If the plan is to sow confusion, it looks like they are doing a pretty good job. The signals coming out of the White House are anything but stable. Just a couple of weeks ago the administration removed the Houthis in Yemen from the terrorist designation that the Trump administration put into place. The purpose of the removal was to let humanitarian aid to flow from the World Food Program into the war torn country.

As the administration knows most of the population of Yemen is under Houthi control.  So the WFP, who we subsidize more than any other country, is basically giving food to the Houthi organization. This would be the same Houthi group that just launched ballistic missiles into Saudi Arabia:

The Ansarallah Movement (var. Houthi forces) announced on Monday evening that their rocket battalion launched a new ballistic missile strike on targets inside the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.

The spokesman for the Ansarallah-linked Yemeni armed forces,, Brigadier General Yahya Sare’e, said on Twitter that “the Missile Force targeted a sensitive military target at Abha International Airport with a new ballistic missile, which has entered service recently and has not been revealed yet, the designated targeted has been hit with high precision.”

On the other hand, the White House is making noise about finding ways to help defend Saudi Arabia from these Houthi attacks:

The United States will seek ways to improve its support for Saudi Arabia to defend itself from attacks by Yemen’s Houthi rebels, White House spokesperson Jen Psaki said in a press briefing on Monday.

“We understand that they face genuine security threats from Yemen and others in the region”, Psaki said. “As a part of our interagency process, we’ll look for ways to improve support for Saudi Arabia’s ability to defend its territory against threats.”

If you are confused about these moves that look to be at odds with each other, imagine how Israel feels. The last call that the PM Netanyahu got from the US had Kamala Harris on one end of the conversation, in place of President Biden.

Vice President Kamala Harris has spoken to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu without President Joe Biden being present, the latest in a series of calls to world leaders usually conducted by the president.

Harris spoke to Netanyahu on Thursday, with a White House readout of the call saying she “underscored the Biden-Harris Administration’s commitment to the US-Israel partnership,” and affirmed her opposition to the International Criminal Court prosecuting Israeli soldiers for alleged war crimes.

To say that the United States plan for the middle east looks incoherent is probably mild. And to have the Vice President making calls to key stake holders in the region says that the US doesn’t feel it is that important.