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Until the bombing of the USS Cole In October 2000, for US policy makers, Yemen was a place of khat chews, kidnappings of tourists and warm memories of a summer semester dedicated to Arabic in Sanaa or Aden. . The kind of bizarre and vaguely amusing stories that US officials and students often told about their time there tended to overshadow the impenetrable, dizzying and dangerous politics of the country. Yemen's longtime president, Ali Abdullah Saleh, compared the country to the snake dance. He would have known; he was the chief serpent. Saleh was assassinated in December 2017 after doubling his allies, who were previously his enemies.
Despite the fact that Saleh was a very deplorable figure, the administrations George W. Bush and Obama considered him an important partner in what they called the "global war on terror". appalling. According to international organizations, the war that has ravaged the country since 2014 has killed and wounded about 15,000 people, about 3 million people have been displaced and more than 190,000 Yemenis have become refugees in neighboring countries such as Djibouti and Somalia. the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. There are currently 8.4 million Yemenis at risk of famine. As in many conflicts, children have been hardest hit, of whom about 130 die each day from malnutrition and disease, especially cholera.
The United States is at the heart of this tragedy, but they are hardly innocent. Yemen has regularly been the target of US drone strikes in the last 16 years. These operations killed a large number of terrorists, but many mistakes also caused families to disappear, mutilated people and injured truckers who were in the wrong place at the wrong time.
US officials have generally expressed regret and moved to the next target. Yet since March 2015, when Saudi Arabia came into conflict, Washington participated in a new phase of the war that resulted in the collapse of the country. Given the extent of human suffering in Yemen, the role of the United States in supporting the Saudis and their partners, the Emiratis, has become deeply controversial.
Bipartite legislation banning arms sales to the Saudis was rejected in June 2017 and spring 2018, and the US secretary of state recently canceled his contract and signed a dubious national security waiver. . Meanwhile, Yemenis continue to die from fighting, hunger and disease. How did we get here?
From 2004, the Yemeni government (along with the Saudis) sought to destroy a militia of Zaydis, a sect of the Shiite branch of Islam, in the north of the country, around the charismatic leadership of a former politician and religious. leader, Hussein al-Houthi. His message focused on Zaydi's empowerment and the destruction of corrupt autocratic governments.
Houthi was also a September 11 suzerain who claimed that the attacks on New York and Washington in 2001 were an American and Zionist plot to justify the invasion of Muslim lands. He took up the revolutionary Iranian creed and expanded it, becoming the rallying cry of his militia: "God is great, dead in America, dead in Israel, curse against the Jews, victory of Islam" . Houthi was killed by Yemeni forces in 2004 but what became an army in his name survived.
The Saleh regime finally fell in response to protracted popular protests that lasted from spring 2011 until it ceded power to his deputy, Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi, who ran in an election. undisputed in February 2012. The Hadi diet was short-lived.
A little over two years later, the Houthis marched on Sanaa and for a time they controlled the streets but allowed the government to function. About five months later, they forced Hadi and the government to flee and began to acquire additional territory. The Saudis then intervened in this civil war. In the abstract, their argument in favor of intervention was well founded. Hadi led an internationally recognized government; The Zaydis, with whom the Saudis have been fighting for a long time (although Riyadh supported them during the Yemeni civil war from 1962 to 1967), promised to overthrow the House of Saud and began to receive help from Hezbollah.
The Saudis feared the "hezbollisation" of Yemen and an Iranian plot to destabilize the Arabian Peninsula. Riyadh's appetite for war, which rose after the Houthis took Sanaa and established ties with Tehran, far exceeded his capabilities, accelerating the destruction of Yemen. In some ways, the worst fears of the Saudis have materialized. They are now blocked. They can not win or withdraw. And in response to their brutal air campaign, the Houthis – with the help of Hezbollah and Iran – regularly launch missiles at Saudi cities.
The war between the Houthis and the Saudis is not the only battle in Yemen. The Emiratis – who have benefited from fighting alongside the United States in Afghanistan and other anti-terrorist operations – have a much more efficient army than the Saudis, but can not carry as many planes, helicopters, soldiers and officers. The Emiratis share Saudi Arabia's fear of Iranian interference and have worked with what the media calls "Yemeni government forces" to defeat the Houthis, but they have also focused on fighting al-Qaeda success for most neglected. In one of those wacky twists that tend to manifest themselves on complex battlefields with multiple actors with varying political objectives, the Emirati, the Americans, and the Houthis share an enemy in al-Qaeda. The AQAP coalition in Yemen seems out of the question.
It is unclear to what extent one of the protagonists of this nightmare can achieve its goals, but the current advantage lies in the Houthi-Hezbollah-Iran axis. The Houthis marry a strange combination of Zaydi power and aspirations reminiscent of al Qaeda, the Islamic State or the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps of Iran.
Needless to say, overthrowing the Saudi government and creating a Qur'an-based state goes far beyond what the Houthis can accomplish, although they can force the Saudis to spend even more on a conflict that would have cost them 100 and $ 100 billion. Up to now, 200 billion dollars have sown terror in the Saudi population with missile attacks that could raise opposition to King Salman and Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, and contribute to the public relations disaster. by prolonging the conflict.
All of this is a victory for the Houthis and their friends, Hezbollah and Iran. The Saudis (and the Emiratis) want to push the Iranians from the Arabian Peninsula and restore the internationally recognized government in Sanaa. Yet Yemen is broken. There is no central government except in name, and even though Hadi is internationally recognized, it is not popular with Yemenis.
The Emirati do not want the Saudis to lose, and they want to take a hit at AQAP, which means an open commitment to Yemen. As for the United States, they want to destroy al-Qaeda, but they especially want the war to end, because the longer Saudi Arabia continues to live. Although US arms manufacturers are benefiting from the conflict, instability in the Arabian Peninsula resulting from a loss of Saudi Arabia to Yemen would be a major strategic setback for the United States, especially as the administration Trump signals a harder line to Iran. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo's recent decision to allow the United States to continue selling arms and providing logistical support to Riyadh is likely based on the fact that the increase in military pressure on Houthis will defeat them or force them to give up. The problem is that the Houthis will effectively win by fighting the Saudis in the draw.
Yemen's recent history offers another corrective of the consequences of popular power that toppled regional leaders in 2011 and 2012, including Saleh. This is not to say that the demands for a better government like the uprising that shook Yemen in 2011 are bad, but rather how bad they can turn out and that identity and political culture are factors in estimated complicating the dynamics of post-uplift transitions. Differences about what Yemen is, what it means to be Yemeni and who decides on these issues are playing out in a political arena where all snakes are toxic. The dynamics are similar in other post-uprising states, with different but often tragic consequences.
Above all, it should be emphasized to policy makers and analysts that the old American order in the region is dying. US allies no longer call Washington before acting in the region. The Saudis continued the war in Yemen regardless of US views, while demanding logistical support from the Pentagon and the uninterrupted flow of ammunition. Rightly or wrongly, Riyadh officials do not trust the United States to appreciate or support their sense of threat.
The Americans, plunged into the trenches of a cultural war, are burning their Nikes and watching the Twitter account of President Donald Trump. They are hardly interested in the real wars raging in the Middle East, leaving the region at stake. Unfortunately, many people will be killed in the process.
