by Syarif Hidayat
Saudi Arabia is fighting the United States’ war in Yemen
since the Obama White House has decided to “lead from the behind,” an American
journalist says. US Army Colonel Steve Warren, a Pentagon spokesman, said that
Washington increased weapons supplies, including ammunition and bombs, to
assist the Saudi-led coalition that is fighting against the Ansarullah Houthi
revolutionaries who are seeking to oust terrorist groups from the country.
Glen Ford, executive editor of Black Agenda Report, told
Press TV that Saudi Arabia is “playing the US role as head of the coalition of
the willing, that’s the role that the United States has played for the last
couple of decades in that part of the world.” “Now President Obama is taking a
lower profile; he likes to use the term ‘leading from behind,’” he said.
Ansarullah Houthi revolutionaries say Hadi, who is now in
Riyadh, lost his legitimacy as president of Yemen after he fled the capital to
Aden in February. Popular committees backed by Ansarullah fighters are
continuing their advances despite the Saudi attacks while stepping up their
fight against al-Qaeda terrorists and securing many areas from the militants.
Commenting to Press TV, Ford said, “It’s also very significant that the Saudis
are so publically demanding – it sounds a demand more than a request – that
Pakistan join this coalition and send troops, because that would make the
troika complete.”
“It was the United States, and Saudi Arabia, and Pakistan
that back in the late 1970s and early the 1980s actually created… the
international [terrorist] network. That network did not exist,” he stated.
“There had been always [terrorists], but not organized, and funded and armed on
an international scale. That happened with the troika – Pakistan, the Saudis
and the United States. ” “And now they are bringing [the troika] to bear in
Yemen, where the net effect of their military aggression will be to vastly
increase the influence of al-Qaeda,” he concluded.
The God Almighty Allah warning
The God Almighty Allah warning
بِسۡمِ ٱللهِ ٱلرَّحۡمَـٰنِ ٱلرَّحِيمِ
أَفَحُكۡمَ ٱلۡجَـٰهِلِيَّةِ يَبۡغُونَۚ وَمَنۡ أَحۡسَنُ مِنَ
ٱللَّهِ حُكۡمً۬ا لِّقَوۡمٍ۬ يُوقِنُونَ
يَـٰٓأَيُّہَا ٱلَّذِينَ ءَامَنُواْ لَا تَتَّخِذُواْ ٱلۡيَہُودَ
وَٱلنَّصَـٰرَىٰٓ أَوۡلِيَآءَۘ بَعۡضُہُمۡ أَوۡلِيَآءُ بَعۡضٍ۬ۚ وَمَن يَتَوَلَّهُم
مِّنكُمۡ فَإِنَّهُ ۥ مِنۡہُمۡۗ إِنَّ ٱللَّهَ لَا يَهۡدِى ٱلۡقَوۡمَ ٱلظَّـٰلِمِينَ
(٥٠-٥١:سُوۡرَةُ المَائدة)
In the name of Allah, the Beneficent, the Merciful. “Do they then seek the judgement of (the days of) Ignorance? And who is better in judgement than Allâh for a people who have firm Faith. O you who believe! Take not the “Zionists” Jews and the “Right-Wing” Christians as Auliyâ’ (friends, protectors, helpers), they are but Auliyâ’ of each other. And if any amongst you takes them (as Auliyâ’), then surely he is one of them. Verily, Allâh guides not those people who are the Zâlimûn (polytheists and wrong-doers and unjust).” (Surah Al-Maeda, verses 50 – 51)
Installing a Western
puppet regime
Saudi Arabia has launched a proxy war in Yemen on behalf of
the United States to install a Western puppet regime in the country, says a
former American intelligence linguist in Florida. In September 2014, the Houthi
Ansarullah movement gained control of Sana’a, Yemen’s capital, following a
four-day battle with army forces loyal to General Ali Mohsen al-Ahmar, the
half-brother of the country’s former dictator, Ali Abdullah Saleh.
On March 26, Saudi Arabia unleashed deadly air raids against
Yemen in an attempt to restore power to fugitive Yemeni President Abd Rabbuh
Mansur Hadi, a close ally of Riyadh. “Washington is once again trying to
manipulate the government of Yemen using a proxy war now from Saudi Arabia,
their direct partner and the largest recipient of military weaponry in the
region,” Scott Rickard told Press TV.
Rickard was referring to remarks by former US congressman
Ron Paul who said Thursday that the Saudi-led airstrikes with the help of the
Obama administration will result in higher oil prices. “It looks as though this
war is going to escalate now that the Houthis have been successful in
overthrowing the West puppet government in Sana’a,” Rickard said.
