By Bryan E. Leib
The call from the UAE to put the Houthi rebels back on the U.S. State Department’s FTO or Foreign Terrorist Organizations list was certainly the right call to make.
Unfortunately, their call for actions have fallen on deaf ears from President Biden to Secretary Blinken to Senior officials in the U.S. State Department. The State Department has had every opportunity to put the Houthis back on the FTO list, and they haven not done it yet.
While I don’t expect the State Department is going to be changing their tune anytime soon, it is great the UAE has called for this because it shows the Regime in Tehran they are unafraid and that’s exactly what is needed in the Gulf – more Arab nations must stand against terrorism and those to fund their barbaric activities.
Unfortunately, President Biden made the decision to take the Houthis off of the FTO list shortly after taking office. I believe this decision was made because he knows the Houthis are funded exclusively by Tehran and true to the President’s form, he has and will continue to do whatever he can to appease Tehran.
Perhaps this inaction was just another way of appeasing the Mullahs. The Houthis are terrorists, and the individuals that fund them are terrorists. It’s really that simple.
The Tehran backed Houthis have been sowing division not just against America, but against our regional allies, like the UAE and Saudi Arabia.
The time is now for the State Department to put them back on the FTO list. It is not going to solve everything by doing that, but at least it will show the world and it will show our allies that we stand with them when terrorists are attacking them.
Tehran is certainly not happy that the UAE is flourishing the way that they are right now. They are not happy that the UAE is building partnerships throughout the region with other Arab countries and also with Israel.
While my government has refused to respond to the Houthi’s attacks, I am very pleased to see the Emiratis have fired back in a very strong way in calling on President Biden to put them back on the FTO list and in launching counter strikes with their gulf allies. Seems the Emiratis know the only way to deal with Tehran is by hitting back and projecting strength.
I sure do hope that President Biden will once and for all put the Houthi back on the foreign terrorist organisation list because they are terrorists. They act like terrorists. They sound like terrorists. So they must be the terrorists. Put them back on the FTO list!.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Bryan E. Leib is the Executive Director of the Iranian Americans for Liberty and a Newsmax Insider. He is the former National Director of American Against Anti-Semitism. In 2018, he was the Republican Nominee for US Congress in Philadelphia, PA and the youngest Jewish American ever to run for Congress in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. He tweets at @Bryan_E_Leib