In an April interview with PBS Newshour, Secretary of State John Kerry
was asked about Iran’s involvement in the escalating war in Yemen. His
response was astounding and revealing.
“Iran needs to recognize that the United States is not going to stand
by while the region is destabilized or while people engage in overt
warfare across lines — international boundaries — in other countries,”
Kerry said.
The quip was astounding because Iran is not bombing Yemen or engaged in
“overt warfare” there, though it has given some support to one side.
The culprit on the overt warfare front is Saudi Arabia.
It was revealing that Kerry ignored the Saudi and Gulf Arab role in the
catastrophe unfolding in Yemen. The silence on their bombing campaign,
which has led to civilian deaths, a flow of refugees and the
destabilization of the poorest country in the Arab world, is effectively
a show of support for the Saudi war. And that support extends far
beyond mere words, or the lack of them.
In late March, Saudi warplanes, alongside Gulf allies like the United
Arab Emirates, commenced an intense bombing campaign in Yemen. The
muscular move was launched in response to rapid gains by Yemeni Houthi
rebels, who were sweeping across the country and capturing territory as
the Saudi-backed president’s regime crumbled. Yemen quickly became the
hottest front in the proxy war between the Saudis and Iran, which the
Gulf says is backing the Houthi rebels, a claim that is overblown. While
Iran has hosted Houthi leaders and reportedly supplied them with
weapons and training, the support does not mean Houthis are controlled
by Iran, which is what the Gulf states say. In March, Reuters reported
that U.S. officials had concluded that “Islamic Revolutionary Guard
Corps personnel were training and equipping Houthi units.” But some U.S.
officials said they thought the Iranian backing is “largely
opportunistic and not a top priority for Tehran.”
The U.S. government has been engaged in its own war in Yemen by using
drones to attack Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, attacks that
frequently kill civilians. The Obama administration is now fully backing
the Saudis with intelligence and equipment as the Gulf Arab powerhouse
rains bombs down on Yemen. At a time when the Gulf states are concerned
with the U.S. nuclear deal with Iran, the Obama administration is
showing the Saudis that it will still back them in a chaotic Middle
East, no matter how flawed and brutal their military adventure is. And
Yemeni civilians are paying the price.
UN officials estimate that 650 civilians have died. At least 100,000
civilians have been internally displaced. Residents in the the city of
Aden, which has seen intense fighting, say the area is in ruins and that there are shortages of electricity and water.
The Saudi-led campaign in Yemen is the latest example of the state’s
involvement in Yemen, its southern neighbor. The powerful Saudi regime
has long meddled in the poor country. The roots of this crisis lie in
the 2011 Arab revolts, which deeply impacted Yemen.
Yemen’s democratic uprising was massive, touching on every social
sector in the country. It sparked a schism in the Yemeni military which
led to gun fights between pro-regime and anti-regime factions of the
armed forces. To stave off a prolonged crisis and civil war, the United
States and its oil-rich Gulf Arab allies brokered a compromise to ease
Yemen’s long-standing president, Ali Abdallah Saleh, out of office. They
installed Abd Rabbuh Mansour Hadi in his place. A national dialogue
with many of Yemen’s groups ensued. The end goal was to recommend a path
forward for the country after the revolt.
But a powerful group, the Zaydi revivalist Houthis, felt they were left
out. Some Southern Yemenis, who have been discriminated against by
Northern Yemen (North and South Yemen unified in 1990), were also angry
at the national dialogue process. But the Houthis, who espouse
anti-imperialist, pro-Islamist politics, took the most decisive action,
sparking the current war in Yemen.
Founded in 2004, the Houthis have capitalized on grievances that stem
from Saudi-backed Wahhabist proselytizing in traditional Zaydi
strongholds. Wahhabism is an extremist form of Sunni Islam which derides
other sects of Islam. The Zaydis are an offhoot of Shia Islam, though
they share much in common with Sunni schools of Islam, making claims
that the current conflict is only a sectarian war specious.
In recent months, the Houthis, based in the north of the country, have
captured territory throughout Yemen. This deeply worried Saudi Arabia.
Since the 2011 Arab revolts, the Saudis have used their money—and
sometimes, as in Bahrain, weapons—to suppress political Islamist
movements that want to use the ballot box to gain power. Saudi Arabia
wants to be the paragon of political Islam in the region. The Muslim
Brotherhood threatens that place, and also threatens to upend the
regional order of which Saudi Arabia is an integral part. The Houthis
are a political Islamist force that rails against the prevailing
American-backed system in the Middle East.
The Saudis and the Yemeni president they back have cast the Houthis as
direct Iranian proxies. That’s the main justification for the brutal
bombing campaign. In doing so, they have internationalized what is a
local conflict and imposed a sectarian overtone on Yemen, a dangerous
move that could spark tensions that go out of control. The Obama
administration, despite its apparent moves toward detente with Iran,
remains a strong backer of the Saudis.
U.S. support for the Saudi campaign is no surprise. The advent of the
oil age meant the U.S. needed to secure a steady supply to pump up its
own economy, and the Saudis were their guys. While Saudi Arabia did
eventually take control of its own oil reserves, it remained a key ally
of the U.S., big players in the oil market and in the region—a
counterweight against the Arab nationalist tide. Even though that tide
eased, the U.S. remains a key ally of Saudi Arabia, a pole of
oil-wealth, Gulf capitalism and a counter-weight against Iran.
The Saudis have spent some of their oil wealth on American weapons. And
the Obama administration has been all too willing to supply them.
President Obama has authorized arms sales for the Saudis to the tune of
$46 billion, a record. The Saudis have bought warplanes and attack
helicopters, and they’re now using those weapons to wage war in Yemen.
In addition, the U.S. has “increased intelligence-sharing with the
Saudis, providing them with direct targeting support for sites the
kingdom wants to bomb,” according to anApril 12 Wall Street Journal report.
Iran has demanded
that the Saudi Arabian campaign stop and that peace talks between the
warring factions commence. But Saudi Arabia has so far rejected those
pleas.
The bombing campaign has no end in sight. That means that the Saudi
military, with the full backing of the U.S., will continue to cause deep
suffering among Yemeni civilians.
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