It should be recalled that the current internal political struggle in Yemen is one of the oldest, most difficult and dynamic processes in the Middle East. If this process was in recent times relatively isolated, then now it has unexpectedly evolved into being the epicenter of a multinational Middle Eastern conflict, including the involvement of countless countries. Constant confrontations, ongoing through the years between tribes without hope of settlement, Northern and Southern separatist groups and the active participation in all internal affairs of “Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula” doesn’t leave room for any optimistic prognosis of stability in the near future.
Houthis are currently the only power in Yemen, able to withstand the surmounting terrorist impact from “Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula” (AQAP) and the “Islamic State” (ISIS). One of the main protests voiced by those in opposition to the ousted president, Abd Rabbuh Mansur Hadi was his close knit ties with Sunni radicals, connected with AQAP and ISIS. It was no accident that directly after the declaration of a Houthis government, AQAP fighters swore allegiance to ISIS and opened an armed struggle with Houthis. However they did not achieve any notable success.
Specifically at this moment Riyadh, before whom already stand a number of challenges, decided to intervene in Yemen’s struggle and have his say. It should be remembered, that bombarding of civilian population, of the earlier mentioned Saudis, is taking place without the proper UN resolutions and even in direct opposition to the international organization’s will. None other than the General Secretary of the UN, Ban Ki-moon, summoned the warring sides to take their seats at the table for peace talks. Saudi Arabia confirms that air operations were allegedly being carried out at the request of the ousted Sunni government, at which time Riyadh was the head. Washington, with whom the Saudis supposedly did not confer and acted independently, in unison with the Saudis speaks of this. Coalition forces, headed by Saudi Arabia are constantly aiming airstrikes at Shiite Houthis rebels, including four attacks in the Harad region in the North-Western part of the country. As confirmed by the Houthis controlled information agency, “Saba”, one of these fell on a displaced persons camp, killing dozens of refugees, including women and children.
Moscow, in turn calling for an immediate end to bloodshed in Yemen, reproved the United Stated for not recognizing similarities between the Yemen and Crimean crises. Supporting the refugee president of the Ukraine, Victor Yanukovych, Washington proved to have a double standard: both the latter and former situations should have been settled by negation, said the Russian Foreign Minister, Sergey Lavrov. Moscow will do whatever is necessary to prevent a culmination of conflict in Yemen in confronting Arabic nations and Iran. A fortiori, this situation must not metamorphose into an attempt to unfold an open conflict between Arabs and Iran.
It is quite obvious that the white house’s late reaction to Shiite rising to power in Sana’a points to anti-Iranian sentiments in the American decision on Saudi aggression against Yemen. And aside from this, Washington hopes that having pressured Tehran during tough negotiations on the Iranian nuclear program in Lausanne, they will tie the Iranian’s hands and profit through a number of privileges in its own favor. The Iranian nuclear agency has already reported that the authorities of this nation aren’t ruling out extended negotiations, which now in Lausanne have reached a critical stage.
As always, the U.S. in any adventure supports its trusty esquire Great Britain. British Foreign Secretary Phillip Hammond stated that he fears Iran might be pulled into the middle of the Yemen conflict, however, he is altogether uninterested in the positions of numerous Persian Gulf countries headed by Saudi Arabia, who with the support of the United States are conducting a military operation against Shiite rebels. “We know that Iran supports Houthis and we are interested in preventing proxy wars (with other nations)”, – reports the Reuter agency on Hammond’s words, who at the time was in Washington.
The war in Yemen is a Saudi challenge to Tehran, attempting to provoke it to reciprocated military measures. It must be admitted that Iran did not wait for the end of the political crisis and embraced active measures for establishing bilateral relations with the Houthis regime, de facto admitting the power shift into their hands. As expresses the international reaction of neighboring governments, the Iranians acted somewhat prematurely. Now the crisis in Yemen can be expected to add more tension to the regional air and elevate the pressing issue of competition between Riyadh and Tehran to the agenda. “For Saudi Arabia, – notes Martin Reardon, expert on international security, specifically, on Middle Eastern security; a former FBI agent, who’s comments are published by the Stratfor analytical center, – what goes on at its southern border, has considerable meaning as a factor of national security , especially now, when Yemen’s perspectives are so undecided. They cannot allow the situation there to remain unstable, since this gives Iran the opportunity to strengthen its positions in the peninsula and Al-Qaeda paves the way to embark northward.” What intimidates the Saudis? First and foremost, surely, the return of ex-President Ali Abdullah Saleh. If his defeat and resignation in the past were forced bythe betrayals of his confederates, and he was compelled to abdicate, then now he has allies in the Houthis rebel. Their mutual interest is very objective: Houthis can resolve their problems, which provoked their uprising a decade and a half ago, while the ex-President can restore to himself and his clan his power. But now he has no illusions about former patrons of Saudi Arabia, and natural deterioration of old age of numerous allies in the Saudi family dynasty have changed the balance in the upper Kingdom leadership. Now Ali Abdullah Saleh will increase focus on Shiite Iran and Wahhabi Saudi Arabia simply cannot allow this.
Also, the outbreak of war in Yemen is one of the opening fronts of overall war, which it seems Saudi Arabia will conduct in the near future. There is no escape: victorious Houthis will no doubt turn to its southern provinces, which Yemen considers its own. And this is an extremely serious turn of events, since in Jizan, Najran and Atheer – three south-western provinces of the Kingdom, which make up the historical region of Atheer, cut off in the Thirties of the last century from Yemen, where people of Yemen, Shiite-Zaidi and in the Najran region and Ismaili.
If the situation in Yemen continues to develop in its current direction, and circumstances implicate that it will, then Saudi Arabia will have to seriously consider a ground operation supported by Egypt, which has the most dominant army in the region. In addition, the leader of Houthis Shiites, Abdul Malik al-Houthi, threatened participants in invasion, that Yemen would be their “grave”, which is probably not far from the truth. It is obvious that Yemen’s democracy and constitutional order are not what is at stake and military intervention from Saudi Arabia in Yemen, supported by the U.S. is related to the age-old conflict between Saudi Arabia and Yemen, as well as the man-made blown out of proportion religious conflict between the Sunni and Shiite. While Yemen ended up in the wrong place at the wrong time.
Viktor Mikhin, member correspondent of RANS, exclusively for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook”.
