jcohen-doron

January 18th, 2024

After three months of disruption of international shipping through the Suez Canal by the Iranian-proxy Houthi militia group, and the recent targeting of American military vessels, the Biden administration has finally begun to take the problem seriously. After its joint strike against Houthi sites in Yemen alongside the United Kingdom, the United States plans to define the organization as a “specially designated global terrorist” (SDGT) group, according to a statement from Secretary of State Antony Blinken released Wednesday. The order is set to take effect on February 16.

The Houthis had previously been recognized as both a foreign terrorist organization (FTO) and an SDGT group; former president Donald Trump’s administration designated them as such in January 2021, but soon after that year’s inauguration, the Biden administration removed the label, arguing that the “designations could have a devastating impact on Yemenis’ access to basic commodities like food and fuel.”

National Review’s Luther Ray Abel noted Wednesday morning that the SDGT designation is fundamentally weaker than the previous FTO version in that the former does not create immigration restrictions for members of the targeted group, nor does it impose sanctions on “those who provide ‘material support’ to the group.” In short, it’s a cop-out:

Biden’s SDGT ploy allows him plausible deniability concerning inaction while also ensuring that U.S. strength cannot be applied to Houthi forces in any real capacity besides telegraphed and ineffective air strikes against a rebel force that has made a living of dodging similar Saudi strikes for years.

He’s not alone in voicing concern that the Houthis wouldn’t be given the full designation. Advancing American Freedom, a Mike Pence-founded group that has previously called on the Biden administration to add the Houthis back to the list of foreign terrorist organizations, issued a statement Wednesday, with executive director Paul Teller saying “the Houthis are a foreign terrorist organization, but the Biden administration would rather classify them as an SDGT, to avoid being called out for their about-face.” Teller accused the White House of being “more afraid of a bad headline than global threats.”

Gabriel Noronha, a fellow at the Jewish Institute for National Security of America, posted on X after the initial round of reporting that the designation means three things: 1) “Houthis can still get U.S. visas,” 2) “Not a criminal penalty to support them,” and 3) “U.S. banks don’t have to seize their funds.”

He elaborated on those three aspects of the decision, telling National Review that there are significant differences between the two types of designations.

“If you are sanctioned on the FTO list, none of the members of the organization can receive a visa to come into the United States, even if you’re a cook or a conscript or a low-level guy,” Noronha said, adding that, if an organization is on the FTO list, its “assets can be seized and forfeited to the victims of Houthi terrorists. . . . If you are just an SDGT, your assets in the U.S. are frozen, but they can’t really be turned over to the victims.”

Another distinction Noronha emphasized has to do with criminal prosecution. While offering an SDGT financial support carries a maximum 20-year prison sentence; the penalties for assisting an FTO are much harsher.

“If you are an FTO, it doesn’t have to be willful,” Noronha said. “Anyone that supports them in any way, shape, or form materially can go to prison up to a life sentence. It basically makes them radioactive as a group.”

Noronha then addressed a phone call between U.S. officials and reporters during which one administration figure said, “If we saw a cessation of Houthi attacks on ships, we are willing to relook at this designation.” He told NR that some of that perspective has to do with the administration’s general approach to sanctions, which he described as a “view that sanctions are intended to improve behavior but aren’t intended to be permanent.” Noronha noted that such an approach can be successful, but only if the other side actually follows through.

“We removed Sudan from the list of state sponsors of terror,” he mentioned as an example, “as part of a process where they paid something like $340 million in damages and made peace with Israel. There is a path where that works and everyone is happy, but there’s a major difference between atoning for your behavior and making big political change and just saying, ‘Well, we’re not going to attack ships this month.’”

It appears the outcome here would likely be the latter. Biden’s half measure on the Houthis is simply another example of the White House’s failure to comprehend the necessity of a large-scale strategy of deterrence. And in effectively announcing its intention to keep its options open, the administration has signaled a dangerous level of unseriousness in dealing with a real geopolitical crisis.

“This is all part of the Biden administration’s broader Middle East strategy of ‘we don’t want conflict, we do not want escalation, we do not want things blowing up, and our solution is diplomacy. We believe that we are really good diplomats, and we can talk these things through,’” Noronha said. “And that is nice, wishful thinking. . . . Fundamentally, that’s just not how this region works, and [the Houthis] don’t care about those nice ideas.”

Read more here at the NationalReview.com

January 17th, 2024

The Biden administration moved to reapply sanctions this week on the Iran-backed Houthi rebels, but did so under a weaker federal statute that will not criminalize support for the terrorist group or force American banks to seize their assets, current and former U.S. officials told the Washington Free Beacon.

