“In terms of how this is playing out, I think one thing that’s important to keep in mind is deterrence is not a light switch,” the White House deputy national security adviser, Jon Finer, told ABC News “This Week” co-anchor Martha Raddatz on Sunday. “It requires a pattern and a practice of activity over time and can’t be accessed based on a snapshot of what’s happening at any given moment.”
Raddatz had asked Finer: “Where does this end? It’s in this stage of tit for tat.”
President Joe Biden acknowledged to reporters last week that the strikes weren’t stopping the Houthis but that they would continue.
“The purposes here go well beyond deterrence,” Finer told Raddatz. “We are also seeking to degrade the Houthis’ ability to continue launching these attacks.”
Since strikes on Red Sea ships began escalating in recent weeks, the U.S. has also announced an international task force to, essentially, help police the Red Sea area from further attacks.
The U.S. has taken diplomatic steps, too, Finer said on “This Week.”
“We’ve imposed sanctions on the Houthis, we have gotten dozens of countries to issue statements condemning their attacks,” he said.
Last week, the Biden administration announced that the Houthis would once again be classified as a terrorist organization, reimposing a designation the White House had earlier lifted out of concerns about how it could affect Yemen’s ongoing civil war.
“This is not an attack just on the United States,” Finer said. “This is an attack on the entire global economy and the world is standing up and saying they won’t tolerate that.”
Both the Houthis in Yemen and Iran, whom the U.S. calls a key backer of the Houthis, have said they are carrying out strikes in response to Israel’s bombardment of Gaza in order to take out Hamas in the wake of Hamas’ Oct. 7 terror attack.
The altercations in the Red Sea, at Israel’s border with Lebanon and at U.S. military sites in Iraq and Syria, as well as elsewhere in the Middle East, have raised concerns that Israel’s war with Hamas could spill into a wider regional conflict.
That’s something the U.S. has maintained it doesn’t want.
At the same time, U.S. officials have said they must respond to strikes from Iranian-allied groups like the Houthis and others.
