Washington Times: A mysterious path awaits the winner of the US elections in Yemen

The Washington Times said that what it described as the problem of "forever wars" is about to pose a challenge to Harris or Trump, as not much has been discussed in the election campaign, noting that difficult decisions are expected to be made regarding Yemen, Syria and Somalia.

The issue received little attention during the election campaign, but the next US president will face critical decisions about the future of open-ended US military engagements around the world – engagements that could turn into a new wave of “forever wars” that drain US security and economic resources indefinitely.

Military campaigns in Somalia, Syria and Yemen have mostly been caught up in the proxy war between Israel and Iran in the Middle East and the Russia-Ukraine conflict, both of which have presented major contrasts between Republican nominee and former President Donald Trump and his Democratic rival, Vice President Kamala Harris.

Analysts say U.S. operations in the Middle East and Africa have been largely absent from the national discourse this election season, and there has also been little clarity from Mr. Trump or Ms. Harris about exactly what they would do about those operations if elected.

Mysterious Road in Yemen

Both candidates are likely to feel pressure to scale back costly U.S. counterterrorism campaigns in the Middle East and Africa at some point, the paper reports. That’s in line with a broader push by U.S. policymakers from both parties to dedicate more military assets to the Pacific, the world’s most dynamic economic region where a powerful and increasingly aggressive communist China poses what nearly all observers agree is the greatest challenge to America and its allies in the 21st century.

At the same time, each of the aforementioned hostile groups—the Houthi rebels in Yemen, organizations like the Islamic State in Syria, and al-Shabaab in Somalia—pose very real threats to U.S. interests and could fuel significant violence and regional instability if left unchecked.

The U.S.-led bombing campaign against Iranian-backed Houthi forces in Yemen has received more attention than other ongoing U.S. military operations. This U.S. intervention—which has no clear metrics for success and no clear timetable—is part of the broader struggle between the United States, Israel, and Iran and its network of proxies across the Middle East.

The Biden administration has taken a leading and perhaps indispensable role as leader of a coalition that ensures commercial shipping can safely navigate the Red Sea and other regional waterways. If the Houthis continue to try to attack those ships, it’s not clear how or when the Pentagon and its military allies can finish the job in Yemen without a major blow to the global economy.

This process is also very expensive. There are no exact figures for how much the United States has spent fighting the Houthis, but it is widely believed to be in the billions of dollars.

Ms. Harris, as vice president in the Biden administration that launched the Houthi bombing campaign, is presumed to support these efforts, at least to some extent. She has not made clear whether she would intensify the operation if elected president, or whether she would seek to scale it back.

Earlier this year, Trump appeared to criticize the mission, calling it another war that could have been avoided with better American leadership. “So let me get this straight. We are dropping bombs all over the Middle East, again! … Now we have wars in Ukraine, Israel, and Yemen, but there is no ‘war’ on our southern border,” he said in a January post on Truth Social .

As president, Trump launched a blistering attack on the Islamic State and formally designated the Houthis as a terrorist organization. President Biden rescinded that designation shortly after taking office, arguing that it was an impediment to a negotiated end to Yemen’s bloody civil war, though the administration later called the rebel forces a “specially designated global terrorist group.”

Under the next administration, the United States may accelerate its bombing of the Houthis as a means of pressuring Iran, the Houthis’ main patron, and as a show of support for Israel. The Houthis have directly targeted Israel with drones and missiles on multiple occasions.

Regardless of who wins the Nov. 5 election, some foreign policy experts say the next administration can and should put greater pressure on the rebel group.