After months of Houthi attacks on U.S. and Western ships in the Middle East, the Biden administration announced late Tuesday that it will be placing the Houthis on the Specially Designated Global Terrorist (SDGT) list, which applies a range of new sanctions on the group, effective Feb. 16.

This designation, however, is significantly weaker than the one applied by the Trump administration, which labeled the Houthis as a Foreign Terrorist Organization (FTO), a far more stringent classification that criminalized all support for the militant group and forced U.S. banks to seize the group’s funds. Upon entering office in 2021, the Biden administration removed the Houthis from the FTO list as a gesture of good will toward Iran as it pursued diplomacy with the hardline regime.

The Iran-backed, Yemen-based militant group has been wreaking havoc in the Middle East for months, attacking Western military and commercial ships in a show of support for Hamas’s war on Israel. The attacks have drawn a tepid U.S. response that has included limited U.S. retaliatory strikes on the group’s infrastructure, prompting accusations from Republican lawmakers and former officials that the Biden administration is scared of confrontation with Iran and its terrorist proxies. Tuesday’s designation followed weeks of public pressure from Congress but is already generating criticism for being issued under a weaker federal statute.

“This is a bait and switch,” Richard Goldberg, a senior adviser at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies and sanctions expert who served on the White House National Security Council, told the Free Beacon. “Get the media to write they’re listing the Houthis as a terrorist group while obscuring the decision not to relist the group as a foreign terrorist organization. They know FTO status would put maximalist pressure on the Houthis—which is why they won’t do it.”

Faced with questions about the Biden administration’s decision to pursue a weaker designation, a senior official told reporters on Wednesday that the Specially Designated Global Terrorist listing will give the administration “better flexibility” to pump U.S. aid money into war-torn Yemen and ensure “there aren’t unintended consequences for the humanitarian situation and the people of Yemen.”

“We believe that the SDGT designation is the appropriate tool at the moment to pressure the Houthis,” the administration official said. “I think we are always trying to make sure that the impact of our sanctions is—it’s used for the desired foreign policy effect while minimizing unintended consequences.”

Under the SDGT designation, the Houthis can still gain access to American visas, and lending support to them is not considered a criminal penalty under the law, according to Goldberg and other former senior U.S. officials. American banks will not be forced to seize the terror group’s funds under this designation.

“By refusing to label the Houthis as a Foreign Terrorist Organization, Biden is preventing several important policies to keep Americans safe and the Houthis weaker,” Gabriel Noronha, a former State Department adviser on Iran, told the Free Beacon.

“Currently, Houthi members could apply and receive a U.S. visa,” he explained, adding that an “FTO designation allows the Department of Justice to prosecute any American who swears allegiance or provides material support to the Houthis, with penalties and enforcement far more robust than the SDGT designation.”

An FTO designation would also allow the victims of Houthi terror attacks to receive compensation from any funds the government seizes from the group, something that is not possible under the current listing.

“Returning the Houthis to the Specially Designated Global Terrorist (SDGT) list is only a half-measure, one that senior administration officials immediately conceded they could rescind if the Houthis stop attacking ships,” Noronha said. “That’s not the point of terror sanctions—they should be maintained until the terrorist groups are eliminated entirely.”

Republican lawmakers who spoke to the Free Beacon said the Biden administration was clearly pressured into making the designation and chose to issue it in a form that gives the Houthis breathing room.

“It doesn’t take a genius to know that the Treasury Department’s terrorism sanctions list and the State Department’s terror list are not the same,” said Rep. Kevin Hern (R., Okla.), the chairman of the Republican Study Committee, Congress’s largest GOP caucus. “The Houthis are terrorists. Why doesn’t Biden agree?”
Rep. Mike Turner (R., Ohio), the chairman of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, said on Wednesday that “designating the Houthis as a ‘Specially Designated Global Terrorist’ only applies sanctions and avoids taking any real action. It’s time to lead and protect and call them what they are—a Foreign Terrorist Organization.”

A senior congressional official who works on foreign policy issues accused the Biden administration of “trying to fool Americans and Congress with a fake designation that still gives the Houthis—and Iran—a pass from truly tough action.”

Advocacy groups that track foreign affairs also noted the difference between an SDGT designation and FTO listing.

“The Houthis are a foreign terrorist organization, but the Biden administration would rather classify them as an SDGT, to avoid being called out for their about-face,” Paul Teller, the executive director of conservative advocacy group Advancing American Freedom, said in a statement. “This administration is more afraid of a bad headline than global threats. It’s time to quit playing games and treat U.S. enemies as they deserve to be treated.”

Read more at the FreeBeacon.com