Iran and its proxies continue to strike targets across the Middle East — thanks to the pusillanimity of the Biden administration.
Monday saw Yemen’s Houthis, an important paramilitary catspaw for Tehran, strike a Norwegian commercial tanker north of the Bab al-Mandab Strait with a cruise missile.
There were no casualties.
But this is only the latest move in the Iran-led push to destabilize the Middle East via (among other murderous tactics) Houthi attacks on shipping lanes.
As is customary with Iran’s armed ploys for regional supremacy, these are “justified” via reference to the Israel-Hamas war.
Indeed, on Saturday the Houthis said they would attack all commercial ships bound for Israel.
Trouble is, this tanker was bound for Venice with a load of biofuel and vegetable oils.
So there’s no possible justification for the attack, even in the sociopathic terms Iran and its minions cite.
No: Just as with the ongoing attacks on US military targets across the region by Iranian proxies, this is Tehran flexing its muscles and making a play for power through terror.
Iran has ample breathing space for this thanks to the total lack of meaningful pushback from Washington, even when the attacks hit US military assets.
Yes, Washington’s hit a few ammo dumps, but made no meaningful kinetic response directed against the proxy armies themselves.
Or against the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps commanders who run the operations.
Numerous US troops have already been injured, many seriously; the parallel attacks on civilian targets only raise the danger of open war exponentially.
Biden might be content to sit on his hands now.
But what happens when the Houthis kill a US civilian?
Or if this missile had been a little better aimed and sunk the Norwegian tanker?
Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin has blathered that “the president has no higher priority than the safety of US personnel.”
Bull.
Unless and until the White House does actual deterrence against Iran, the world — and above all, the mullahs — will know that’s an empty, bloody lie.