#would quibble w the choice of framing 'no longer puppets' bc that implies they ever were but like

[zvaigzdelasas]

[Sky News is Private UK Media]

Washington and London opted to strike Yemen with precision bombs rather than accelerating efforts to end violence in Gaza, where more than 20,000 people have been killed in three months. Regional diplomats say the longer that conflict continues, the less possible it becomes to contain.

The language being used by Biden administration is interesting.

"Iran is a primary - if not the primary - enabler or supporter, sponsor of the Houthis and Iran has been involved operationally in the conduct of these attacks," a Biden administration official said.

They don't talk about Iran directing the attacks against shipping or US military in the region in the way that they might have done not long ago.

They talk about Iran being the "enabler" rather than the puppet master. And that's because they know that the "Iranian proxies" in the Middle East are no longer puppets.

Hezbollah in Lebanon, the Houthis in Yemen, and Hamas in Gaza - all are established forces making strategic decisions, aligned with Iranian ideology of course and with Iranian-made weapons, but driven by their own ambitions.[...]

The Houthis have claimed their attacks on shipping are in solidarity with the Palestinian cause.

They frame it as an international shipping lane-based protest against what they call a genocide.[...]

But make no mistake, among regional populations, the Houthis are seen, not insignificantly, as having chosen to back support for Gaza with material action.

America and the UK chose military action to try to stop the Houthi missiles. They chose to bomb the world's poorest nation with precision bombs. That's risky and optically awkward, to say the least.

Another course would have been to seek to remove the Houthi pretext by accelerating efforts to end the Gaza conflict and solve the Israel-Palestine question.[...]

The Americans have shown an unwillingness or inability to influence Israeli actions in Gaza.

And for that, they have not just lost credibility among regional leaders. America has lost populations in the Middle East these last few months.[...]

[C]rucially, [senior regional diplomats] say that while Iran doesn't seek to escalate all this into a regional war, it cannot mitigate for potential miscalculation in Lebanon, Yemen or Iraq because the groups operating there are more and more independent.

What's happening how is this in Sky [12 Jan 24]