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Comment by _xnmw | Hacker News Reader

Lots of people wondering why we haven't wiped the pirates off the map yet. First of all, Saudi has been trying to do that for years (with US support) and failing. I think it shows how much leverage the Houthis have, and how much cheap drone technology has changed the nature of warfare. They have 3 hands to play:

1. Attack Saudi Arabia's oil infra with cheap drones and threaten 1/3 the world's energy. These drones cost 10x to 100x more to shoot down.

2. Start another Arab Spring, counting on the fact that the Houthis enjoy massive popularity in the Muslim world right now, among Sunni and Shia both, for opposing Israel.

3. Drag the US into another Afghanistan, which nobody wants.

See: https://www.csmonitor.com/World/Middle-East/2024/0104/Gaza-w...

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I don't think Houthi Yemen is the place to look for where concerted military pressure would be applied here; the Houthis are in the main a proxy for Iran, in its struggle against Saudi Arabia (that being the most salient geopolitical conflict in MENA).

So fail at another trillion dollar forever war?

Maybe? I'm just saying: Houthi Yemen isn't where you apply pressure when/if/as this reaches the point where pressure needs to be applied. I'm not predicting outcomes.

War with Iran would be apocalyptic to proportions hard to imagine. For one, they could destroy oil infrastructure, and that would be far more destructive to world economies than the current blockading of the strait. That would also mean the end of the petrodollar, a unique basis of American power.

It feels like you're trying to debate me about whether we should go to war with Iran. I'm not advocating or making predictions; I'm simply saying that a conventional framing for the the current conflict is that the Houthis are, whether they've gone "off script" or not, effectively an arm of the IRGC.

This feels too reduced in options and reasoning, to be honest. I would be surprised if any of those three options pan out, mid term.

To expand a little, I don't understand how the Houthis have support right now, outside of support that is specifically about destabilizing the entire region. Which is why I don't see your brief paragraph being enough to explain things. You do mention US support in there; who else is involved? And why?

Easy, its all orchestrated from Iran.

I want to believe that that is too simplistic, too. It does seem to fit the evidence far too well, though.

It’s only really simplistic if you come at things from a pro US/western point of view.

The nuance is that not everyone agrees about US backed hegemony in the region. The goal isn’t to “destabilize”/whatever neutered phrase the pentagon is using, the goal is to assert a different political order. The language you’re using here takes the current state of affairs as neutral or a given when it is not.

Iran supports Iranian hegemony in the region, news at 11?

Neither Hamas, Hezbollah or the Houthis would survive without the support from Iran. They don't even try to hide the origin of their weapons...

So who backs Iran? They’re not a superpower. How long does Iran survive a shooting war with the US?

Who backs Iran? Russia of course. Did you not notice the amount of Iranian drones attacking Ukraine? Other agreements between the two must be in place...This is the result of all the appeasement tactics of the last 15 years.

You have to wonder if this could all be tied back to Russia. They obviously stand to gain a lot if foreign powers are distracted. So far it's proving quite the boon to have the US interests split between Ukraine and Israel. I haven't seen evidence to suggest this is the case though. I imagine if we had that evidence it would be paraded before the US Congress to make it apparent that Ukraine's struggle is intimately tied to the unrest in the Middle East.

All they’re really doing is giving us a reason to dust off production capacity. The last thing Russia or China should want is a fully primed arsenal of democracy.

I'm afraid it really is that simple. The various big players in the Middle East have been doing it for decades. Iran also provides support for Hamas, which is why the Houthis are involved so directly.

The details are of course incredibly complicated, but the basic observation that weapons and money flow out of Tehran is straightforward.

taking out a drone with an expensive rocket is a bad choice, but taking out the drone launching crew and site with a rocket (or even better, a good size naval canon) seems like a much more cost effective choice. Its easy to launch things when nobody is shooting back at you.

Do these drones need significant infrastructure to launch? Seems like whack-a-mole. What do you do when they launch drones from school athletic fields? Or on top of hospitals?

Except when the drone was launched from a civilian apartment building. Then you get a whole lot of bad press, and people insist you stop fighting entirely.

All might be to strong, but it is clear that Iran is funding, providing leadership, training, and giving vocal support (sometimes in secret channels). With out Iran this might still exist, but it would have a lot less ability.

Just because there is a loose alliance and significant military support between several organizations doesn't mean that they all do the main party's bidding, much less that they only do the main party's bidding. (To whit, note that the US can't really order NATO to do much of anything).

I suspect that Iran isn't in any sense ordering the Houthis to do anything, and the idea to attack shipping is entirely germinated from the Houthis themselves (largely as a form of "showing support" for Palestinians, even if, as a few people have noted, this action only hurts them while providing them no meaningful aide). Largely, this is because it's colossally stupid for Iran to push for a provocation that is meaningfully likely to see all the major world powers (except for maybe Russia; note that China is going to be on the US's side here) create a coalition to eliminate a troublesome menace.

