Ex-NATO leader rips ‘timid’ White House for not hitting harder at Iran-backed Houthis over warship assaults
A former top NATO commander Sunday derided the Biden administration as “timid” for not retaliating more against the Iran-backed terror group the Houthis, who have launched assaults against US warships.
Ex-NATO Supreme Allied Commander James Stavridis — who served under President Barack Obama when Biden was vice president — criticized the White House over its handling of the defiant Yemeni rebels as the Israel-Hamas war threatened to spread with Iran’s air assault against Israel on Saturday.
“We have been too timid in our approach and striking back at the Houthis. They are proxies. They are creatures of Iran. We are trying to be very calibrated in our approach, and it’s not working,” said Stavridis, a 69-year-old former naval officer, to WABC 770 AM’s “Cats Roundtable” host John Catsimatidis.
“They are continuing to shoot at our warships. They are shooting at merchant traffic. Sooner or later, one of those ballistic missiles is going to get through, and you’re going to see dozens of American sailors killed, or big merchant ship sunk and environmental disaster or blocking the Suez Canal approaches,” Stavridis said.
The US struck hundreds of Houthi targets during a prolonged campaign earlier this year, but the terror group had been undeterred, killing three crew members of a Liberian-owned, Barbados-flagged bulk carrier just last month as it vowed to ramp up attacks during Ramadan.
On April 3, Lt. Gen. Alexus Grynkewich, who heads US Air Forces Central, claimed the American attacks on the militia group have “certainly affected their behavior. Their pace of operations is not what it was.”
But Stavridis insisted that the US response to date is not enough.
“We need to increase the offensive work we’re doing against the Houthis,” he said.
“We’re going to probably have to start thinking about going after Iranian maritime targets to send them a signal to stop supplying these Houthi rebels. We have been too timid thus far in our approach against these pirates. And that’s what they are. Every nation has an interest in this stopped.”
The Houthis took over vast swaths of Yemen in 2014, sparking a civil war. Their current offensives are aimed at supporting Palestinians during the Israel war after Oct. 7 while generally trying to increase their influence and popularity in the region.
Their ally, Iran, launched a blistering air attack on Israel over the weekend in retaliation for a deadly assault on Iranian officials in Syria earlier this month. Still, nearly all of the drones and missiles launched by Iran were intercepted by Israel in the air.
-Additional reporting by Carl Campanile
