US Moves Warships To Yemen As Warning To Iran As Report Notes Iran Not Behind Rebels

While US bombs and military equipment via Saudi hands attack forces within the country of Yemen, US warships have now sailed to positions off Yemen's coast as the White House continues to claim it is not involved in the war. The naval maneuvers are a clear warning to Iran and the US flotilla would stop any ships that would supply the Shiite Houthis rebels in Yemen.

The White House claimed, with no sense of irony, that Iranian weapons were "destabilizing" Yemen and that Iran had continued to “supply arms to one party to that dispute so that the violence can continue.”

Beyond the brazen hypocrisy of accusing Iran of destabilizing Yemen by providing weapons is a report that US officials believe Iran warned the Houthis against launching an insurrection last year. While Saudi Arabia and the US have justified the brutal air campaign killing civilians in Yemen as a proxy war between themselves and Iran, the evidence indicates that the Houthis have their own agency.

Evidence offered by US government officials no less.

Iranian representatives discouraged Houthi rebels from taking the Yemeni capital of Sanaa last year, according to American officials familiar with intelligence around the insurgent takeover.The seizure of the capital in September came as a surprise to the international community, as Houthi rebels demonstrating outside Sanaa realized the city was abandoned and effectively unguarded. Despite Iran's advice, the Houthis walked into the city and claimed it... 

U.S. lawmakers and Gulf state leaders who are skeptical of the nuclear negotiations with Iran have pointed to the Houthis' rise to power in Yemen as more evidence of Iran's unhelpful expansionary objectives in the region. But the news that Iran actually opposed the takeover paints a more complicated picture. As the regime in Tehran has signaled, the Iranians are not unhappy to see their Gulf rivals embroiled in conflict in their neighborhood, but their advice against seizing Sanaa suggests that controlling Yemen is at best a secondary priority for Iran, far behind relief from sanctions that could come with a successful nuclear pact.

So what does the White House actually believe? And if the genuine view is that Iran did not instigate the Houthis rebellion then what is the point of sending warships to Yemen's coast?

One possible explanation is that the US is trying to assuage wounded Saudi pride. The Saudis have been continually whining in private and public about the US dealing with Iran and not supporting the Saudi position on Syria of overthrowing the Assad government. Now, with a nuclear deal with Iran within sight, the Obama Administration may have decided to facilitate the Saudis venting their frustrations with US policy by bombing the hell out of the people in Yemen.