Global SITREP C2-15: Is the Saudi-Iran War in Yemen a Prelude to Something Bigger?

 

USS Theodore Roosevelt CVN-71, A/K/A "BigStick"

Update 23 April  2015: The Iranian Naval convoy led by the frigate Alborz (UK-made Vosper Mark V class frigate) arrived yesterday off the southern coast of Yemen. As the lead ship in the Iranian flotilla in the Strait of Bab-al-Mandab war zone, the Alborz is hopelessly out-classed by the immensely larger and more capable American, Saudi and Egyptian naval ships in the area.

Yet even this tremendously lopsided tactical situation has no guarantee of failure for the Iranian attempt to deliver more potent weaponry to its Houthi proxy warriors led by IRGC officers in Yemen.

Remember that the now exiled government of Yemen was a strong counter-terrorist ally of the U.S. for many years in the war against Al Qaeda and its Yemeni branch AQAP. And remember the even more recent and shameful events that occurred concurrently while Obama was capitulating to Iranian demands in the allegedly critical P5+1 talks in Lausanne, Switzerland to achieve the framework for the final deal. 

In a memory refresh, recall that Obama summarily abandoned our Yemeni ally with a flip of his limp wrist; he abandoned the sovereign ground of the American Embassy in Sana'a, and then followed these acts of cowardice up by ordering the elite warriors of the U.S. Special Forces in Yemen to first stand down and then to abandon their weapons and retreat southwards across the Red Sea into Djibouti. For the existential enemy in the Islamic Republic of Iran and a non-starter nuclear agreement that has already been rendered moot, President Barack Hussein Obama did all of this. This is what you should be mindful off in the coming days. This is Obama's legacy; he built this.

Update 6:45 PM: The media reports stating that the Iranian ships turned around because they realized that US ships were tacking them is pure, unadultered Obama Administration cow pie.  The Iranian's turned back to the north not because they feared the assembled fire power of US naval forces, but rather they realized they were no match for the Saudi and Egyptian ships with which they would have to do the dance of death if they tried to offload weapons to the Houthis. This is where Iran finally realized the limitations of its capability in raw military power projection, and they were summarily defeated by the Sunni Arab Navalforces without a single shot being fired. This is big.

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20 April 2015: Reportedly an Iranian naval convoy of seven to nine vessels is carrying weapons destined for Shi'a Houthi rebels in Yemen. This Iranian naval convoy is about to sail head-on into an allied naval picket line anchored by the USS Roosevelt, a/k/a "Big Stick," and its carrier strike group of a cruiser and three destroyers which are operating under the authority of a unanimous United Nations Security Council resolution to prevent any arms from reaching the rebels.

The immediate mission of the "Big Stick" and its strike group is to board, inspect and otherwise prevent the delivery of the weapons. It is doubtful the Iranian ships will comply, leaving open the possibility of an armed confrontation in the Arabian Sea. Such a confrontation carries the inherent risk of war that could quickly spread into the Persian Gulf and anywhere else US and Iranian forces are in close proximity to each other. 

The leading question I am currently entertaining is if the now four-week old war being fought by the Saudi-led Arab coalition against Iranian-backed Houthi rebels, now very much buttressed by the awesome firepower of US and other allied forces mustered in the Arabian Sea, might not soon find themselves in an all-out war with Iran. Jeremiah 40:34-39 comes immediately to mind as I ponder this possibility. We shall soon see.