Yemen and the Congress of Reaction
The Saudi-led coalition intervening in Yemen has more in common with
19th-century Europe than the 21st-century Middle East.
By Conn Hallinan
April 10, 2015 "ICH"
- "FPIF"
- Saudi Arabia’s recent intrusion into Yemen is ostensibly part of a
bitter proxy war with Iran. But the coalition that Riyadh has assembled to
intervene in Yemen’s civil war has more in common with 19th-century
Europe than the 21st-century Middle East.
The 22-member Arab League came together at Sharm el-Sheikh,
Egypt last month to draw up its plan to attack the Houthi forces currently
holding Yemen’s capital. And the meeting bore an uncanny resemblance to a
similar gathering of monarchies at Vienna in 1814.
The leading voice at the Egyptian resort was the Saudi
foreign minister, Prince Saud al-Faisal. His historical counterpart was
Prince Klemens von Metternich, the Austrian foreign minister who designed
the “Concert of Europe” to ensure that no revolution would ever again
threaten the monarchs who dominated the continent.
More than 200 years divides those gatherings, but their
goals were much the same: to safeguard a small and powerful elite’s dominion
over a vast area.
There were not only kings represented at Sharm el-Sheikh.
Besides the foreign ministers for the monarchies of the Gulf Cooperation
Council (GCC) — Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Oman, the United Arab Emirates,
Bahrain, Oman, Qatar, Morocco, and Jordan — most of the Arab League was
there, with lots of encouragement and support from Washington and London.
But
Saudi Arabia was running the show, footing the bills, and flying most of
the bombing raids against Houthi fighters and
refugee camps.
A Local War
The Yemen crisis is being represented as a clash between
Iran and the Arab countries, part of ongoing tension between Sunni and
Shiite Islam.
The Arab League accuses Iran of overthrowing the Yemeni
government of Abdu Rabbu Mansour Hadi, using the Shiite Houthis as their
proxies. But the civil war in Yemen is a long-running conflict over access
to political power and resources, not religion, or any attempt by Iran to
spread its influence into a strategic section of the Arabian Peninsula.
The spread of sectarian warfare, as longtime Middle East
journalist
Patrick Cockburn points out, is a more likely result of the Saudi
invasion than a cause.
The Houthis, like the Iranians, are Shiites, but of
the Zaydi variety — not one that many Iranians would even recognize. And
while the Houthis have been at war with the central government off and on
since 2004, the issues are profane, not sacred.
Yemen — a country of 25 million people that’s about the
size of France — is the poorest nation in the Middle East, with declining
resources, an exploding population, and a host of players competing for a
piece of the shrinking pie. Unemployment is above 40 percent and water is
scarce. Oil, the country’s major export, is due to run out in the next few
years.
The country is also one of the most fragmented in the
region, divided between the poorer north and the richer, more populous
south, and riven by a myriad of tribes and clans. Until 1990 it was not even
one country, and it took a fratricidal civil war in 1994 to keep it unified.
There is still a strong southern secessionist movement.
The current war is a case in point.
The Houthis fought
six wars with former military strongman Ali Abdullah Saleh, who was
forced out of the presidency in 2012 by the GCC and the UN Security Council.
Hadi, his vice president, took over and largely ignored the Houthis — always
a bad idea in Yemen.
So, aided by their former enemy, Saleh — who maintains a
strong influence in the Yemeni armed forces — the Houthis went to war with
Hadi. The new president was placed under house arrest by the rebels, but
escaped south to the port of Aden before fleeing to Saudi Arabia when the
Houthis and Saleh’s forces marched on the city.
Logical Contortions
That’s the simple version of the complexity that is Yemen.
But “complex” was not a word encountered much at Sharm el-Sheikh. For the
Arab League, this is all about Iran. The Houthis, said President-in-exile
Hadi, are “Iranian stooges.”
Most independent experts
disagree.
The Houthis, says Towson University professor
Charles Schmitz, an expert on the group, “are domestic, homegrown, and
have deep roots in Yemen going back thousands of years.” He says that the
Houthis have received support from Iran, but “not weapons, which they take
from the Yemeni military.”
“Does that mean they are going to do Iran’s bidding?” he
asks. “I don’t think so.”
