US is now confronting is something that both Saudi Arabia and the UAE came to realize early last year. Following two separate drone and missile attacks on Abu Dhabi and Dubai in January of 2022, it became apparent that the West’s current level of support could not provide sufficient security for the UAE. Up until a nationwide ceasefire was brokered in April 2022, Ansarallah had also demonstrated its developed missile and drone capabilities, striking valuable economic targets inside Saudi Arabia too.

美国现在正在面对的现实是，沙特阿拉伯和阿联酋去年年初就意识到了这一点。在2022年1月对阿布扎比和迪拜进行的两起分别的无人机和导弹袭击之后，显而易见，西方目前的支持水平无法为阿联酋提供足够的安全保障。直到2022年4月实现全国停火之前，安萨拉还展示了其先进的导弹和无人机能力，打击了沙特阿拉伯境内的有价值的经济目标。

Despite receiving a lot less attention than it deserved, Ansarallah forces strategically timed their second attack on the UAE to coincide with the arrival of Israeli President Isaac Herzog in the country. This was a clear message to the Emirati and Saudi leaderships that Western support will not provide sufficient security. It’s likely because of this threat from Yemen that Riyadh sought a security pact with the US, in order to make a normalization agreement with Israel possible. Such a security pact would have stipulated that an attack on one is an attack on all, hence dragging the Americans into a direct war against Yemen in the event that the conflict was to flare up again.

尽管没有得到应有的关注，但安萨拉部队在战略上选择了与以色列总统艾萨克·赫尔佐格访问阿联酋同时进行第二次袭击。这是对阿联酋和沙特领导层发出的明确信号，即西方支持无法提供足够的安全保障。可能正是由于来自也门的这种威胁，利雅得才寻求与美国达成安全协定，以实现与以色列的正常化协议。这样的安全协定将规定对一方的攻击即视为对所有人的攻击，因此在冲突再次升级的情况下，将使美国卷入对也门的直接战争。

The US attempted to help topple the current government in Sanaa, but ended up creating a battle-hardened group that has domestically developed capabilities well beyond those it possessed at the start of the conflict in 2015. In his first foreign policy address after taking office in 2021, US President Joe Biden pledged to end the war in Yemen. However, instead of pursuing a Yemen-Saudi deal, the White House abandoned its pledge and sought to broker a Saudi-Israeli deal instead. That fatal decision is coming back to bite policymakers in Washington.

美国试图帮助推翻萨那现政府，但最终却创造了一个经过战斗考验的组织，其国内发展的能力远远超出了2015年冲突开始时所拥有的能力。美国总统乔·拜登在2021年上任后的首次外交政策讲话中承诺结束也门战争。然而，白宫并没有寻求也门-沙特协议，而是放弃了承诺，并试图代替达成沙特-以色列协议。这个致命的决定正在反噬华盛顿的政策制定者。

Backing the Israelis to the hilt in their war on Gaza, spelling out that there are no red lines as to how far the government of Benjamin Netanyahu can go, the US has allowed a Palestine-Israel war to expand into a broader regional Arab-Israeli conflict. The threat of escalation between the Israeli army and Lebanese Hezbollah is growing by the day, while Ansarallah leader Abdul-Malik al-Houthi has stated that his forces “will not stand idly by if the Americans have a tendency to escalate and commit foolishness by targeting our country.”

美国在支持以色列打击加沙方面全力以赴，明确表示对于本雅明·内塔尼亚胡政府可以走多远不存在任何限制，这使得巴勒斯坦和以色列的战争扩大为更广泛的阿拉伯-以色列冲突。以色列军队和黎巴嫩真主党之间升级的威胁日益增加，同时安萨拉领袖阿卜杜勒·马利克·胡塞表示，如果美国有升级和针对我们国家的愚蠢行为的倾向，他的部队“不会袖手旁观”。

By every metric, US diplomatic stock has dropped internationally as a result of its handling of Israel’s war on Gaza. It has failed to convince any major regional actors in West Asia to back its escalatory agenda, all of which are standing on the same side as Russia and China in calling for a ceasefire. The world sees the hypocrisy of Washington. For the sake of comparison, the death toll in Gaza today is said to have exceeded 23,000, the majority being women and children. Israel has killed this many people in just over two months, while in the first two years of the ISIS/Daesh insurgency in Iraq, the UN estimated that the terrorist group killed some 18,800 civilians. The total number of civilians killed by ISIS in Syria is set at just over 5,000.

根据各项指标，美国在处理以色列对加沙的战争问题上，其国际外交声誉已经大幅下降。它未能说服西亚地区的任何主要地区行动者支持其升级议程，而这些行动者与俄罗斯和中国站在同一阵线上，呼吁停火。全世界看到了华盛顿的虚伪。为了比较，据报道，今天加沙的死亡人数已经超过了23,000人，其中大多数是妇女和儿童。以色列在短短两个多月内就杀死了这么多人，而在ISIS/达伊什在伊拉克发动叛乱的头两年里，联合国估计恐怖组织杀害了大约18,800名平民。在叙利亚，ISIS杀害的平民总数略高于5,000人。

The level of human suffering being inflicted in Gaza is without precedent, breaking records in modern history for the tonnage of explosives dropped on such a small territory, in addition to the highest number of journalists, medical workers, and children killed in a single conflict. In reaction, the US government has repeatedly blocked ceasefire resolutions at the UNSC, gives Israel unlimited support unconditionally, and now threatens to drag a coalition of Western nations into a war on Yemen. The solution here is very simple: Ansarallah has said the blockade on ships to Israel will end when the war on Gaza ends. Washington has the ability to stop the war, but refuses to do so, while its threats against Yemen will not work to achieve any result beyond further escalation.

加沙所遭受的人道主义灾难是史无前例的，在现代历史上创下了如此小的领土上投掷炸药的吨位记录，同时也造成了单一冲突中死亡的记者、医务人员和儿童数量最多。作为对此的反应，美国政府一再阻挠联合国安理会关于停火的决议，无条件地给予以色列不受限制的支持，并威胁将西方国家联盟卷入对也门的战争。解决方案非常简单：安萨拉已经表示，对以色列船只的封锁将在对加沙的战争结束时解除。华盛顿有能力停止这场战争，但拒绝这样做，而其对也门的威胁将无法取得除进一步升级之外的任何结果。