““I think we are making a mistake,” Vance wrote in the Signal chat, later published by The Atlantic. Vance argued that although Trump wanted to send a message with the strikes, “I am not sure the president is aware how inconsistent this is with his message on Europe right now.” He did say, though, that he was “willing to support the consensus of the team and keep these concerns to myself,” but went on to say “there is a strong argument for delaying this a month.”
Minutes later, White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller shut down the conversation, writing, “As I heard it, the president was clear.””
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“The senior Republican official added: “It’s one thing to have a healthy interagency debate before a decision is made. It’s another to try and undo a Commander-in-Chief decision once Trump gives the execute order. This is the latter, and it’s very [John] Bolton-esque.”
Some Republicans believe Vance raising questions about an action the president had already agreed to amounted to a form of obstruction, the same senior Republican official said.”
“Candidate Donald Trump thought that bombing Yemen was “just a failed mentality” when then-President Joe Biden did it. “It’s crazy. You can solve problems over the telephone. Instead, they start dropping bombs. I see, recently, they’re dropping bombs all over Yemen. You don’t have to do that. You can talk in such a way where they respect you and they listen to you,” Trump said in a May 2024″
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“Trump is now dropping bombs all over Yemen. Over the weekend, the U.S. military launched its first air raids on Yemen in months, hitting targets around the country and killing at least 53 people. Sources in the administration have told The New York Times that the attacks will continue for weeks”
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“Instead of calling Biden a warmonger, as he had a year ago, Trump claimed on Sunday that Biden’s “pathetically weak” policy had allowed “unrelenting campaign of piracy, violence, and terrorism” against American shipping.”
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“Trump’s notoriously hawkish national security adviser, Mike Waltz, thinks this campaign will be different. “These were not kind of pinprick, back and forth—what ultimately proved to be feckless attacks. This was an overwhelming response that actually targeted multiple Houthi leaders and took them out. And the difference here is, one, going after the Houthi leadership, and two, holding Iran responsible,” he told ABC on Sunday.”
“Russia could decide to help the Houthis with their Red Sea attacks and is engaging with the Iran-backed rebels at a “serious level,” a senior US State Department official said.
The Houthis have long received extensive support from Iran, including weapons and training, which the rebels have relied on over the past year to carry out attacks on military and civilian vessels transiting key Middle Eastern shipping lanes.
But the State Department has grown increasingly concerned in recent months that the Houthis could be receiving assistance from another country: Russia, US Special Envoy for Yemen Tim Lenderking told Business Insider in a recent interview.
“It does seem as though there is a fairly serious level of engagement happening,” Lenderking said of the Houthis and Russia. “We are particularly concerned about the kind of equipment that would really enable the Houthis to be more accurate in their targeting of US and other ships in the region — that would enhance the Houthi capability to strike those targets.””
“Solid-fuel missiles can be set up and fired faster than those containing liquid fuel. That’s a key concern for the Houthis as their missile launch sites have been repeatedly targeted by U.S. and allied forces in recent months over the rebels’ attacks on shipping through the Red Sea corridor. One such strike hit the Houthis even before they were able to launch their missile.
For their part, the Houthis described the Palestine as a “locally made” missile. However, the Houthis are not known to possess the ability to manufacture complicated missile and guidance systems locally in Yemen, the Arab world’s poorest country, which been gripped by war since the rebels seized the capital, Sanaa, nearly a decade ago.
The Houthis have, however, been repeatedly armed by Iran during the war despite a United Nations arms embargo. While Iran claims it doesn’t arm the Houthis, ships seized by the U.S. and its allies have found Iranian weaponry, missile fuel and components on board.
Iranian media reported the launch of the Palestine and described it as locally manufactured, citing the Houthis. However, design elements on the missile resemble other missiles developed by Iran’s paramilitary Revolutionary Guard. That includes one called the Fattah, or “Conqueror” in Farsi.”
