Iran needs to know that there are consequences for defying the international community.
President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi and his military backers in the Arab coalition against the Houthis and those loyal to former Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh, who was killed last year.
Under a UN resolution that enshrines the Iran nuclear deal with world powers, Tehran is barred from selling, supplying or transferring weapons beyond its borders without UN approval. A separate UN resolution bans the arming of top Houthis or those aligned with Saleh.
According to diplomats, Iranian violations are likely to be addressed in a draft resolution renewing sanctions on Yemen, which is set to be adopted by the council later this month. It remains unclear whether Russia will back a move that punishes Iran.
Last month, Russian Ambassador Vassily Nebenzia queried the UN report and said the US had not made a case for UN action against Iran, after Haley showed her Security Council colleagues a display of allegedly Iran-supplied Houthi rocket fragments at a hangar near Washington.
Speaking at NATO headquarters in Brussels on Friday, US Defense Secretary James Mattis continued building the Trump administration’s case against Iran, accusing Tehran of fomenting unrest across from Lebanon to the Gulf.
After alluding to missiles into Saudi Arabi, problems in Lebanon and Syria “where Iran has propped up Assad” and Yemen “where they’re using it for a launching platform,” Mattis said: “I cannot explain why Iran insists on many of the things it does.”