Alwaght- While Israeli regime is in a tight spot economically due to attacks by Yemen’s Ansarullah movement on ships headed to Israeli ports, Tel Aviv leaders are hearing bad news and it is that the American plan to form an international naval force to protect the Israeli maritime trade run into troubles at its first steps, ruining White House equations.
On Tuesday, the US Secretary of State Lloyd Austin, pointing to Ansarullah threats, officially announced formation of a multinational naval coalition, officially dubbed Operation Prosperity Guardian, to protect security of navigation in the Red Sea, a tenuous coalition that is aimed at protecting Israeli ships in the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden against Ansarullah operations that are launched in solidarity with Gaza.
According to the US Department of Defense, 43 countries were invited to join this naval coalition, but only nine countries, Bahrain, Canada, France, Italy, the Netherlands, Norway, Spain, Seychelles, and Britain, announced their readiness to join it. However, less than a week since the birth of this premature coalition, France, Spain and Italy have refused to hand over their warships to this coalition and confirmed their decision to withdraw, making it born dead.
At first view, it seems that the Prosperity Guardian does not differ much from the 153 Task Force coalition that was formed in the Arabian Sea and Indian Ocean to thaw pirate attacks from Somalian sea. However, there is a subtle difference between them. This time it is about the Israeli crimes in Gaza and blockade of this region that has drawn international outrage.
The presence of only a small number of countries in the largely demonstrative American coalition immediately raised questions about why some of the biggest Western and Arab powers declined it.
Why have Arabs not joined the coalition?
With the Arab participation limited to the tiny island kingdom of Bahrain, this coalition lacks a regional legitimacy, something making it look like a purely Western rather than international alliance.
The three influential Arab countries of Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and the UAE are absent. The US had specially counted on these three Arab countries so that with their help it could ward off Ansarullah’s operations. But its plan met its failure.
There are several reasons why these three countries refused to participate in the American coalition, although they were supporters of this proposal in recent years.
In the past 9 years of the Yemen war, Saudi Arabia and the UAE faced Ansarullah attacks twice when the latter struck Aramco oil facilities and the depth of Abu Dhabi. Given the threats of the leaders of Sana’a to attack the members of the naval coalition in the Red Sea, the Saudis and the Emiratis are worried that in case of their participation, the Yemenis will again point their missiles and drones towards these countries. Riyadh and Abu Dhabi leaders know that Ansarullah’s warnings are not empty.
Also, Saudi Arabia’s participation in the American coalition means death of a peace deal the Saudis are trying to strike with the Yemenis in order to get out of the Yemeni quagmire in which they have been struggling for years. Actually, this country’s entry into the naval coalition means declaring war again on Ansarullah. Therefore, Riyadh’s entry into the American-led dangerous game jeopardizes the peace process and returns Saudi Arabia to a new war of attrition.
The entry of the UAE into this alliance means the end of the temporary ceasefire between it and the Yemenis, and as a result, Yemeni military operations could be provoked. This is something that the UAE does not want because it cannot deal with these attacks that will be highly costly. These concerns of Saudi Arabia and the UAE have been confirmed by an analyst of the Israeli Kan network who said that these countries are extremely afraid of Ansarullah’s operations and therefore are not willing to join Washington’s alliance.
From another aspect, the Saudis cannot forget the criticism of the Biden administration against them and the Arab coalition in Yemen. Biden halted military aids to Riyadh and removed Ansarullah from terror list, to Saudi frustration.
Since Biden’s assumption of power at the White House, the Saudis have been trying to separate ways from Washington and are extremely angry with the country’s policies regarding the war in Yemen. So, perhaps the Saudi leaders today are taking revenge on the US as the latter is in hot water and needs its Arab allies.
Another important point is that the Arab rulers of the Persian Gulf are under pressure from public opinion in the region that they should take a comprehensive action against the Israeli regime. Therefore, if the Arabs join the American naval coalition, it means that they have declared war on the Palestinian resistance groups. Participating in such a coalition blows the Arab and Islamic image and status of Saudi Arabia, because it confronts Hamas as an actor who targets Israel’s interests, and in this case, Saudi Arabia will clearly side with the Israeli enemy and can never justify such a stance to Arab and Muslim public.
Public opinion expects that if Arab rulers do not help the Palestinian people at least do not block the path of the Hamas movement which is fighting against the occupation. In fact, refusing to join the naval alliance is the least thing that the Arab rulers can do for the Palestinian people.
On the other hand, Ansarullah have repeatedly stated that their operations are not directed against any country except Israeli ships and that the Red Sea navigation is safe for all ships. Therefore, the Saudis and Emiratis are confident that they will not be attacked by Ansarullah and so they do not want to cause troubles by cooperating with this alliance.
Egypt, one of the countries which the Americans expected to join in, rejected the proposal. Egypt is directly related to the security of navigation in Bab-el-Mandeb due to the connection of the strait to the Suez Canal, from which Cairo earns more than $9 billion annually. Indeed, Egypt does not want to put its interests at stake by joining the American alliance, as Egyptian leaders know very well that Ansarullah has the ability to block Bab-el-Mandeb in times of crisis, in which case the Egyptians will be deprived of Suez Canal revenues. Also, increasing pressure on the Israeli regime to lift the blockade of Gaza which means failure of the project to relocate the people of Gaza to the Sinai Peninsula plays into the hands of Egypt. Thus, Ansarullah’s operation is inadvertently in line with Cairo’s policies.
Absence of Western allies
In addition to the Arab countries, Western allies have declined the US call for joining the naval coalition. Though in the beginning of Gaza war Europeans rallied behind Tel Aviv, as the time went by and Israel showed its true colors by committing heinous crimes against the defenseless civilians, they changed their tone gradually and lashed out against Netanyahu government. By leaving the ridiculous US coalition, France, Spain and Italy do not want to be complicit in the crimes of the occupiers and provoke public backlash.
Europeans and other countries know that Washington’s insistence on forming this coalition is to protect Israel, save it economically, and save it from the heavy losses it will suffer as a result of attacks by Yemeni forces. Westerners believe that Ansarullah will not act against their interests in the Red Sea and the operations of this group are only directed at the Israeli ships, and since the leaders of Sana’a have warned that the interests of each coalition member country will be among their legitimate goals, these European countries do not want to broaden the conflict domain and instead secure safe passage for their ships from the Red Sea.
From another perspective, the Western countries know that this coalition will emboldened Israel for further crimes while they these days are talking about ceasefire and even in the UN voted to a resolution calling for end of violence. It is certain that drop in Western support will put pressure on the Israeli regime to scale down its crimes in Gaza, and perhaps the main reason why Netanyahu’s government is thinking about a ceasefire and the withdrawal of forces from Gaza these days is the decrease in the European support.
The US claims that it intends to ensure security of international navigation through this coalition, but as long as the Israeli crimes in Gaza continue, stability in the region is unattainable. Indeed, if White House leaders want peace and security, they must force the Israeli occupation to stop Gaza war and end the siege. Otherwise, the hands of the resistance groups, especially Ansarullah, are always on the trigger to punish their enemies. Some observers suggest that if the US and the remaining countries in its coalition decide to take any military action against Yemen, they actually wage war under a coalition lacking international legitimacy or a UN mandate and will inflame a conflict whose consequences will negatively impact the world economy.
