Strikes on Yemen: initial thoughts

Overnight US and UK forces struck at a dozen Houthi bases in Yemen in the hope of deterring their aggression in the Red Sea, but it is not clear how effective it will be

How we got here

These things can happen very quickly. On Tuesday (9 January), Houthi militants in Yemen launched a substantial and complex strike consisting of 18 one-way attack drones, two cruise missiles and one ballistic missile against shipping in the Red Sea. This was the biggest escalation yet of the crisis around the Bab el-Mandeb strait, which I examined at the end of December; it had begun on 19 October when the Houthis had launched missiles and drones towards Israel. These were intercepted and shot down by the USS Carney, an Arleigh Burke-class guided missile destroyer operating with the US Carrier Strike Group 12 which had been deployed to the Eastern Mediterranean the day after the Hamas attack on Israel on 7 October.

The attacks on Tuesday were successfully countered by F/A-18E/F Super Hornet aircraft from the USS Dwight D. Eisenhower and anti-missile measures by the destroyers USS Gravely, USS Laboon, USS Mason and Royal Navy Type 45 destroyer HMS Diamond. Although all of the weapons fired from Yemen were intercepted, there was a feeling that Western leaders were approaching a point of no return. On Wednesday, the United Nations Security Council approved a resolution condemning the Houthi strikes, demanding that they cease and asserting the right of freedom of navigation.

The US secretary of state, Antony Blinken, visiting Bahrain, told the media that “if these attacks continue as they did yesterday, there will be consequences”. He refused to be drawn on any specific proposals but did not rule out military action, and said specifically “to Iran, as other countries have as well, that the support that they’re providing to the Houthis, including for these actions, needs to stop”. In London, Grant Shapps, the defence secretary, told Sky News “we must be clear with the Houthis, that this has to stop and that is my simple message to them today and watch this space”.

It was wise that neither Blinken nor Shapps made explicit threats nor gave explicit terms. Western leaders are still haunted by the disaster of August 2012, when President Barack Obama stated publicly that, although the US had not so far taken military action against the régime of President Bashar al-Assad in Syria, there were limits, and “a red line for us is we start seeing a whole bunch of chemical weapons moving around or being utilized. That would change my calculus. That would change my equation.” The administration then failed to act even when evidence of the use of chemical weapons came to light.

It seems likely that plans were being drawn up on Wednesday for potential air and missile strikes on Houthi positions in Yemen. The prime minister, Rishi Sunak, held a call with the full cabinet on Thursday evening, and the leader of the opposition, Sir Keir Starmer, and the shadow defence secretary, John Healey, were briefed by officials in the Cabinet Office (Starmer remotely). So too was the speaker of the House of Commons, Sir Lindsay Hoyle. It is standard practice to brief senior opposition figures and others confidentially on Privy Council terms at times of crisis.

Military action and reaction

Once it was announced that ministers were meeting and the opposition being briefed, it was clear that some kind of military action was imminent. Overnight on Thursday/Friday, US and UK forces carried out strikes on more than a dozen sites in Yemen, including the capital, Sana’a, and the Red Sea port of Hudaydah, using aircraft, ship-launched missiles and submarine-launched weapons. President Biden issued a statement in which he said that the operation of “targeted strikes” was undertaken with “support from Australia, Bahrain, Canada, and the Netherlands”, and referred to it as a “defensive action”. The US defense secretary, Lloyd Austin, added that the targets were “sites associated with the Houthis' unmanned aerial vehicle, ballistic and cruise missile, and coastal radar and air surveillance capabilities”.

The UK contribution was made by four Royal Air Force Eurofighter Typhoon FGR4 aircraft from RAF Akrotiri in Cyprus, using Paveway IV laser-guided bombs. They were supported by a Voyager KC Mk. 2/3 air-to-air refuelling tanker, and struck two sites: one at Bani from which the Houthi had been launching reconnaissance and attack drones, and the other an airfield at Abs which had been used to operate cruise missiles and drones. Sunak called the RAF raids “limited, necessary and proportionate action in self-defence”.

According to Houthi-controlled television channel Al Masirah, targets included al-Dulaimi air base near Sana’a, a camp east of Saada, locations around the airport in Hudaydah, the disused Taiz International Airport and the coastal Abs district. A spokesman for the group described the operations as “American-Zionist-British aggression”, while the deputty foreign minister, Hussein al-Izzi, warned that the US and UK would “pay a heavy price”.

It is clear that the strikes were limited, though not insignificant, and at the moment do not represent the beginning of a longer or more intense military campaign. The rhetoric from Washington and London is outwardly that of deterrence, but neither government can hold much hope that the Houthis will be put off, much less cowed, by these attacks. After all, Saudi Arabia intervened militarily in the civil war in Yemen in March 2015, and in nearly nine years have not been able to subdue or incapacitate the Houthis.

