Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan accused the United States and the United Kingdom of using excessive force in retaliatory strikes against the Iran-backed Houthis in Yemen, in an apparent show of a strategic rift between the NATO allies.
“They are eager to turn the Red Sea into a bloodbath,” Erdogan said Friday. “Yemen, namely the Houthis, say they have given and will continue to give the necessary response to them, be they the U.S. or U.K., in the region by using all their power.”
American and British forces struck Houthi positions in response to weeks of attacks on vessels transiting the Red Sea’s international shipping lanes. Erdogan’s rebuke added to the chorus of criticism offered by traditional Western adversaries, especially Russia and Iran, underscoring the fraught nature of Erdogan’s relationship with the U.S. and other leading democratic powers.
“We assume that this adventure of the illegal coalition forces poses a direct threat to global peace and security,” Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said Friday, per state-run TASS. “Guided by this understanding, we have demanded the urgent convening of a meeting of the U.N. Security Council, where we will voice our principled assessments of these illegal actions.”
American and British forces hit dozens of Houthi targets late Thursday evening in response to a series of missile launches and drone attacks on civilian shipping in the Red Sea. British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak characterized the operation as a “limited and necessary action,” which British and American officials hope will be severe enough to degrade the Houthi arsenal without triggering an intensified cycle of violence.
“It certainly looks like a strike that attempted to defang or handicap the Houthi threat,” said Behnam Ben Taleblu, Foundation for Defense of Democracies senior fellow, citing Pentagon statements that the U.S. targeted ammunition depots in addition to radars and other infrastructure. “It’s an attempt to deal with the problem on the supply side.”
The operation drew qualified support from congressional Republicans, who concurred with the need for military action but cautioned against a premature declaration of victory.
“This cannot be, nor appear to be, a one-off response that is merely a retaliation instead of a strategic operation to deter the Houthis on a permanent basis,” Senate Foreign Relations Committee ranking member James Risch (R-ID) said Friday. “[T]he administration has a track record of overly narrow military responses. Instead of stopping attacks against U.S. troops and diplomats, weak U.S. responses have eroded deterrence and created an incentive to attack Americans. The United States needs a strong policy of sanctions and other actions that end Iran’s support for proxy attacks across the region.”
The pressure for a strike has grown in the months since Oct. 7, 2023, when Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad, a pair of Iran-backed organizations in the Gaza Strip, launched the bloody surprise attack on Israeli civilians that ignited the war in Gaza. Houthi forces have launched dozens of attacks in solidarity with Hamas. And yet, Erdogan characterized the parallel hotspots as examples of Western threats against Iran.
“First of all, this is not a proportionate act,” Erdogan said of the overnight strikes, per an official translation. “All of these acts are disproportionate use of force. Israel is carrying out the same disproportionate use of force in Palestine at the moment. In the face of all of these, Iran is seeking to protect itself.”
His statement implicitly identifies both the Houthis and Hamas as extensions of Iranian military power, as the FDD analyst noted.
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“That seems to be an implicit endorsement of the Iranian role in arming the Houthis,” Ben Taleblu said. “He’s connecting the dots.”
Erdogan seemed to express confidence in the Houthis’ ability to counterattack. “They add that there is no room for complacency on this issue,” he said, in reference to the Houthis. “We are receiving information through various channels. We learn through various channels that the Houthis are successfully defending against and responding to both the U.S. and U.K.”
