US Allies Hope To Get US To Address Houthi Threat By Highlighting Group’s Anti-Trans Agenda

“The administration has made clear its priorities and values.”

Riyadh, December 13 – States in the Middle East dissatisfied with the Biden administration’s squishy approach to Iran-sponsored chaos and violence in the region via Tehran’s proxies in Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, Lebanon, Yemen, and the Gaza Strip voiced their intention today to shift their diplomatic rhetoric toward Washington to closer fit the administration’s policy preferences and evoke the proper response on those terms, for example stressing that the Houthis rebels of Yemen, Hezbollah in Lebanon, and Hamas in Gaza, among others, take a violently hostile attitude toward LGBTQIA+ individuals, an adjustment those Mideast states believe offers a greater likelihood of an effective response from Washington.

Diplomatic officials in Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Egypt, and other countries in the region under threat from Iran-fomented instability disclosed in separate conversations their governments’ thinking that the only way to get the Biden administration to adjust its accommodationist stance toward the mullahs might be to appeal to the Democratic president’s party ideology, which in recent years has made the rights of non-cis-heteronormative people a high priority. The officials noted that by highlighting the illiberal attitudes and policies of Iran’s proxies toward the LGBTQIA+ communities, they aim to induce a firmer response from Washington to the constant attacks on American allied by those proxies.

“It’s certainly worth a shot,” acknowledged a Saudi diplomat. “The administration has made clear its priorities and values, and our objective remains to engage those values to achieve outcomes favorable to our interests. Basic international relations, in other words. But in this case we believe that the high value the Democratic Party policymakers and thought leaders place on the welfare of trans, gay, whatever, in ways that otherwise hurt American interests, demonstrates the potential power that pointing out the treatment of lesbians and whatnot by, say, the Houthis or Hamas, might carry, and might thus cause a change in, if not a reversal of, the Obama-Biden conciliatory approach to Iran and its regional hegemonic ambitions.”

Commentators cautioned that such a rhetorical shift might backfire. “It’s not like Saudi, the UAE, or anyone else in the region, except Israel, treats the alphabet crew with dignity either,” observed an analyst with the Rand Corporation. “This could run the risk of calling undue attention to that and compromising the argument. On the other hand, it’s likely that it will simply prove totally ineffective, given that a more muscular US approach to Iran would definitely be in Israel’s interest, with Israel having some policies even more LGBT-friendly than the US, but that hasn’t changed anything.”

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