{"id":45517,"date":"2024-01-17T13:15:56","date_gmt":"2024-01-17T21:15:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/?p=45517"},"modified":"2024-01-17T13:15:56","modified_gmt":"2024-01-17T21:15:56","slug":"re-designating-the-houthis-is-a-major-error","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/2024\/01\/17\/re-designating-the-houthis-is-a-major-error\/","title":{"rendered":"Re-Designating the Houthis Is a Major&nbsp;Error"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The Biden administration <a href=\"https:\/\/www.wsj.com\/world\/middle-east\/u-s-to-put-houthis-back-on-terrorist-list-596a974a?mod=hp_lead_pos1\" rel=\"\">will undo<\/a> one of the few good things it has ever done:<\/p>\n<p><i>The Biden administration plans to put the Houthi rebel group back on one of its lists of terrorist organizations, days after the U.S. launched strikes on its facilities in Yemen in retaliation for months of attacks on commercial vessels in the Red Sea, officials said.<\/i><\/p>\n<p><!--more--><\/p>\n<p><i>The placement as a specially designated global terrorist group, which the U.S. plans to formally announce on Wednesday, reverses a decision made early in President Biden\u2019s term to remove the Houthis from the list over concerns it hurt prospects for peace talks and further crippled the economy of an impoverished nation at risk of famine. The Trump administration first put the Houthis on the list.<\/i><\/p>\n<p>The original designation under the Trump administration was a destructive move taken at the tail end of Trump\u2019s presidency. It was one of Pompeo\u2019s last-minute actions designed to handcuff the next administration. The decision was widely condemned by humanitarian relief organizations, because they understood that the sanctions that went along with the designation would make it impossible to provide aid to people in desperate need of it. Scott Paul of Oxfam <a href=\"https:\/\/www.oxfam.org\/en\/press-releases\/oxfam-reaction-us-secretary-state-pompeos-decision-designate-houthis-foreign\" rel=\"\">said<\/a> at the time that it was a \u201ccounterproductive and dangerous policy that will put innocent lives at risk.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>To their great credit back then, the Biden administration quickly reversed the designation in 2021 because they understood that it was more important to stave off a massive famine than it was to take a symbolic swipe at the Houthis. Now they are going to revive the Trump administration\u2019s terrible policy in another foolish attempt to be seen as \u201cdoing something\u201d about the Houthis. Their policies throughout the region are failing, and now they are taking out their frustrations on the people of Yemen.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/daniellarison.substack.com\/p\/re-designating-the-houthis-is-a-major\"><b>Read the rest of the article at Eunomia<\/b><\/a><\/p>\n<p><i>Daniel Larison is a contributing editor for Antiwar.com and maintains his own site at <a href=\"https:\/\/daniellarison.substack.com\">Eunomia<\/a>. He is former senior editor at<\/i> The American Conservative<i>. He has been published in the<\/i> New York Times Book Review, Dallas Morning News, World Politics Review, Politico Magazine, Orthodox Life, Front Porch Republic, The American Scene<i>, and<\/i> Culture11, <i>and was a columnist for<\/i> The Week<i>. He holds a PhD in history from the University of Chicago, and resides in Lancaster, PA. Follow him on <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/DanielLarison\">Twitter<\/a>.<\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Biden administration will undo one of the few good things it has ever done: The Biden administration plans to put the Houthi rebel group back on one of its lists of terrorist organizations, days after the U.S. launched strikes on its facilities in Yemen in retaliation for months of attacks on commercial vessels in [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":56,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"none","_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"coauthors":[],"class_list":["post-45517","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"meta_box":{"disable_donate_message":"","custom_donate_message":"","subtitle":"The Biden administration's policies throughout the region are failing, and now they are taking out their frustrations on the people of Yemen."},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45517","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/56"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=45517"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45517\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":45521,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45517\/revisions\/45521"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=45517"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=45517"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=45517"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=45517"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}