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Joe Biden’s cowardice and desire to appease Iran is quickly spiraling towards a crisis.
Houthi rebels, backed by the Mullahs, have been attacking and harassing shipping in the Red Sea since the October 7th attacks on Israel by Hamas. More recently, three smaller boats operated by the terrorists were sunk by U.S. Navy helicopters after opening fire on a Maersk-owned vessel.
See: Houthi Rebels Finally Find Out After U.S. Navy Retaliates During Tanker Attack
Still, the response by the Biden administration has been incredibly limited. In fact, that was the first and only time that the Houthis have been directly engaged (i.e., not just shooting down missiles and drones) since the attacks on shipping in the Red Sea began.
That is now leading to a dire situation in which 95 percent of vessels that normally take the Suez Canal through Egypt are diverting around the Horn of Africa.
95% of container ships that would’ve transited the Red Sea are now going around the Southern Tip of Africa as of this morning. The ships diverting from their ordinary course are marked orange on the @flexport map below. pic.twitter.com/7FC2p3i4ix
— Ryan Petersen (@typesfast) January 6, 2024
By adding days and possibly weeks to transit times, far more fuel is being burned, and that’s leading to a sharp spike in shipping rates. The cost of water-born freight from Asia to Northern Europe has more than doubled. The United States isn’t immune from the consequences either, with the price of shipping to the American East Coast rising as much as 63 percent.
In the end, it will be consumers that bear the burden of those cost increases. That’s bad news for an already battered American public that has already absorbed a cumulative 20 percent inflationary spike since Biden took office. Things will be getting more expensive as current domestic supply lines are filled with products that are costing more to transport.
There are other factors to consider as well. Going around the Horn of Africa is also more dangerous, with worse weather to deal with. Further, when you give terrorists an inch, you can expect them to take a mile. Not taking care of the Houthis and protecting the Red Sea is signaling open season to terrorists and pirates across the globe that they can attack and harass shipping without much pushback. Once that genie is out of the bottle, it’s going to be very hard to put back in.
What makes this so infuriating is that it’s all so easily preventable. The Houthis are not a capable military force, and it would take nothing more than a few days of essentially no-risk bombings and an increased naval presence to secure the shipping lanes through the Red Sea into the Suez Canal. Biden won’t take that kind of action, though, because his primary aim remains to appease Iran.
You are paying the price so as not to hurt the feelings of a genocidal dictator. How does that make you feel? Because it doesn’t do much for me.