“These targets include static Houthi facilities and sites located across Yemen, missiles and drones the rebels were preparing to launch at ships at sea, and weapons that they already fired into shipping lanes. The strike group has leaned on its aircraft and warships to engage targets and defend against varying threats.”
https://www.yahoo.com/news/us-navy-carrier-strike-group-194234119.html
“Southern Yemen’s stability is a more recent phenomenon than Somaliland’s, but it is just as real. While the Saudis struggled unsuccessfully to push back the Houthis, Emirati forces working in tandem with local forces drove out Al Qaeda elements who had occupied Aden, Mukalla and other towns and ports. Multiple flights depart Aden each day for Egypt, Saudi Arabia, or Djibouti; the Sana’a airport handles at most a single flight daily. Hotels in Aden thrive. Security has returned. Aden is safer today than Karachi, Peshawar, and many Latin American and African capitals. An American is more likely to be taken hostage in Beijing or Moscow than Aden.
That the United States has not at least temporarily relocated its Yemen embassy in Aden is itself an acknowledgment that Yemeni unity is a fiction. American diplomats know that northern Yemenis consider southern Yemen a foreign land and vice versa. Southern Yemen has more in common with Somaliland, with whom many southern Yemeni families share blood, than with the Houthi-dominated areas.
Just as with Somalia and Somaliland, however, neither the White House nor State Department have the foresight to acknowledge the benefits of Yemeni disunity. Even short of recognizing southern Yemeni self-determination, maintaining a diplomatic office in Aden would bring huge diplomatic and security rewards at little cost. Southern Yemen may be secure now, but it was not long ago that Al Qaeda filled the vacuum. A U.S. presence tips the balance further by providing Yemenis hope and encouraging both Western and Arab investment. Intelligence also matters. Just as U.S. Embassy in Somalia reporting is risible given its blindness to dynamics in Somaliland where the State Department has no presence, the lack of a diplomatic office in Aden denies diplomats and intelligence analysts insight into local dynamics, including that across the de facto border in northern Yemen.
Revisionist powers are on the offensive, while the American presence erodes. In Yemen, this takes the form of Iranian support for the Houthis, while China operates its first overseas naval base just a couple dozen miles away in Djibouti. Rather than rectify the problem, the State Department appears aloof to it. If the State Department cares about the Yemeni people and consolidating stability in a region where it is elusive, there can be no further delay to an official diplomatic office or consulate in Aden.”
“The US Navy has a missile problem. A shortage of its best SM-6 missiles – multipurpose weapons that can sink ships, hit targets on land and intercept aircraft and other missiles – could doom its fleet. Missiles are being expended at a high rate in the current Red Sea fighting against the Iranian-backed Houthis of Yemen. What good are the Navy’s 85 destroyers and cruisers if they can’t shoot?
A little industrial ingenuity could end the crisis, however. Defense firm Lockheed Martin is proposing to arm Navy ships with a missile that normally launches from land: the US Army’s Patriot.
The Patriot is a deadly accurate munition, as Ukrainian and Russians forces have learned. The hard way, in the Russians’ case. But its main advantage over the Navy’s best SM-6 missile is that Lockheed makes a lot of them.
On paper, the US fleet is a giant floating missile magazine. Each of 72 destroyers sails with as many as 96 vertical missile cells. A cruiser – the Navy has 13 of them – has 122 cells. Each cell can fire various weapons such as an SM-2 surface-to-air missile or a Tomahawk land-attack cruise missile. But the best weapon that fits in the so-called “vertical launch system” is the SM-6.
The 22-foot, 3,300-pound SM-6 is the Navy’s only omni-role missile. Thanks to its sensitive built-in radar, it works equally well against targets on the sea, on land and in the air out to a range of 150 miles or farther. It’s even able to offer a defense against incoming hypersonic weapons.
But the SM-6 is complex. For a decade now, the Navy has been paying Raytheon to build 125 of the missiles per year at a cost of slightly more than $4 million per missile; the fleet has around 600 in stock. The production rate should increase slightly in the coming years.
Even taking into account the fleet’s large arsenal of less-capable SM-2s, there’s a real danger it could get overwhelmed by enemy missiles, drones and warplanes during, say, a war with China over Taiwan.”