Washington said it is supporting the Saudi military action against Yemen and it is providing logistical and intelligence support to Saudi airstrikes. Saudi-led warplanes continue carrying out airstrikes against Yemen as the war on the impoverished country enters its fourth day. Dozens of people, including women and children, have been killed since early Thursday, when Saudi Arabia began the invasion of Yemen.
US Republican Senator John McCain has applauded the offensive launched by Saudi Arabia and its allies against Yemen, speculating that the “conflict will probably escalate” into a regional war in the Middle East. McCain said Saudi Arabia and its allies “did the right thing” by launching the offensive against the country.
The Armed Services chairman added the invasion saved oil exports from the Middle East because if Yemen were to fall, it could choke off oil exports from the region. Saudi Arabia is the world’s largest oil exporter. It has the world’s largest proven oil reserves and production capacity. Oil tankers carry almost four million barrels daily through the Bab el-Mandeb strait, which connects the Red Sea with the Gulf of Aden and the Arabian Sea. The strait is 18 miles wide at its narrowest point.
The offensive has raised concerns about the vulnerability of the Bab el-Mandeb strait between Yemen and Djibouti, which has been identified by the US Department of Energy as a potential “chokepoint” in the global oil market. The tankers carry crude on a daily basis through the Red Sea and Suez Canal to Europe. Oil supplies to the United States take a longer route around the southern tip of Africa. Analysts, however, say neither side in the Yemen conflict has the kind of weaponry that would pose a serious threat to tankers in the Bab el-Mandeb.
Saudi warplanes bombed the positions of the Ansarullah fighters and launched attacks against the Sana’a airport and the Dulaimi airbase. US President Barack Obama authorized the Pentagon to provide logistical and intelligence support to Saudi airstrikes in Yemen, National Security Council spokesperson Bernadette Meehan said. Secretary of State John Kerry said that his country praises the military action and is backing it through intelligence sharing, targeting assistance and logistical support.
US increases weapons shipments to Saudi Arabia
The United States has increased its military assistance to
Saudi Arabia, extending its participation in the ongoing Saudi-led aggression
against Yemen.
US Army Colonel Steve Warren said that Washington increased weapons supplies, including ammunition and bombs, to assist the Saudi-led countries that are fighting against the Ansarullah Houthi revolutionaries who are seeking to oust terrorist groups from the country.
US Army Colonel Steve Warren said that Washington increased weapons supplies, including ammunition and bombs, to assist the Saudi-led countries that are fighting against the Ansarullah Houthi revolutionaries who are seeking to oust terrorist groups from the country.
“It’s a combination of pre-existing orders to our partners
and some new requirements,” Warren said, describing the arms shipments. In
addition to the arms shipments, a number of US forces assigned in a mission in
Saudi Arabia to oversee the air campaign against the revolutionaries in Yemen,
according to Warren.
Deputy Secretary of State Antony Blinken also declared
earlier that the Pentagon increased its intelligence exchanges with Riyadh.
Citing military sources, Russian media reported that the US Navy joined the airstrikes
against Yemen on Monday and American warships participated in the airstrikes on
Yemen’s capital, Sana’a. Saudi Arabia started its military aggression against
Yemen on March 26, without a UN mandate, in a bid to restore power to fugitive
former president Abd Rabbuh Mansour Hadi.
The revolutionaries say Hadi, who is now in Riyadh, lost his
legitimacy as president of Yemen after he fled the capital to Aden in February.
More than 540 people have been killed and thousands have been injured in the
beleaguered country since the military conflict began, according to the World
Health Organization.
The Obama Doctrine
“It’s more effective to use our capabilities to help partners on the ground secure their own country’s futures,” Obama said in a weekly address in September, employing what has become his oft-repeated line about refusing to get “dragged into another ground war” in the Middle East. Instead, he has been pushing for Arab nations to move their militaries beyond their traditional roles of securing territorial borders and protecting the ruling establishment against domestic uprising.
Now, a volatile conflict in Yemen threatens to expand Iranian influence at the expense of regional rivals including Saudi Arabia and Egypt. Those countries, backed by a band of Sunni Muslim leaders, have grown tired of waiting for U.S. assistance and are instead taking responsibility themselves. Their week-old air war against the Iran-backed Shiite Muslim Houthi rebels and consideration of a subsequent ground invasion have only minimal support from the U.S.
