The Saudi-led coalition of mostly Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries with the US’s, Turkey’s and Pakistan’s diplomatic and intelligence support has declared an end to a month long air offensive against Yemen’s Houthi fighters. The coalition claimed to have successfully neutralised ‘usecurity threats’ to Saudi Arabia and its neighboring countries, and said the next step would aim to resume the political process in Yemen, delivering aid and “fighting terrorism” in the country. The US provided logistical support to the coalition and accelerated the arms sale to the coalition states. The announcement was due to the pressure applied by the Obama administration on the Saudi-lead coalition to end the airstrikes.
For ground support, the coalition was banking on the remaining support base of the controversial, Saudi-backed president, Abd Rabbuh Mansoor Haidi, stuck in a guest palace in Saudi Arabia. Various other southern Yemeni tribes were armed to stand against the northern Houtis and their allied forces. The Houtis, on the other hand, allegedly had overt Iranian moral and diplomatic support along with the on ground support of some army factions loyal to ousted President Abdullah Saleh. Allegedly, the Houthis have covert Iranian military and intelligence backing, denied by both Iran and the Houtis.
When the offensive, codenamed Operation Decisive Storm, began on March 25, 2015, two main objectives were set forth: a) ending the Houtis’ takeover of Yemen b) restoring Saudi-backed President Abd Rabbah Mansour Hadi to power. Neither of these two aims has been achieved because, despite losses on the ground, the Houtis still largely in control of densely populated western Yemen.
During the first week of the offensive, the Associated Press quoted an Egyptian military and security source saying that the ground incursion would only start once the airstrikes had sufficiently weakened the Houthi fighters and that the ultimate goal was not to annihilate the Houthis but to push their fighters back to their home provinces of Saada and Omran in the north, and force them to negotiate. No ground offensive has started thus far, which clearly indicates that the coalition has failed to achieve its military objectives against the Yemenis.
Despite the Saudis’ mass military buildup near the Yemeni boarder, the coalition has not yet initiated a ground incursion, probably due to the historic fact that Yemen has always proved to be a graveyard for invaders. Its inhospitable, mountainous terrain and fiercely territorial tribesmen make it an extremely difficult country to fight in. The Egyptians, British and even Saudis, all have suffered casualties there. The Saudi military has seen almost no ground combat since the 1991 Gulf War over Kuwait other than a brief cross border attack in late 2009 into Yemen to fight the Houthis. The Saudis lost 130 troops and failed to achieve their military objectives. Egypt too faced a nightmare in Yemen. In the 1960s, socialist President Gamal Abdel-Nasser sent forces in support of republicans who toppled the monarchy, supported by Saudi Arabia, Jordan and the UK in a 1962 coup. An estimated 10,000 Egyptian troops died in that Yemeni civil war, which ended in 1970.
The Arabs’ anxiety and forceful insistence for Pakistani boots on Yemeni soil was due to the nature of the Yemen war. Pakistan’s armed forces and intelligence agencies are veterans of guerilla warfare and counter-insurgency in rugged mountainous terrains. However, astounding those deliberately wishing to engage an already stretched Pakistan army — the world’s sixth largest army — to another war, Pakistan’s political and military leadership wisely decided to adopt a policy of neutrality. Pakistan will take all necessary actions only if Saudi security and territorial integrity are endangered. Whether this will be decided by Saudi Arabia or Pakistan is, however, unclear.
The Saudi-lead airstrikes have lead to a humanitarian crisis and the UN has appealed for $ 274 million to help the Yemeni people struck in the war. As per the UN humanitarian agency, Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), at least 767 deaths from March 19 to April 13, almost certainly an underestimate, have been reported. The fighting has destroyed, damaged or disrupted at least five hospitals, 48 schools, Yemen’s three main airports, two bridges, two factories and four mosques, as well as markets, power stations and water and sanitation facilities. Public water services, covering one million people, are at serious risk of collapse. “Hospitals are overwhelmed with casualties, including people who have been direct victims of violence and those suffering severe burns from explosions,” says OCHA. Education authorities in Yemen have extended the closure of more than 3,750 schools across Yemen due to the prevailing security situation, affecting an estimated two million children.
Riyadh and its allies consider Tehran a great regional threat. I mentioned in my March 11 piece that the anxiety among Arabs and sense of insecurity in Israelis has aligned them in a covert alliance to counter the Iranian ‘threat’. The Yemen crisis has yet again witnessed Israel and the Arabs aligning their interests together. Anthony Cordesman, of the Centre for Strategic and International Studies, says that Israel’s strategic calculation is a simple one. He said the Arab countries “do not represent a meaningful threat” to Tel Aviv but “they do represent a meaningful counterbalance to Iran”.
Professor Efraim Inbar, an analyst and former deputy national security adviser, currently director of the Begin-Sadat Centre for Strategic Studies at Bar-Ilan University, Israel, told the Jerusalem Post that Israel’s interest lies in the victory of the Saudi alliance over the Houthis. “Israel’s clear interest is to see a roll back of Iranian influence in Yemen. This is true also in Syria, where the fall of [Syrian President Bashar] Assad will be a blow to the Shia corridor,” said Professor Inbar. Daniel Pipes, the president of the Middle East Forum, wrote in the Washington Times that the way the Arabs have united to counter Iran demonstrates that they do not see the Israeli-Palestinian conflict as the most pressing priority in the region.
The Saudi-led coalition is going to launch a new operation codenamed Operation Restoring Hope to resume the political process and fight terrorism. The coalition will try to maneuver maximum political space for pro-Saudi President Abd Rabbuh Mansoor Hadi, and could try to equip, arm and train pro-Hadi tribes to stand against the Houthis. Other than the political challenges ahead, the coalition could also try rebuilding a new pro-Saudi Yemeni army as, according to some reports, 70 percent of the Yemeni army [pro-Saleh] supports the Houthis who make up more than 30 percent of the Yemeni population.
The GCC countries must find a political solution to the Yemen crisis as their struggling oil-based economies, internal public anxieties due to poor human rights situations and growing Iranian influence on the Arab streets give them little margin to have an unstable and conflict-ridden Middle East. The ultimate solution to the Yemen crisis lies in a sovereign, independent and broad-based Yemeni government representing all tribes and factions.
The writer is a freelance columnist, technologist and a passionate speaker and writer. He tweets at @kashifaliraza and can be reached at [email protected]