Pirates of the Red Sea: The Houthi threat should not be ignored - opinion

Until 1801, Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, and Libya controlled all trading routes through the Barbary waters and North Africa and demanded ransom for the safe passage of seaborne commerce. This went on for centuries. Using any trading routes through the Barbary waters and North Africa meant payment of tribute to pirates. 

In 1801, US president Thomas Jefferson refused to pay ransom or tribute for piracy on the high seas. In 1805, US Marines stormed the Barbary pirates’ fortress of Derna (Tripoli). This was famously commemorated in the Marine Corps hymn with the words “To the shores of Tripoli.”

The pirates are still at it. The civilized world is ignoring massive modern-day piracy being practiced by the Iranian regime and their Houthi puppets. Most recently, MSC Orion, a Portuguese-flagged container ship, came under attack about 600 km off the coast of Yemen in the Arabian Sea. It was reported that Iran’s Houthis in Yemen had committed the crime.

Houthi pirates

As the world waffles on how to deal with these so-called “rebels,” the Houthi pirates are hunting vessels and firing missiles on the high seas. At the behest of their Iranian masters, they threaten to strike in the Indian Ocean. A threat to world shipping is a threat to civilization itself. In 1801, the United States realized that such attacks must be stopped – even by a new nation, with the War of 1812 looming on the immediate horizon.

The United States is now a world superpower and operates with a coalition of allies to respond to global threats. Threats in the Arabian Sea, the Indian Ocean, or any other international trade route can and should be swiftly and eliminated. 

If the worst action taken is a mere swatting of their missiles of death, the evil remains. Ammunition of pirates being swatted away and collected, and that is all? The pirates would happily capture or sink the opposition and the cannonball collection would be for naught. As any good coach knows, the best defense is a good offense. That is what Jefferson knew when he took the fight to the pirates.

On October 23, 1983, Hezbollah murdered 241 US military personnel, including 220 Marines, 18 sailors, and three soldiers in a terrorist bombing of the Marine Corps barracks in Beirut. Minutes later, a second suicide bomber killed 58 French paratroopers. Six innocent Lebanese civilians also lost their lives. 

Until today, that is the deadliest day for the US Marines since the Battle of Iwo Jima in World War II. Since then, US forces have come under attack from other arms of the mullah regime – on land and on the high seas. The address of the headquarters of all this evil is Tehran.

WHEN IRAQ invaded Kuwait in 1990, the US coalition sprang into action and provided the expected shock and awe. When Hamas invaded Israel, the response was significantly more muted. Organized legions of useful idiots went on the offensive – against the victims of invasion, torture, rape, pillage, and kidnapping.

This was followed by continued attacks on Israel from all sides under the command of Iranian puppet masters who see Israel as a smaller target (“Little Satan”) in striking at US interests (“The Great Satan) in their phony “religious” war. When did firing rockets and cruise missiles at civilian population centers become “normal”? When did blood-curdling threats of annihilation based on religious identity become okay – from terrorists to diplomats to “professors”?

The US, the UK, and others have actively helped save Israel when Iran attacked directly. However, this aid has to date only been directed at the agents of terror, not the headquarters of such.

In an interview on NBC-TV’s The Today Show on February 19, 1998, US secretary of state Madeleine K. Albright said: “It is the threat of the use of force and our line-up there that is going to put force behind the diplomacy. But if we have to use force, it is because we are America; we are the indispensable nation. 

“We stand tall and we see further than other countries into the future, and we see the danger here to all of us. I know that the American men and women in uniform are always prepared to sacrifice for freedom, democracy, and the American way of life.” That is the America of Thomas Jefferson – the “indispensable nation.”

Civilization and civility are indispensable, however, they require aggressive defense before it is too late.

The writer has served in several capacities in building Israel-US trade relations, including that of trade commissioner/director of trade for the government of Israel to the United States. He currently lives in Jerusalem.