The Geopolitics Behind the
War in Yemen
By Mahdi Darius Nazemroaya
March 29, 2015 "ICH"
- "SCF"
- The United States and the Kingdom of Saudi
Arabia became very uneasy when the Yemenese
or Yemenite movement of the Houthi or
Ansarallah (meaning the supporters of God in
Arabic) gained control of Yemen’s capital,
Sanaa/Sana, in September 2014. The
US-supported Yemenite President Abd-Rabbuh
Manṣour Al-Hadi was humiliatingly forced to
share power with the Houthis and the
coalition of northern Yemenese tribes that
had helped them enter Sana. Al-Hadi declared
that negotiations for a Yemeni national
unity government would take place and his
allies the US and Saudi Arabia tried to use
a new national dialogue and mediated talks
to co-opt and pacify the Houthis.
The truth has been turned on
its head about the war in Yemen. The war and
ousting of President Abd-Rabbuh Manṣour Al-Hadi
in Yemen are not the results of «Houthi
coup» in Yemen. It is the opposite. Al-Hadi
was ousted, because with Saudi and US
support he tried to backtrack on the power
sharing agreements he had made and return
Yemen to authoritarian rule. The ousting of
President Al-Hadi by the Houthis and their
political allies was an unexpected reaction
to the takeover Al-Hadi was planning with
Washington and the House of Saudi.
The Houthis and their allies
represent a diverse cross-section of Yemeni
society and the majority of Yemenites. The
Houthi movement’s domestic alliance against
Al-Hadi includes Shiite Muslims and Sunni
Muslims alike. The US and House of Saud
never thought that they Houthis would assert
themselves by removing Al-Hadi from power,
but this reaction had been a decade in the
making. With the House of Saud, Al-Hadi had
been involved in the persecution of the
Houthis and the manipulation of tribal
politics in Yemen even before he became
president. When he became Yemeni president
he dragged his feet and was working against
the implement the arrangements that had been
arranged through consensus and negotiations
in Yemen’s National Dialogue, which convened
after Ali Abdullah Saleh was forced to hand
over his powers in 2011.
Coup or Counter-Coup: What
Happened in Yemen?
At first, when they took over
Sana in late-2014, the Houthis rejected
Al-Hadi’s proposals and his new offers for a
formal power sharing agreement, calling him
a morally bankrupt figure that had actually
been reneging previous promises of sharing
political power. At that point, President
Al-Hadi’s pandering to Washington and the
House of Saud had made him deeply unpopular
in Yemen with the majority of the
population. Two months later, on November 8,
President Al-Hadi’s own party, the Yemenite
General People’s Congress, would eject
Al-Hadi as its leader too.
The Houthis eventually
detained President Al-Hadi and seized the
presidential palace and other Yemeni
government buildings on January 20. With
popular support, a little over two weeks
later, the Houthis formally formed a Yemense
transitional government on February 6.
Al-Hadi was forced to resign. The Houthis
declared that Al-Hadi, the US, and Saudi
Arabia were planning on devastating Yemen on
February 26.
Al-Hadi’s resignation was a
setback for US foreign policy. It resulted
in a military and operational retreat for
the CIA and the Pentagon, which were forced
to remove US military personnel and
intelligence operatives from Yemen. The Los
Angeles Times reported on March 25, citing
US officials, that the Houthis had got their
hands on numerous secret documents when the
seized the Yemeni National Security Bureau,
which was working closely with the CIA, that
compromised Washington’s operations in
Yemen.
Al-Hadi fled the Yemeni
capital Sana to Aden n February 21 and
declared it the temporary capital of Yemen
on March 7. The US, France, Turkey, and
their Western European allies closed their
embassies. Soon afterwards, in what was
probably a coordinated move with the US,
Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, and
the United Arab Emirates all relocated the
embassies to Aden from Sana. Al-Hadi
rescinded his letter of resignation as
president and declared that he was forming a
government-in-exile.
The Houthis and their
political allies refused to fall into line
with the demands of the US and Saudi Arabia,
which were being articulated through Al-Hadi
in Aden and by an increasingly hysteric
Riyadh. As a result, Al-Hadi’s foreign
minister, Riyadh Yaseen, called for Saudi
Arabia and the Arab petro-sheikdoms to
militarily intervene to prevent the Houthis
from getting control of Yemen’s airspace on
March 23. Yaseen told the Saudi mouthpiece
Al-Sharg Al-Awsa that a bombing campaign was
needed and that a no-fly zone had to be
imposed over Yemen.