It looks as if Obama got exactly what he wanted. But Yemen’s internal complexities, combined with foreign meddling, has prompted concerns of all-out regional war. The renewed violence will now prove whether the American government is prepared to accept its new role in the Middle East as a supplier and organizer, but not a leader.
Syrian conflict
The president’s hands-off Middle East military policy materialized in the early days of the ongoing civil war in Syria. Even when Syrian President Bashar Assad crossed Obama’s so-called “red line” by deploying chemical weapons against his own people, the White House did not budge from the commander-in-chief’s refusal to deploy Americans to assist, either by arming, training or even fighting against the extremism brewing there.
“Because of Syria – the U.S. ability, or willingness, or ambiguous approach to the Syrian conflict – the Saudis, the Jordanians and Arab States in the Gulf have determined they cannot wait for the U.S. to act when it comes to protecting their national interests,” says regional expert Alon Ben-Meir, a Baghdad native of Jewish descent and a professor at New York University.
“They want to create the perception that nobody, including Iran, should take Saudi Arabia and the Sunni states for granted,” he says. “It’s sending a clear message: We are no longer going to wait for a green light to act. We are going to act because the changing dynamics in the Middle East is demanding that.”
Toothless Arab League
Most previous Arab alliances, such as the Arab League, have
proved largely toothless at rounding up coalitions and effecting some sort of
successful military mission. If Saudi Arabia is serious about a follow-on
ground mission in Yemen, that likely explains why it sought support from other
countries with advanced militaries, such as Morocco, Egypt and Pakistan – each
a recipients of billions of dollars of U.S. military equipment like fighter
jets and tanks. Saudi Arabia also sought out the symbolic inclusion of Sudan,
which has previously allowed Iran to use its land for shipments to proxy
fighters in and around Gaza.
The U.S. threw its support behind Saudi Arabia roughly a day
after it coalesced the incongruous group of loyal countries last week to take
on the Iranian-backed threat next door. But reports from some top echelons of
Saudi power indicate the oil-rich nation would have acted without U.S.
approval. America in turn is constrained by its historic alliance with Israel –
an increasingly tempestuous relationship amid Prime Minister Benjamin
Netanyahu’s vocal opposition to continued U.S.-led negotiations with Iran over
Tehran’s nuclear program. Amid these high profile talks, Obama and his
government are losing credibility among Gulf allies quickly.
“There is, underlying this, a growing and deep-felt expression about U.S. intentions in the region,” says Salman Shaikh, director of the Brookings Institution’s Doha Center in Qatar. “They no longer feel they can entirely trust that the U.S. will provide – be the main stabilizing actor in the region.” “More and more, there is discussion about what else the U.S. is talking to Iran about. Even if it’s not and being denied, that is leading to the kind of coalition and push on the use of force the Saudis are now leading in Yemen.”
“There is, underlying this, a growing and deep-felt expression about U.S. intentions in the region,” says Salman Shaikh, director of the Brookings Institution’s Doha Center in Qatar. “They no longer feel they can entirely trust that the U.S. will provide – be the main stabilizing actor in the region.” “More and more, there is discussion about what else the U.S. is talking to Iran about. Even if it’s not and being denied, that is leading to the kind of coalition and push on the use of force the Saudis are now leading in Yemen.”
Saudi-led Arab
coalition against Houthis
Stability in this region for the better part of the last
millennium has been provided by an outside hegemony. The Ottoman Empire ruled
through the 19th century, when European colonial powers began drawing up the
lines that exist today as borders. Cold War battlefronts occasionally converged
on the Middle East, and since 1990, U.S. troops and diplomats have attempted to
oversee some form of order.
That began to deteriorate when President George W. Bush
ordered U.S. troops to invade Iraq in 2003, becoming one of the modern era’s
most heavy-handed U.S. presidents in the region. The instability caused by the
subsequent war, combined with the Arab Spring in 2011, has produced a new
Middle East with a dwindling U.S. presence.
Instead of ground forces, Obama’s doctrine has included
expanding the armed drone campaign invented during the Bush administration in
the hopes he could both deploy America’s most ferocious ordnance abroad –
notably in Yemen – to combat terrorism without endangering American troops. The
Pentagon claims a drone campaign it initiated to target potent extremists
within the Yemen-based terror group al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula is still
in full effect, though the extent to which the Hadi government can cooperate
from hiding remains unclear.
Broader regional
conflagration
It’s too early to tell whether the Saudi intervention into
Yemen could escalate elsewhere, or whether the U.S. has established enough of a
leadership role to prevent the war from tumbling out of control. Saudi Arabia
and Iran view the U.S. exeunt as an opportunity to establish themselves as the
new big player on the block, and their next steps may decide whether chaos in
the region prevails.
