Pretty good points, would be nice if anyone actually listened pic.twitter.com/6WDyd16PCV
— Saagar Enjeti (@esaagar) March 24, 2025
Europe does not currently have the military capability to secure its regional trade interests, as the status quo has been that America has got it and doesn't trust Europe.
— Matt Parrott (@MatthewParrott) March 25, 2025
The correct path forward is to press for Europe to be more armed and autonomous while covering for them. https://t.co/bKzL0XFeM6
I’m glad this came out.
“The world found out shortly before 2 p.m. eastern time on March 15 that the United States was bombing Houthi targets across Yemen.
I, however, knew two hours before the first bombs exploded that the attack might be coming. The reason I knew this is that Pete Hegseth, the secretary of defense, had texted me the war plan at 11:44 a.m. The plan included precise information about weapons packages, targets, and timing.
This is going to require some explaining. …”
It explains a lot.
This was the conversation that was going on behind the scenes between Vance and Hegseth over striking the Houthis. It was all about the Houthis disrupting a major global trade route. It was all about the pressure that Egypt and the Europeans were putting on us to do something about it.
As Vance points out, 40% of European trade goes through the Suez Canal, but our European allies do not have the capacity to do anything about the Houthis. It is a similar situation with Russia and Ukraine. America has no stake in who rules Donbas. It is our European allies, especially the UK, who are far more committed to the war with Russia and who have kept the war going and who have refused to take any off ramp. They were reduced to tears by Vance’s speech in Munich at the NATO summit.
The fact that Vance privately didn’t want to be involved in this makes him look better.
The Houthis allowed trade to flow through the Red Sea during the Gaza ceasefire.
They resumed their blockade of the Red Sea when Israel violated the Gaza ceasefire.
If Trump had simply said to Israel “Abide by the ceasefire, or else you lose your foreign aid”, then there would be peace in the Red Sea right now.
The US war against the Houthis serves Israel interests, not American interests. It is the most recent in a long series of wars foisted on the American people by the Israel Lobby.
Patriots serve America, traitors serve Israel.
“What difference, at this point, does it make?”
The old Good Cop/Bad Cop routine to make it look like they don’t all play for Team Zio – which, of course – they all do.
I believe they also discussed making sure Europe actually pays us for this work, which is totally appropriate.
Bottom line, the Houthis are pirates from any commercial perspective and they have a meaningful impact on the cost of global trade, even if its not directly our trade, it still increases the cost.
Since we have the Navy, Europe can and should pay us for its use to deal with the pirates, and this doesn’t bother me in the least.
The secondary issue is the connection with Israel, but that isn’t the primary concern.
This is a far larger concern for Egypt, who is also one of our client states in the region, which has been destabilized by the Suez Canal trade disruption.
We absolutely have national interests in dealing with the Houthis. If Trump gets his way and can get us out of the regional entanglements this will change, but this is the REALITY on the ground today and we still need to deal with it. This is a burden of leadership. Is what it is.
When you have no skin in the game and can’t participate politically you never have to actually deal with problems, you can just bitch about them, which is what the peanut gallery has been doing over Trump bombing people in the middle east since he blew up brown hero general back in the day. Its a product of ignorance about what it actually requires to lead a nation.
I’m not at all bothered by Trumps decision to bomb these people.
Vance says he wants an “independent Europe” right up until the point that Europe(i.e. Germany) tries to become independent. 2 World Wars are the proof that a strong independent Europe(Germany) is the last thing the US/Brit/Zio Axis actually wants. Guys like Vance are masters at talking out of both sides of their mouths. Germany does seem to be committing to building up their military again, though, and the CEO of VW said that Rheinmetal could use idled VW plants for military production.