When the Houthi rebels from northern Yemen stormed the capital Sana’a, in September last year, not many around the world raised as much as a quizzical eyebrow. The Houthi march and occupation of Sana’a was possibly not so memorable at the time, because other issues in the Middle East – which is now dogged by drama – were grabbing the headlines.
ISIS’ cruelty, Al Jazeera’s imprisoned journalists in Egypt and the burgeoning refugee crisis in the Mediterranean Sea are cases in point.
But the situation in Yemen is much more than a domestic crisis. It has an extremely complex international dimension, as Saudi Arabia and its allies suspect that the Houthi rebels are backed by Iran.
To better understand the dynamics and the proxy war being fought by Saudi Arabia and its allies (which includes the ubiquitous US) in the skies over Yemen, one needs to travel back in time, to when the Iranian Revolution took place – and Iran was transformed from a monarchy, to the Islamic Republic. Saudis and Iranians belong to different sects – the former are Sunnis who follow Wahabism, while the latter are Shiites.
Nevertheless, the suspicion with which Saudi Arabia views its northern neighbour is not only because of sectarian differences, but largely in view of Iran’s political goals that include the unseating of elites, anti-monarchism, support for ‘meaningful’ democratic structures, et al. Iran’s Parliament is more activist and independent than most Arab states.
Combining a nationalistic approach with an anti-American stance on political and military domination of the region, Iran has also extended strong support to Palestine – too much for Saudi Arabia to contend with, as Iran seems to be the antithesis of the Kingdom.
There’s more to why Yemen is a crown jewel for these two mighty contenders – and that includes the porous border that Saudi Arabia shares with Yemen, and fears that Iran would sneak in, if Yemen is controlled by an Iran-backed leadership. Nor has the recent thawing of relations between the US and Iran contributed to providing even a modicum of comfort to the Saudis.
According to Stephen Zunes (Professor of Politics and Coordinator of Middle Eastern Studies, at the University of San Francisco), the Arab Spring of 2011 in Yemen resulted in a broad-based, non-violent democracy movement against US-backed President Ali Abdullah Saleh and his repressive regime.
The US, which was funding Saleh’s Government in the fight against Al-Qaeda, did not extend its support to the National Council (democratically constituted, following the Arab Spring), to establish an interim government in Yemen. The National Council consisted of 143 members representing a broad coalition of protest leaders, tribal sheiks, South Yemeni separatists, Opposition military commanders, former members of the governing party and Houthi militia which represent the Zaydi minority in the north.
Washington’s failure to accept the democratic outcome of Yemen’s non-violent struggle was conducive to the resurgence of the armed Houthi uprising, previously confined to the far north of the country.
Zunes notes that, despite the ongoing repression of the pro-democracy movement in July 2011, a US congressional committee had approved US$ 120 million in aid to the Saleh Government, as military and security-related assistance. He states: “The aid was conditional on the State Department certifying that the Yemeni Government was cooperating sufficiently in fighting terrorism, but there were no conditions regarding democracy or human rights.”
Finally yielding to pressure by the US and Saudi Arabia, Saleh stepped down as president, and his vice president – Abd Rabbuh Mansur Hadi, also an ally of the United States and Saudi Arabia – took over the reins, after contesting as the only candidate in the presidential election held in February 2012.
Publicly endorsing Hadi, despite his key role in the previous regime, President Barack Obama said that the election was a “model for how peaceful transition in the Middle East can occur.” This statement made the pro-democracy movement give up on the US, with a prominent activist claiming that the revolution had been stabbed in the back.
In the meantime, the rebels were helped along in their efforts by the lack of credibility, ongoing corruption and nepotism by President Hadi’s Government. As politics makes strange bedfellows, the Houthis (who are led by Abdul-Malik Badreddin al-Houthi) are said to be backed by their former foe – ex-president Saleh.
On 25 March, in response to assistance sought by Hadi, Saudi Arabia, leading a coalition of nine Arab states, began battering the Houthis in Yemen through a series of airstrikes codenamed Operation Decisive Storm.
Saudi Arabia declared an end to Operation Decisive Storm on 21 April, stating that the focus of its intervention would shift from military operations to a political process. Together with its coalition partners, the Kingdom announced that it would be launching Operation Restoring Hope, which would comprise political and peace efforts.
However, in spite of this rebranding of the ‘operation,’ Saudi planes have continued to bomb Yemeni targets, often mistaking civilian locations such as villages and hospitals for Houthi strongholds. In an article in the New York Times, on 3 May, Human Rights Watch (HRW) claimed that in the past few weeks, the Saudi-led military coalition has been using cluster munitions supplied by the US.
The human rights watchdog said, in its report, that photographs taken at the site of an airstrike on 17 April show the remnants of a type of cluster munitions that had been supplied in recent years by the US, to Saudi Arabia and the UAE, which is part of the coalition. HRW goes on to say that in 2009, too, Saudi airstrikes had used cluster bombs on the Houthis, in their home province of Saada.
Most countries have banned the use of cluster munitions, since they are imprecise and scatter bomblets over a wide area. Needless to say, neither the US nor Saudi Arabia have signed the Convention on Cluster Bombs.
Though facing international criticism over the high civilian death toll, injured and displaced, Saudi Arabia and its coalition, together with intelligence and logistical support from the US, continue to rain fire from the sky on hapless Yemenis.
According to Yemen’s official Saba news agency, which is controlled by the Houthis, the death toll at 27 April stood at over 3,500 Yemenis, including nearly 500 children. However, these numbers vary from agency to agency. It is estimated that over 300,000 people had been displaced at around this time, and many countries – including China, Pakistan, India and Sri Lanka – have evacuated their nationals from Yemen.
As the Saudis continue tobomb Yemen, the Houthis are making overtures to Russia and China, seeking their support.
Iran is in dialogue with Pakistan and Turkey, which have pledged their support to the Islamic Republic – this, despite the fact that Turkey has momentarily pledged allegiance to Riyadh in the past.
In spite of 72 percent of the Turkish population and 68 percent of Pakistanis being Sunnis, both countries have decided to throw their hat into the ring with the Shiite Iranians.
Graham E. Fuller, a former senior CIA official and author of many books on the Middle East, offers an interesting insight into yet another scenario, as he describes the geopolitical concept of the ‘Northern Tier states’ that appeared on the radar of NATO allies during the Cold War.
Turkey, Iran and Pakistan – and sometimes, Afghanistan, which forms the southern border of the then Soviet Union – were seen as a potential bulwark against Soviet aggression and incursion into the Middle East. However, it now seems that the ‘bulwark’ is not united against Russia.
The Northern Tier bloc appears to be in consensus with the views of Russia and China, on Eurasian geopolitics. And the humanitarian crisis in Yemen is providing the impetus for Iran’s efforts to forge a new loose power coalition in the Middle East.
Fuller says that while there may not be a formal Northern Tier bloc as yet, there is a convergence of views among these states on many issues. The countries in the bloc offer a more progressive, moderate and forward-looking coalition than the current Sunni coalition “that is divisive, ideological, destructive and sectarian.”
“The approbation of both Russia and China for these non-interventionist geopolitical policies of the Northern Tier additionally lends these states greater clout. Such a bloc would also represent a clear non-Arab vision for the Middle East, at a time when the Arab world itself seems to lack any visionary and constructive leadership representing a genuinely modernist future,” he notes, providing much food for thought.
Saro Thiruppathy unravels the complex machinations operating within Yemen
