Houthi rebels, Suez Canal and UK airstrikes

Good on Britain.

It seems the UK is one of the few European powers (along with France) exerting their weight to protect our shipping lanes from terrorists. 

The Suez Canal is a critical choke-point (as we know from the 1950's Suez crisis): 12% of global trade and 30% of global cargo traffic go through it. Choking off the Suez Canal threatens the global economy – with the biggest victim being Europe. 

I think the Europeans are fine delegating this responsibility to Biden because these Houthis are not like the Somali pirates – with AKs and Zodiac inflatable rafts. These 'rebels' have helicopter gunships. As Iranian proxies – holding large chunks of Yemen – are way better funded. The US is probably the only nation with a navy capable of the kind of global force projection needed here.

An American problem is that President Biden promised during his presidential campaign to stop the war in Yemen. As such, he delisted the Houthi from the US terror list, stopped providing US intel regarding Houthi targets, halted weapon sales etc. The current mess is largely due to US political support being half-hearted.

Finally, it is worth noting that, as the Iranian-backed Houthi rebels have been attacking civilian ships, their actions constitute war crimes. All being done ostensibly against Israel and to further Hamas' interests.

The Houthis have stated that they would continue to “carry out their military operations against the Israeli enemy,” and have “implement[ed] the decision to prevent Israeli ships from navigating the Arab and Red Seas in support of the oppressed Palestinian people.” However, the five ships are not military objects; all five are commercial vessels with civilian crews. The Houthis have not presented any evidence to demonstrate that anything on board of the ships could have constituted military objects.

“The Houthis are claiming that they’re carrying out attacks on behalf of Palestinians, when the reality is that they’re attacking, arbitrarily detaining, and endangering civilians on ship crews who have zero connection to any known military target,” said Michael Page, Middle East and North Africa deputy director at Human Rights Watch. “The Houthis should immediately release the hostages and end their attacks on civilians caught in the crosshairs of their declared war on Israel.”