The Houthis realized that a
military struggle was going to begin. This
is why the Houthis and their allies in the
Yemenite military rushed to control as many
Yemeni military airfields and airbases, such
as Al-Anad, as quickly as possible. They
rushed to neutralize Al-Hadi and entered
Aden on March 25.
By the time the Houthis and
their allies entered Aden, Al-Hadi had fled
the Yemeni port city. Al-Hadi would
resurface in Saudi Arabia when the House of
Saud started attacking Yemen on March 26.
From Saudi Arabia, Abd-Rabbuh Manṣour
Al-Hadi would then fly to Egypt for a
meeting of the Arab League to legitimize the
war on Yemen.
Yemen and the Changing
Strategic Equation in the Middle East
The Houthi takeover of Sana
took place in the same timeframe as a series
of success or regional victories for Iran,
Hezbollah, Syria and the Resistance Bloc
that they and other local actors form
collectively. In Syria, the Syrian
government managed to entrench its position
while in Iraq the ISIL/ISIS/Daesh movement
was being pushed back by Iraq with the
noticeable help of Iran and local Iraqi
militias allied to Tehran.
The strategic equation in the
Middle East began to shift as it became
clear that Iran was becoming central to its
security architecture and stability. The
House of Saud and Israeli Prime Minister
Benjamin Netanyahu began to whimper and
complain that Iran was in control of four
regional capitals—Beirut, Damascus, Baghdad,
and Sana - and that something had to be done
to stop Iranian expansion. As a result of
the new strategic equation, the Israelis and
the House of Saud became perfectly
strategically aligned with the objective of
neutralizing Iran and its regional allies.
«When the Israelis and Arabs are on the same
page, people should pay attention», Israeli
Ambassador Ron Dermer told Fox News about
the alignment of Israel and Saudi Arabia on
March 5.
The Israeli and Saudi fear
mongering has not worked. According to
Gallup poll, only 9% of US citizens viewed
Iran as a greatest enemy of the US at the
time that Netanyahu arrived t Washington to
speak against a deal between the US and
Iran.
The Geo-Strategic Objectives
of the US and Saudis Behind the War in Yemen
While the House of Saudi has
long considered Yemen a subordinate province
of some sorts and as a part of Riyadh’s
sphere of influence, the US wants to make
sure that it could control the Bab
Al-Mandeb, the Gulf of Aden, and the Socotra
Islands. The Bab Al-Mandeb it is an
important strategic chokepoint for
international maritime trade and energy
shipments that connects the Persian Gulf via
the Indian Ocean with the Mediterranean Sea
via the Red Sea. It is just as important as
the Suez Canal for the maritime shipping
lanes and trade between Africa, Asia, and
Europe.
Israel was also concerned,
because control of Yemen could cut off
Israel’s access to Indian Ocean via the Red
Sea and prevent its submarines from easily
deploying to the Persian Gulf to threaten
Iran. This is why control of Yemen was
actually one of Netanyahu’s talking points
on Capitol Hill when he spoke to the US
Congress about Iran on March 3 in what the
New York Times of all publications billed as
«Mr. Netanyahu’s Unconvincing Speech to
Congress» on March 4.
Saudi Arabia was visibly
afraid that Yemen could become formally
align to Iran and that the evens there could
result in new rebellions in the Arabian
Peninsula against the House of Saud. The US
was just as much concerned about this too,
but was also thinking in terms of global
rivalries. Preventing Iran, Russia, or China
from having a strategic foothold in Yemen,
as a means of preventing other powers from
overlooking the Gulf of Aden and positioning
themselves at the Bab Al-Mandeb, was a major
US concern.
Added to the geopolitical
importance of Yemen in overseeing strategic
maritime corridors is its military’s missile
arsenal. Yemen’s missiles could hit any
ships in the Gulf of Aden or Bab Al-Mandeb.
In this regard, the Saudi attack on Yemen’s
strategic missile depots serves both US and
Israeli interests. The aim is not only to
prevent them from being used to retaliate
against exertions of Saudi military force,
but to also prevent them from being
available to a Yemeni government aligned to
either Iran, Russia, or China.
