At best, he responds to Donald Trump’s accusations of weakness. At worst, it upsets its left wing a little more: the strikes in Yemen should not weigh much on Joe Biden’s campaign, unless of course there is an uncontrolled escalation.
The American president, who will seek a second term in November, was careful not to give this military operation, carried out in recent hours with the United Kingdom, more media coverage than necessary.
The 81-year-old Democrat did not speak directly to the Americans. It was in a statement that he confirmed the strikes, and specified that he “would not hesitate” to “order other measures” if necessary to respond to the attacks carried out by the Houthi rebels against boats in the Red Sea having seriously disrupted global maritime traffic.
A slightly martial language, from a Joe Biden constantly accused by his political adversaries of lacking strength.
Donald Trump, this time, rather accused his opponent of playing war-mongering.
Everything indicates for the moment that the two men will face each other again during the presidential election next November.
“Here we are bombing the entire Middle East, AGAIN!” and “now we have wars in Ukraine, Israel, and Yemen,” the former Republican president listed on his Truth Social network.
“Too late”
Close to Iran, the black beast of the United States, the Houthis have increased missile and drone attacks in the Red Sea in recent weeks, in support, according to them, of the Palestinians in Gaza, a territory bombarded relentlessly and completely besieged by Israel, after the bloody attack by Hamas on Israeli soil on October 7.
Garret Martin, a specialist in international relations at the American University in Washington, believes that the strikes “will not harm Joe Biden, nor will they benefit him, as long as they remain limited.”
The military operation, according to him, “simply reinforced the already existing partisan discourses” in an America divided to the extreme.
And in fact, even if several officials approve of the very principle of these strikes, they nonetheless criticize the way in which the White House carried out the operation, and call for greater firmness towards Tehran.
The strikes “are long overdue” and “we must hope that these actions signal a real change in the Biden administration’s policy towards Iran and groups affiliated with it,” wrote Mike Johnson, Republican boss of the House of Representatives, on the social network
On the Democratic side, many elected officials of course line up behind the president, like Senator Jack Reed who welcomed “necessary and proportionate” military actions.
“Unacceptable violation”
But some progressive parliamentarians, who already criticize him for lacking compassion for Palestinian civilians, and for supporting Israel too firmly in its war against Hamas, have openly criticized Joe Biden.
One of the figures of this movement, the elected member of the House of Representatives Pramila Jayapal, now believes that with these strikes, Joe Biden is guilty of an “unacceptable violation” of the Constitution.
The latter provides, in its first article, that only the American Congress can declare war.
For researcher Garrett Martin, several factors played in the decision of the American president to strike, he who had promised, after a chaotic withdrawal from Afghanistan, not to launch America into new endless wars.
“If he did nothing, the credibility of the United States would be shaken,” judges the expert.
Furthermore, “we really should not underestimate the possible impact on the price of a barrel of oil,” he emphasizes.
“This is something that resonates a lot in domestic politics in the United States, (just like) the pressures also on all the insurance costs, the delays in terms of supplies, linked to the repeated attacks of the Houthis”, adds the specialist.
“It’s an election year, it’s not surprising that the Biden administration is particularly nervous” about this, says Garret Martin.
The cost of living in the United States has increased sharply after the pandemic. This is already a recurring theme of the presidential campaign, and a significant handicap for Joe Biden.