Both Democrats and Republican hailed the Saudi attacks. “I
applaud the Saudis for taking this action to protect their homeland and to
protect their own neighborhood,”
said House Speaker John Boehner. Rep. Adam Schiff, the senior Democrat
on the House Intelligence Committee, agreed. The Obama administration says
it’s providing intelligence and logistical support for the operation.
U.S. involvement in Yemen is
long-standing, dating back to 1979 and the Carter administration.
According to
UPI, the CIA funneled money to Jordan’s King Hussein to foment
a north-south civil war in Yemen, and U.S. Special Forces have been on the
ground directing drone strikes for over a decade.
This, of course, creates certain logical disconnects.
The United States is supporting the Saudi bombing in Yemen
because the Houthis are allied with Iran and because Washington relies on
the Yemeni government as a partner against al-Qaeda. But in Iraq, the U.S.
is tacitly cooperating with Iran in the war on the Islamic State, or ISIS.
And while the Saudi government is opposed to the Islamic State and al-Qaeda,
aided by U.S. intelligence, it’s attacking one of the major forces fighting
al-Qaeda in Yemen — the Houthis.
In the meantime, the Gulf Council has stepped up its
support of the Nusra Front in Syria, a group tied to al-Qaeda and a sworn
enemy of the Gulf monarchies as well as the United States.
Ginning Up a Regional War
On one level this reaches the level of farce. On the
other, the situation is anything but humorous.
The Yemen intervention will deepen Shiite-Sunni divisions
in the Islamic world and pull several countries into Yemen, the very
definition of a quagmire. While the Arab League’s code name for the Yemini
adventure is “Operation Decisive Storm,” Cockburn points out, the military
operation will almost certainly be the opposite.
“In practice, a decisive outcome is the least likely
prospect for Yemen, just like it has been in Iraq and Afghanistan,”
he writes. “A political feature common to all three countries is that
power is divided between so many players it is impossible to defeat or
placate them all for very long.”
Even if the Houthis are driven back to their traditional
base in the north, it would be foolhardy for any ground force to take them
on in the mountains they call home. The Yemeni government tried six times
and never succeeded. It is rather unlikely that Egyptian or Saudi troops
will do any better. While the Arab League did make a
decision to form a
40,000-man army, how that will be constituted — and who will command it
— is not clear.
Besides stirring up more religious sectarianism, the Yemen
war will aid the Saudis and the GCC in their efforts to derail the tentative
nuclear agreement with Iran.
If that agreement fails, a major chance for stability in
the region will be lost. Saudi Arabia’s newfound aggressiveness — and its
bottomless purse — will gin up the civil war in Syria, increase tensions in
northern Lebanon, and torpedo the possibility of organizing a serious united
front against ISIS.
Muzzling Modernity
While the U.S. has talked about a political
solution, that’s not what’s coming out of the Arab League. The military
campaign, says Arab League General Secretary Nabil el-Araby, “will continue
until all the Houthi militia retreats and disarms and a strong unified Yemen
returns.” The bombings have already killed hundreds of civilians and
generated tens of thousands of refugees. Gulf Council sources say that the
air war may continue for up to six months.
Instead of endorsing what is certain to be a disaster,
Washington should join the call by European Union foreign policy chief
Federica Mogherini for a ceasefire and negotiations. “I’m convinced that
military actions is not a solution,” she said, calling on “all regional
actors” to “act responsibly and constructively… for a return to
negotiations.”
The Houthis are not interested in running Yemen. Senior
Houthi leader
Saleh Ali al-Sammad said that his organization “does not want anything
more than partnership, not control.” Houthi ally and
ex-president Saleh also said, “Let’s go to dialogue and ballot boxes,”
not bombing. Yemen needs an influx of aid, not bombs, drones, and hellfire
missiles.
The Congress of Europe muzzled European modernism for more
than a generation, just as the Gulf Cooperation Council and Egypt will do
their best to strangle what is left of the Arab Spring. Prince Metternich
remained Austria’s Chancellor until a storm of nationalism and revolution
swept across Europe in 1848 and brought down the congress of reaction.
Foreign Policy In Focus columnist
Conn Hallinan can be read at
www.dispatchesfromtheedgeblog.wordpress.com and
www.middleempireseries.wordpress.com.