“So much of it depends on how the Iranians react, and
whether they encourage their Houthi brothers to turn around,” says Shaikh.
“This can become a broader regional conflagration, a broad regional conflict
that is naked, out in the open. That is not good for anyone in the region.”
Conflict could even extend to inside Saudi Arabia or Iran, he adds. “A lot of
this does depend on what the Iranians are going to do, how we’re going to get
into a serious political process, and what the Americans can do in this
regard.”
And any plan for victory against the Houthis may appear
successful in theory. But as Saleh said, operating Yemen is like “dancing on
the heads of snakes.” Saleh himself, a Shiite who while president mounted
attacks against the Houthis before reportedly building an alliance with them,
exemplifies the incredibly complex concoction of international and local forces
that make Yemen so dangerous. He weathered multiple coup attempts, oversaw
Yemen’s unification, then sided with Saddam Hussein when he invaded Kuwait.
After the USS Cole was attacked at Aden, Saleh declared he would defeat
al-Qaida and won Bush’s support.
“He’s a good snake dancer,” says Barbara Slavin, an Iran
expert and senior fellow at the Atlantic Council’s South Asia Center. She
expresses doubts at the ability of countries like Saudi Arabia to wage
conventional war far away from its borders, and sees the current conflict as
much about personal vendettas against Saleh as it is about international fears
over Iran’s involvement. “It’s tribal. It’s bloody. It’s not just the Houthis,
there are other tribes trying to break away and have more influence over the
government,” she says. “What we’re seeing is an effort by the Saudis to force
the Houthis to accept Hadi.”
Saudi Arabia’s
newfound adventurism
Saudi Arabia’s newfound adventurism has surprised some in
Washington, including top officials at the Pentagon, who have privately
expressed concerns with the Gulf power’s ability to restrain its military.
During the Arab Spring in 2011, Saudi Arabia infamously invaded Bahrain to
quell the Shiite minority from ousting the Sunni establishment. Reports of
atrocities emerged, along with accusations that the Western media that chose to
cover the conflict offered an overly forgiving view of Saudi Arabia’s actions.An unknown number of Americans are currently operating at a “fusion center” run by the regional Gulf Cooperation Council, providing intelligence and information, and performing the key mission of communicating the coalition’s actions back to Washington. This headquarters differs from the joint operations centers the U.S. has established in Irbil and Baghdad to coordinate the coalition’s air war in Iraq against the Islamic State group, says Pentagon spokesman Army Col. Steve Warren.
“It’s a lot about communications and that we are also taking
the opportunity to use this as a vehicle for bringing in a little bit better
intelligence picture,” he said last Friday. He declined to specify what kind of
intelligence the U.S. is providing, and whether it’s helping the Arab fighter
jets find and hit specific targets. The special operations forces withdrawn
last month have not been redeployed to this center, he said.
U.S. officials have also expressed concern about Saudi
Arabia’s ability to operate with the kind of sophistication that avoids
collateral damage, negative headlines and fodder for enemy recruitment. Despite
nationalistic swagger, many allies who have fought with the U.S. admit that no
other country can compare with its ability to perform command-and-control, to
find targets and hit them precisely and to oversee battle spaces to ensure all
parties are coordinated.
Inexperience with that kind of discretion is already beginning to show in Yemen, following reports Monday that an apparent airstrike killed 20 civilians at a United Nations refugee camp there. Iranian media also bragged Monday that Houthi rebels in Yemen were able to shoot down a Saudi F-15 fighter jet, forcing its crew to eject into the Gulf of Aden where American airmen rescued them in international waters. U.S. defense officials confirmed the mission, but would not say what caused the pilots to eject or why the plane went down.
A situation as complex as Yemen is rife with opportunities
for misunderstanding. BBC Arabic tweeted, then later retracted reports that the
elusive Iranian Maj. Gen. Qassem Soleimani had been photographed at a Yemeni
market. The leader of Iran’s hyper-zealous Revolutionary Guard Quds Force was
previously reported to have been in Tikrit overseeing Shiite militias fighting
the Islamic State.
Were Saudi Arabia to attack and kill a high profile Iranian officer, even accidentally, it may provoke a some form of war of retribution. Even if the U.S. can secure a nuclear deal with Iran, the cryptic Shiite nation’s desire to assert power in the Middle East, and its Sunni foes’ retaliation, all but guarantees conflicts in this region for many years.