This probably is the case, but I think it's worth saying that it doesn't actually change Iran's exposure here, because I presume the rest of the world believes that the IRGC can stop this (or at least drastically scale it back) any time they want. If you were the UK Secretary of State for Defence, where would you rather engage? Houthi Yemen, or anywhere that Iran has an interest?

>I don't understand how the Houthis have support right now

They've got a huge amount of popular support in the Middle East, because so many people there hate Israel, and see the Houthis as the only ones standing up to Israel (apart from Hamas and Hezbollah). I don't have a source, but if you ever happened to check the comments on Middle East TikTok videos you'd see what I mean.

The conventional geopolitical answer for this is: the IRGC is the principal sponsor of the Houthis; the Houthi uprising was funded originally as an Iranian proxy war against Saudi Arabia. The Houthis, Hamas, and Hezbollah are part of an "axis of resistance", the subtext of which is "they take their orders from the IRGC".

It may or may not be the case that they're disrupting shipping at the direction of Iran, but it almost certainly is the case that Iran equipped them, and that Iran can effectively instruct them to stop.

It's hard to make any kind of comment on a thread here without getting pulled towards one pole or another of the ongoing argument about what's happening in MENA right now; I'm doing my best to keep this as dry as possible, and to hedge statements by saying things like "the conventional geopolitical answer". You can find alternate geopolitical answers; in fact, you can probably find any answer you're looking for. All I can do is relay what I'm reading.

Perfectly fair response. I, sadly, failed and walked into a thread I should have avoided. :(

I think my main question is what valid paths forward do people see here? I honestly don't know how to find news that isn't dominated by posturing, at the moment.

I don't know about the best path, but I know an obviously wrong path: which is to reduce other people's resistance and struggle as mere terrorism and extremist. US and western world clearly have the power to rule the world, but the way they act right now will ensure many more resistance and pain for everyone.

This, I think, is a fair and well meaning criticism.

That said, you have to hold your own accountable for bad acts. Doesn't mean none will ever happen, of course. Nor does it mean that you cannot have legitimate concerns and claims. And your response to a terrorist act cannot legitimately be to try to minimize it. Nor is it a valid response to rapid fire old grievances, many of which are misrepresented or where the people involved were held accountable.

So, in spirit of your criticism, let's try and move past it. You don't know the best path. What are some valid paths?

On the other hand, if we look at all the historical precedent for piracy becoming a major disruption to trade, it seems to me that most cases were solved only by a generous application of excessive violence, not by negotiations, as global maritime trade routes simply are a so huge strategic factor that's far more important to major powers involved than any struggle that some people may have, so if someone escalates their struggle to disrupting global trade routes, that is treated as a huge unjustified escalation and they and their struggle automatically becomes the enemy of almost everyone else, something to be eliminated at any cost, not treated as a valid concern.

Indeed, the usage of generous application of excessive violence tends to be effective to solve a lot of problems.

Once, the Romans has Gaul problems. They used a generous application of excessive violence, and it was effective.

Once, the US has native-Americans problems. They used a generous application of excessive violence, and it was effective.

Once, the Nazis has Jews problems. They used a generous application of excessive violence, and it was effective.

Once, Israel has Palestinian problems. They use a generous application of excessive violence, and it IS effective.

I've read that Hezbollah does not take orders from Iran, and that Nasrallah's thinking and decision making on strategy is given a lot of weight (just like Britain did not take orders from USA in WW2):

https://consortiumnews.com/2023/11/04/asad-abukhalil-nasrall...

That article has a few quirks (e.g., derisively referencing George Soros), but I found some of the small details in it add to its overall credibility, like how a portrait of Nasrallah was visible in Soleimani's house when Soleimani's family members were mourning his death.

* I usually treat references to George Soros as antisemitic dog whistles, but the author is normally a strident opponent of antisemitism, so I don't know what to think in this instance.

As I understand it, the biggest story with Hezbollah over the past decade has been their involvement in the Syrian Civil War, which apparently depleted them significantly and greatly reduced their status --- which does remain dominant --- in Lebanon. I think it's pretty widely seen as something Hezbollah did at the instruction of the IRGC, which is Syria's closest military ally.

Ah! What you are saying honestly enriches my understanding of this line in the piece I cited:

> When it comes to war with Israel, Nasrallah is the ultimate decision maker.

> Lots of people wondering why we haven't wiped the pirates off the map yet.

Because they're not a nation state and you can't actually do this in any meaningful way? It's like trying to wipe "greed" off the map. Good luck.

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