The “Prosperity Guardian” operation announced earlier this week by the United States is flooding the Red Sea and adjacent waters with warships. This is developing into a very serious flashpoint for further armed conflict in the region, including a possible U.S.-NATO war against Iran.
The U.S. has the USS Eisenhower carrier group off the coast of Djibouti, along with five destroyers. India has just sent two guided missile destroyers to patrol the waters, RT reported. France, Italy, Canada and the U.K. are also in, as are The Netherlands, Norway, Seychelles, and others. Germany and Spain are not joining at this point.
London’s The Economist provided the British marching orders, as usual, in a Dec. 19 article provocatively headlined “The U.S. Navy Confronts a New Suez Crisis.” They argue that the Houthi attacks on Israel-bound ships are threatening global trade: “Their campaign is an affront to the principle of freedom of navigation, which is already at risk from the Black Sea to the South China Sea. America and its allies must deal firmly with it—without escalating the conflict in the Middle East,” of course. So far, Houthi drones have been shot down with expensive air defense systems on the ships in the region, but this can’t continue. “Surface-to-air missiles costing millions of dollars are being used on a blizzard of cheap Iranian drones.”