Domestic reaction

This is the first time that Rishi Sunak, who became prime miniser in October 2022, has committed British troops to combat. He was wise to brief the Official Opposition and Labour will want to say as little as possible at this point: it will do them little good to be seen to undermine the government over an issue for which Service personnel have risked their lives, and in any case, the confrontation with the Houthis, because it is connected to the conflict in Gaza and the wider Middle East political situtaion, is a sensitive one on which opinions are sharply divergent.

The House of Commons is not due to sit on Friday, so it is likely the prime minister will make a statement on Monday, or perhaps open a full debate on the issue. There has been disquiet in some of the smaller parties, however. Stephen Flynn, the leader of the SNP group at Westminster, is unhappy that force was used without Parliament being consulted. “It is incumbent upon the UK Government to appraise Parliament as soon as possible and MPs must therefore be recalled to Westminster”, he said on X (formerly Twitter). Liz Saville-Roberts, the Plaid Cymru leader in the House of Commons, declared that she was:

Shocked that such a significant escalation in military activities with the UK carrying out air strikes in collaboration alongside the US in Yemen has occurred without parliamentary scrutiny.

The Liberal Democrats are also unhappy that there was no debate in Parliament before military action was taken. Their defence spokesman, Richard Foord, said beforehand, “If the UK plans to take military action, it’s vital there is a vote in Parliament”, while Layla Moran, responsible for foreign affairs, went further.

Shameful. Parliament shouldn't ever be bypassed—and certainly not when it comes to military action.

On the Conservative benches, there has been little dissent, but former health minister Neil O’Brien, previously an adviser to Theresa May and George Osborne, took to X to ask what would count as success, how that would be achieved and how the UK would prevent itself from becoming entangled in a wider conflict. These are all valid questions, and it is worth noting, since O’Brien, who has a solid pedigree from a range of think tanks, is not an instinctive rebel.

Consulting Parliament and seeking authorisation

In theory, the situation is absolutely clear: the government commits the armed forces to combat through the exercise of the royal prerogative, and there is no mechanism which requires any authorisation from Parliament before this can happen. The sovereign is the sole authority for the armed forces under the Crown Proceedings Act 1947, and this had previously been codified after the Civil War by the provisions of the King’s Sole Right over the Militia Act 1661.

However, over the last 25 years, a convention had arisen that the support of the House of Commons would be sought before the government undertook major military action. This happened before the invasion of Iraq in 2003 and before air strikes in Libya in Match 2011. A vote was also held in August 2013 when the government intended to participate with the US in air strikes against Syria, but the Commons refused to support the proposal by 285-272, and the prime minister, David Cameron, accept its verdict as binding.

In September 2014, as UK armed forces were engaged in humanitarian aid in Iraq but had not at that point taken military action, Cameron reassured the House that he would seek its agreement before undertaking any offensive operations, and explained his belief that “you should consult the House of Commons as regularly as you can and the House of Commons should have an opportunity to vote” on military deployments. However, he was keen to point out that it was a matter of judgement and practicality.

It is important that a Prime Minister and a Government reserve the right to act swiftly without consulting the Commons in advance in some specific circumstances—for instance, if we had to prevent an immediate humanitarian catastrophe or, indeed, secure a really important, unique British interest.

It is not, therefore, an absolutely established convention. In March 2018, Theresa May ordered air strikes against Islamic State in Iraq and Syria and did not seek parliamentary approval.

There have been a number of proposals for reform to the exercise of the prerogative powers, not only in terms of committing the armed forces to combat. The most recent was a report on 2014 from the House of Commons Political and Constitutional Reform Committee entitled Role and powers of the prime minister, which suggested a number of ways in which these powers might be codified. The Conservative Party manifesto for the 2019 general election, Get Brexit Done: Unleash Britain’s Potential, pledged “to look at the broader aspects of our constitution, the relationship between the Government, Parliament and the courts; the functioning of the Royal Prerogative”. This has, however, been overwhelmed by events.

My view is that, especially given the precedents of 2003, 2011 and 2013, it would be politically expedient for any government to make sure it had the support of the House of Commons before engaging in major military options. However, I think ministers should at all times make it clear that this is not an obligation, and they don’t intend to create a precedent which defines it as such. I also think that a judgement can be made on the scale of the action to determine a threshold below which parliamentary approval would not normally be sought. My feeling is that minor operations such as limited air strikes or discrete, surgical military operations with limited purposes should fall beneath that threshold, and that the use of two RAF aircraft to strike two targets as part of a major larger US operation would come below the threshold. So I don’t think Sunak should have sought authorisation for the strikes.

