Russian Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova issued a statement, yesterday, condemning the U.S.-U.K. military campaign against the Houthis of Yemen as a violation of international law, including the UN Charter. She further accused the U.S. and U.K.—the “Anglo-Saxons” as she called them—of “manipulations” to justify an illegal military campaign.
The U.S.-U.K. military actions against the Houthis, “violate Article 2 of the UN Charter, which obliges UN members to refrain from the use of force against the territorial inviolability of any state. Their actions are motivated by narrow, selfish interests and cannot be justified either by the standards of the international law of the sea or the right to self-defense under Article 51 of the UN Charter. Moreover, these actions are fraught with the risk of escalating and spreading the situation in the Gaza Strip to the rest of the region. Current developments in the Red Sea vividly bear this out.
“Shameless manipulations with standards of international law with a view to justifying any arbitrary action have long become routine for Washington and London. However, no manipulation can legitimize their actions. The Anglo-Saxons have long developed a habit of violating the UN Charter and the fundamental standards of international law, including the principle of the non-use of force. This is their way of life,” she concluded
Hours later, U.S. forces launched a strike against two Houthi anti-ship missiles that were aimed into the Southern Red Sea and were prepared to launch.
In certain respects, it now seems appropriate to treat the actions of the Houthi Ansarallah movement and those of the “Islamic Resistance of Iraq” as one thing. Both are taking actions that they say are in support of the Palestinians in Gaza and the U.S. is now engaged in military campaigns against both. The U.S. ties both groups to Iran and blames Iran for their behavior though both Iran and the two groups say that the groups are acting independently. The pressure on President Joe Biden to act militarily against Iran, coming from inside the U.S. and from London, is growing. The best thing the U.S. could do would be to demand an end to the Israeli genocide in Gaza and thus begin to reduce tensions in the region, but instead the Biden Administration is moving towards a regionalization of that conflict.
