PUSHING OUR BUTTONS

Hostile nations provoke the US in waning days of Obama’s presidency

WHY would an Iranian proxy in Yemen provoke a fight with America?

There was almost most universal puzzlement among several Middle Eastern diplomats I talked to in the last few days. They were trying to game out what exactly happened when US Navy ships, including the destroyer USS Mason, came under rocket fire off the coast of Yemen earlier this month. The likely culprit: a Yemeni militia known as the Houthis.

The Houthis denied involvement and — as is always the case in the region — speculations abound about other possible aggressors. In Washington, officials went back and forth several times, quite confidently implicating the Houthis, Iranian allies, at first — then raising doubts about their involvement and, later still, implicating them yet again.

On the ground, though, the US targeted three radar posts that the Pentagon said served to home in on the Mason. That response was described by Washington officials as “measured” and “limited.”

Which may answer the mystery as to why would Iranians, or their Yemeni proxies, pick a fight with America: because they can. And because soon a new US president may change all that.

Donald Trump often describes President Obama’s response to foreign threats as a “disaster” and has vowed to restore America’s military deterrence. So does Hillary Clinton. “We need to respond to evolving threats from states like Russia, China, Iran and North Korea,” she said in August at the American Legion in Cincinnati. “We need a military that is ready and agile so it can meet the full range of threats and operate on short notice across every domain,” she added.

After eight years of retreat, that may prove a tall order.

Russia, for one, increasingly provokes American allies in Europe and elsewhere. Since April, Russian fighter planes have buzzed American planes and warships with barely a protest. On Friday, a Russian armada, led by the aircraft carrier Kuznetsov, provocatively sailed the English Channel. American and British ships watched.

China, meanwhile, steadily turns man-made islands into naval military fortresses, transforming the South China Sea into its private lake — much to the chagrin of our allies, who’ve relied on American defense treaties for decades. Beijing also restricts commercial flights over disputed areas and constantly confronts Japanese fishermen in the East China Sea, where Tokyo has administered several territories for a long time.

Washington advises Pacific allies to use international arbitration to regain sovereignty back from increasingly belligerent China. But when a Hague court ruled for the Philippines recently on one such dispute, China simply ignored the verdict.

This week, Manila’s new president, Rodrigo Duterte, announced his “separation” from the US and swore allegiance, instead, to China and Russia.

Then there’s North Korea. At odds with America and much of the rest of the world since the 1950s, the Hermit Kingdom is increasingly pushing the envelope, testing ballistic missiles and nuclear devices — with various degrees of success, perhaps, but certainly at an accelerated rate.

These trends have been building for several years, but “the pace is accelerating and intensifying,” says John Hannah, senior councilor at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies and a former adviser to Vice President Dick Cheney and Secretary of State Warren Christopher.

America’s enemies and competitors have “tested and tested, and found that there’s not much resistance,” Hannah says.

“Once deterrence begins to wear down, restoring it can, perhaps, be done by the next administration, but at higher costs. And that’s the danger.”

To be sure, no president wants to turn every minor incident into war. James Jeffrey, a former Ambassador to Iraq who worked un- der Presidents George W. Bush and Obama, gives the latter fairly high marks. “He can leave office and say, ‘I didn’t start any war, I killed Osama bin Laden and, maybe soon, I defeated ISIS in Mosul.’ And that will probably be right,” Jeffrey says.

But Obama, Jeffrey says, has a blind spot on Iran.

Which brings us back to the Red Sea incident and the puzzle as to why the Iranian proxies, the Houthis, would try to pick a fight with America.

After numerous incidents in the Persian Gulf in which small speedy boats belonging to Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps have buzzed large American ships, this new incident seems different, Jeffrey says. It actually threatened American lives. If any had been lost, it would necessitate a forceful response.

For Iran, there are political and other benefits in “slapping America in the face,” Jeffrey says. Especially if Tehran believes that “President Obama would do nothing against an Iranian provocation, because he is afraid it would cancel the nuclear deal.”

And, he adds, Tehran is afraid that a president Hillary Clinton or Donald Trump will be much tougher on Iran, which explains the timing.

Washington should warn Iran through diplomatic channels that the response to such provocations will not be a strike against proxies but against Iran’s own Revolutionary Guards, Jeffrey says.

The next president must demonstrate that there’s a new sheriff in town, starting by significantly upping military budgets. Climbing out from the hole we put ourselves in may exact a high cost, but without it, America — and the rest of the world — may find things sharply change for the worse.