It must also always be accepted that there will be occasions on which ministers cannot disclose operational plans to the House if they are to be effective and unexpected. It would be unacceptable for Service personnel potentially to be put in harm’s way solely because an operation had been signalled to the enemy because of the need for Parliament to debate it. This situation may also apply to the overnight strikes on Yemen.

Ultimately, if the House of Commons was utterly opposed to a military deployment, then, as with any other individual policy, Members could seek a motion of no confidence and try to force the government out of office. If they are unable or unwilling to do that, perhaps it is a reminder of the compromises necessary to maintain a functioning state. I don’t think, and have never thought, that greater codification of constitutional norms and practices are automatically translated into better or more efficient government. As for the Liberal Democrats, the Scottish National Party and Plaid Cymru, while I would not accuse anyone of bad faith, I think it’s important to remember that a general election will be held this year, and there are few or no MPs who can prevent that affecting how they approach controversy.

What’s next?

I think we were right to participate in the military action against the Houthis. Their persistent attacks on commercial shipping of all nations—not merely, whatever they may claim, on vessels travelling to and from Israel—could not be ignored, nor could they be tolerated for very much longer. The Red Sea and the Suez Canal which connects it to the Mediterranean Ocean are vital economic and trade routes. I take the view that the Houthis, and their Iranian mentors, cannot be taken at face value. It is clear that they support the cause of the Palestinian people, but they have a much broader anti-Western Islamicist belief system (their slogan, remember, is “God Is the Greatest, Death to America, Death to Israel, A Curse Upon the Jews, Victory to Islam”. These are not people who are ever going to be our friends. Under those circumstances, with no sign of the attacks abating, we had no choice but to attack the problem further upstream, striking at launch sites and command-and-control positions in Yemen.

The alternative would have been to surrender control of the vital Red Sea passage to the “goodwill” of fanatical anti-Western militants. That is unthinkable, and its impact on the global economy is almost incalculable. Therefore the only option open to the US, the UK and the other members of the maritime coalition maintaining freedom of navigation, Operation Prosperity Guardian, was to be firm in word and deed, and hope, even if it was largely in vain, that this might provide a degree of deterence. I don’t think it will, but the tiniest chance was there and had to be taken.

I also don’t reject the argument of those who oppose military action that it will escalate tensions in the region, make the Houthis bolder and more violent, and risk entangling Iran in a conflict while also placing Saudi Arabia, in many ways a dependable regional ally for the US and the UK, in a difficult position. All of this may come to pass. But, again, I don’t see what else we could have done. We have, unfortunately, been on a kind of diplomatic and military conveyor belt which led us through situations from which they was no good outcome to be achieved.

This feels, in my more pessimistic moments, like a showdown that has been looming for years and was never likely to resolve itself peacefully. I wrote a little while ago that foreign policy is often about choosing between the lesser of two evils, and in terms of the Middle East, it is, in the end, about allying ourselves with Saudi Arabia or Iran. That, as I observed, is no choice at all and must always be Saudi Arabia. Since the Islamic Revolution in 1979, Iran has been an extremist theocracy, committed to pan-Islamism and utterly hostile to the West, and to the United States in particular. While the system and ideology established by Khomeini prevail, lasting peace on the basis of trust and mutual understanding is impossible, and I think it’s only realistic to accept that. If we are unwilling to countenance régime change as an explicit, or implicit but clear and inwardly articulated, priority of our relations with Iran, our best hope is that a popular uprising does away with the Islamist government.

In an ideal world, a brilliantly led US government would carve out a diplomatic and military stance that separated strong but not unqualified support for Israel and ironclad opposition to Hamas and other terrorist groups from a warm and productive relationship with most of the Arab nations, thereby leaving (non-Arab) Iran isolated. This would involve, among other things, a supreme effort in terms of strategic communications, which are now an inseparable and vital part of a nation’s conduct in peace and in war; I wrote a little about them last year but it’s a subject I want to return to in more depth. However, with a presidential election that currently looks likely to be a Biden v Trump rematch, with Trump likely to win, and the strange and uninspiring figure of Vice-President Kamala Harris lurking in the wings, I don’t anticipate masterful diplomacy or multilayered foreign policy formulation arriving imminently.

For the moment, we wait. The US and UK strikes in Yemen last night were intended as a opening salvo but one which might change the course of the conflict. I think such a change is unlikely but there is always hope, and we will certainly need to see what effect, if any, they have had on the Houthis’ capabilities. If they have taken a knock, and are meaningfully limited, there is the possibility that further precision strikes could degrade them further. If, however, we have only angered Arab public opinion and created more corpses, this is going to be along war. In the real world, however, contrary to the panaceas of the armchair ambassadors on social media, I don’t see another way forward. It is not so much a conflict we cannot lose, as one we cannot let the other side win. I suppose foreign policy was otherwise getting dull and uneventful…