Spain has backed away from a U.S.-led coalition meant to deter the Iranian-backed Houthis from attacks on global shipping near the Bab-el-Mandeb strait at the southern end of the Red Sea.
The Houthis have been firing missiles at and seizing, container ships and tankers in what amounts to an attempt to blockade Israel’s southern port city of Eilat.
U.S. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin announced on Monday:
I am announcing the establishment of Operation Prosperity Guardian, an important new multinational security initiative under the umbrella of the Combined Maritime Forces and the leadership of its Task Force 153, which focuses on security in the Red Sea.
Operation Prosperity Guardian is bringing together multiple countries to include the United Kingdom, Bahrain, Canada, France, Italy, Netherlands, Norway, Seychelles and Spain, to jointly address security challenges in the southern Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden, with the goal of ensuring freedom of navigation for all countries and bolstering regional security and prosperity.
However, Spain appears to have had second thoughts, according to the Times of Israel:
Spain’s Socialist government says it has still not decided whether it will take part in an international coalition led by the United States to quell Houthi attacks on ships transiting the Red Sea.
…
Spain’s defense ministry said Tuesday the country “depends on the decisions of the European Union and NATO and, therefore, will not participate unilaterally.”
The head of Spain’s conservative opposition Popular Party, Alberto Nunez Feijoo, told a separate news conference that Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez had told him that Madrid had “decided not to intervene, at least not intervene in the conditions requested by the United States.” He did not elaborate.
The coalition has not said whether it will carry out attacks against Houthi missile sites or naval bases responsible for the attacks. Moreover, many of the coalition’s partners are unnamed, suggesting that the U.S. is having trouble persuading allies to join.
White House national security spokesman John Kirby said Thursday that President Joe Biden’s work to “shore up and revitalize our vast network of alliances and partnerships” was the president’s biggest foreign policy achievement of 2013.
Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News and the host of Breitbart News Sunday on Sirius XM Patriot on Sunday evenings from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. ET (4 p.m. to 7 p.m. PT). He is the author of the new biography, Rhoda: ‘Comrade Kadalie, You Are Out of Order’. He is also the author of the recent e-book, Neither Free nor Fair: The 2020 U.S. Presidential Election. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.