In a public position that
totally contradicts Riyadh’s Syria policy,
the Saudis threatened to take military
action if the Houthis and their political
allies did not negotiate with Al-Hadi. As a
result of the Saudi threats, protests
erupted across Yemen against the House of
Saud on March 25. Thus, the wheels were set
in motion for another Middle Eastern war as
the US, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, UAE, Qatar,
and Kuwait began to prepare to reinstall Al-Hadi.
The Saudi March to War in
Yemen and a New Front against Iran
For all the talk about Saudi
Arabia as a regional power, it is too weak
to confront Iran alone. The House of Saud’s
strategy has been to erect or reinforce a
regional alliance system for a drawn
confrontation with Iran and the Resistance
Bloc. In this regard Saudi Arabia needs
Egypt, Turkey, and Pakistan —a misnamed
so-called «Sunni» alliance or axis — to help
it confront Iran and its regional allies.
Crown Prince Mohammed bin
Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan, the crown prince
of the Emirate of Abu Dhabi and deputy
supreme commander of the UAE’s military,
would visit Morocco to talk about a
collective military response to Yemen by the
Arab petro-sheikhdoms, Morocco, Jordan, and
Egypt on March 17. On March 21, Mohammed bin
Zayed met Saudi Arabia’s King Salman Salman
bin Abdulaziz Al-Saud to discuss a military
response to Yemen. This was while Al-Hadi
was calling for Saudi Arabia and the Gulf
Cooperation Council (GCC) to help him by
militarily intervening in Yemen. The
meetings were followed by talk about a new
regional security pact for the Arab
petro-sheikdoms.
Out of the GCC’s five
members, the Sultanate of Oman stayed away.
Oman refused to join the war on Yemen.
Muscat has friendly relations with Tehran.
Moreover, the Omanis are weary of the Saudi
and GCC project to use sectarianism to
ignite confrontation with Iran and its
allies. The majority of Omanis are neither
Sunni Muslims nor Shiite Muslims; they are
Ibadi Muslims, and they fear the fanning of
sectarian sedition by the House of Saud and
the other Arab petro-sheikdoms.
Saudi propagandists went into
over drive falsely claiming that the war was
a response to Iranian encroachment on the
borders of Saudi Arabia. Turkey would
announce its support for the war in Yemen.
On the day the war was launched, Turkey’s
Erdogan claimed that Iran was trying to
dominate the region and that Turkey, Saudi
Arabia, and the GCC were getting annoyed.
During these events, Egypt’s
Sisi stated that the security of Cairo and
the security of Saudi Arabia and the Arab
petro-sheikhdoms are one. In fact, Egypt
said that it would not get involved in a war
in Yemen on March 25, but the next day Cairo
joined Saudi Arabia in Riyadh’s attack on
Yemen by sending its jets and ships to
Yemen.
In the same vein, Pakistani
Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif released a
statement on March 26 that any threat to
Saudi Arabia would «evoke a strong response»
from Pakistan. The message was tacitly
directed towards Iran.
The US and Israeli Roles in
the War in Yemen
On March 27, it was announced
in Yemen that Israel was helping Saudi
Arabia attack the Arab country. «This is the
first time that the Zionists [Israelis] are
conducting a joint operation in
collaborations with Arabs,» Hassan Zayd, the
head of Yemen’s Al-Haq Party, wrote on the
internet to point out the convergence of
interests between Saudi Arabia and Israel.
The Israeli-Saudi alliance over Yemen,
however, is not new. The Israelis helped the
House of Saud during the North Yemen Civil
War that started in 1962 by providing Saudi
Arabia with weapons to help the royalists
against the republicans in North Yemen.
The US is also involved and
leading from behind or a distance. While it
works to strike a deal with Iran, it also
wants to maintain an alliance against Tehran
using the Saudis. The Pentagon would provide
what it called «intelligence and logistical
support» to House of Saud. Make no mistakes
about it: the war on Yemen is also
Washington’s war. The GCC has been on Yemen
unleashed by the US.
There has long been talk
about the formation of a pan-Arab military
force, but proposals for creating it were
renewed on March 9 by the rubberstamp Arab
League. The proposals for a united Arab
military serve US, Israeli, and Saudi
interests. Talk about a pan-Arab military
has been motivated by their preparations to
attack Yemen to return Al-Hadi and to
regionally confront Iran, Syria, Hezbollah,
and the Resistance Bloc.
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Foundation