By Francesco Foti
Introduction
The Iran-backed Houthi attack on non-Chinese and non-Russian Suez Canal-bound ship vessels has exposed the breach between the EU and the US over the approach to security in the Middle East. The Houthi disruption to ship carriers and commercial, oil, and LNG shipments, which has forced the US and UK to opt for slower and more costly alternative routes, has prompted the countries to carry on strikes on the rebels, clashing with the call of the “Global South”, a pro-Chinese and pro-Russian narrative implying the benefit of a multipolar world less influenced by the US and Western bloc.
The Red Sea crisis demands a more geopolitical EU. Given the technical limits of EU-related missions in the area, the strategy should be to join the US-led coalition to target the Houthis and help restore shipments, rather than procrastinate and allow Iran, Russia, and China to dictate the terms of the balance of power, the movements of goods, and access to resources. EU-NATO partners should pressure the Gulf and Arab countries to act more forcefully to protect vessels and re-assess Iran.
The Geopolitics of the Crisis
The EU’s past soft policy towards Iran proved wrong in the face of its inherent confrontational posture in hot regional areas and the ideological anti-Western approach that the country shares with China, Russia, and North Korea, with its dubious pledge to non-proliferation.
The Gulf countries have attempted to avoid challenging Iran, despite some being more on the hardliner camp and others proving willing to covertly help Israel. Therefore, their response to the US-led mission has been even less lukewarm than the EU’s itself. The internal factor plays a role because of a popularly perceived pro-Israel mission to stop the Houthis that may constitute a source of internal unrest while still relying on the Saudi-Iranian rapprochement and business with China.
Houthis granting Chinese, Russian, and Qatari vessels unhindered passage while vowing to hit Israeli-related shipping by Western countries as a show of support for the Palestinians proves a beneficial factor for China, aiming to make the most of land transportation to Europe and help sustain Moscow while professing long-term concern.
A Geopolitical EU?
Differences are about Iran-related business, Israel, the Palestinian question, and, importantly, the propaganda within the EU of “less America” and more “unipolarity”. This is a course of inaction to the benefit of dependence on Russia’s and China’s immediate gains and a lack of strategy to defend vital interests, decrease the side effects, and induce regional players to cooperate and help stop the Houthis. The EU shies away from holding Iran responsible by levelling sanctions over the Houthi proxy war and attacks on Israel, thus losing leverage in the region to the benefit of competitors aiming to disrupt trade flows and strengthen terrorist groups and actors.
Division among regional allies and EU and NATO members fosters talks of lack of legitimacy in terms of International Law and the US’s limits to prompt the EU to be geopolitical with regional partners to oppose Iran and ensure security in the Middle East by creating a broad coalition. This impasse emboldens China’s and Russia’s hostile response to the interests and security of EU and NATO allies and augments Iranian influence. By refusing to profit from supporting Israel’s effort to limit the damage to the Suez Canal-bound shipping, the EU de facto agrees to be prey to Iranian blackmails. It provides for Iran to profit from it by also helping to sabotage the US-led effort of normalisation of ties between Israel and Gulf Countries in a purely anti-Iranian ratio and to the benefit of the EU strategic independence to China.
An EU Mission?
The range of the US mission calling for Western and non-Western willing to join could have represented an occasion for the EU to broaden its scope by helping create a broad combat coalition to challenge Iran and, consequently, the Russo-Chinese axis. The capacity of the EU mission is dubious due to the lack of proper military spending, the will not to tie the mission to Israel-bound ships, and the political scope to effectively respond to the Houthis in terms of systematic military offensive.
As signalled by the most striking EU Member State opt-outs, the mission risks falling into the mere monitoring and defensive nature of extant ones under the European External Action Defense Service, which shows its limitedness and incapability to de-escalate. By developing a military build-up and response by partnering with the US, the EU would send a powerful message to Iran, Russia, and China and develop a more geopolitical outlook so far patently lacking in the Middle East.
The proposed new mission would have to be offensive to engage militant Iran and its proxies. Given how this will, by definition and political will, be impossible, the EU should put aside reticence and differences and wholeheartedly join the US-led mission out of realism. The mission should also be equipped to operate surgically.
The EU’s willingness to act as a free rider and, even less wisely, play in the hands of Islamists and Global South supporters within EU Member States and countries such as candidate for EU membership and NATO member Turkey has, once again, proved its geopolitical ineffectuality in the Middle East and its refusal to work on strategic security.
Conclusions
The lack of consensus over the Houthi issue is tied to the question of Gaza and a sustainable approach to the Israelo-Palestinian issue. The position should start from narratively isolating Hamas and other Islamists in the political discourses and at home while acknowledging the need for Israel to conclude its military operation to deal a severe blow to them. The EU should call on the regional actors to support a realistic solution based on demilitarisation first of the jihadi splinter groups in the region to guarantee the security of Israel before any recognition of a Palestinian State. An unrealistic middle ground irrespective of Israeli security considerations gives Iran the perception of being able to drive a wedge between the allies and keep weaponizing the Houthis to the detriment of regional security and one-way sanctions.
About the Author
Francesco Dimitrios Foti is a policy and security analyst/researcher. Graduated from the University of Westminster (MA) and Catania (BA), he mainly focuses on EU-Russia relations, the post-Soviet space (South-Eastern Europe, the Balkans, and the South Caucasus) paths to Euro-Atlantic integration/cooperation, hybrid warfare, and extremism and terrorism in Europe.
European Studies Review 