US-Saudi Blitz into Yemen: Naked Aggression, Absolute Desperation
Global Research, March 27, 2015
Url of this article:
http://www.globalresearch.ca/us-saudi-blitz-into-yemen-naked-aggression-absolute-desperation/5439141
http://www.globalresearch.ca/us-saudi-blitz-into-yemen-naked-aggression-absolute-desperation/5439141
The
“proxy war” model the US has been employing throughout the Middle East,
Eastern Europe, and even in parts of Asia appears to have failed yet
again, this time in the Persian Gulf state of Yemen.
Overcoming
the US-Saudi backed regime in Yemen, and a coalition of sectarian
extremists including Al Qaeda and its rebrand, the “Islamic State,”
pro-Iranian Yemeni Houthi militias have turned the tide against American
“soft power” and has necessitated a more direct military intervention.
While US military forces themselves are not involved allegedly, Saudi warplanes and a possible ground force are.
Though
Saudi Arabia claims “10 countries” have joined its coalition to
intervene in Yemen, like the US invasion and occupation of Iraq hid
behind a “coalition,” it is overwhelmingly a Saudi operation with
“coalition partners” added in a vain attempt to generate diplomatic
legitimacy.
The New York Times, even in the title of its report, “Saudi Arabia Begins Air Assault in Yemen,” seems not to notice these “10” other countries. It reports:
Saudi Arabia announced on Wednesday night that it had launched a military campaign in Yemen, the beginning of what a Saudi official said was an offensive to restore a Yemeni government that had collapsed after rebel forces took control of large swaths of the country.
The air campaign began as the internal conflict in Yemen showed signs of degenerating into a proxy war between regional powers. The Saudi announcement came during a rare news conference in Washington by Adel al-Jubeir, the kingdom’s ambassador to the United States.Proxy War Against Iran
Indeed,
the conflict in Yemen is a proxy war. Not between Iran and Saudi Arabia
per say, but between Iran and the United States, with the United States
electing Saudi Arabia as its unfortunate stand-in.
Iran’s
interest in Yemen serves as a direct result of the US-engineered “Arab
Spring” and attempts to overturn the political order of North Africa and
the Middle East to create a unified sectarian front against Iran for
the purpose of a direct conflict with Tehran. The war raging in Syria is
one part of this greater geopolitical conspiracy, aimed at overturning
one of Iran’s most important regional allies, cutting the bridge between
it and another important ally, Hezbollah in Lebanon.
And
while Iran’s interest in Yemen is currently portrayed as yet another
example of Iranian aggression, indicative of its inability to live in
peace with its neighbors, US policymakers themselves have long ago
already noted that Iran’s influence throughout the region, including
backing armed groups, serves a solely defensive purpose, acknowledging
the West and its regional allies’ attempts to encircle, subvert, and
overturn Iran’s current political order.
The
US-based RAND Corporation, which describes itself as “a nonprofit
institution that helps improve policy and decision making through
research and analysis,” produced a report in 2009 for the US Air Force
titled, “Dangerous But Not Omnipotent : Exploring the Reach and Limitations of Iranian Power in the Middle East,”
examining the structure and posture of Iran’s military, including its
Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and weapons both present, and possible
future, it seeks to secure its borders and interests with against
external aggression.
The report admits that:
Iran’s strategy is largely defensive, but with some offensive elements. Iran’s strategy of protecting the regime against internal threats, deterring aggression, safeguarding the homeland if aggression occurs, and extending influence is in large part a defensive one that also serves some aggressive tendencies when coupled with expressions of Iranian regional aspirations. It is in part a response to U.S. policy pronouncements and posture in the region, especially since the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. The Iranian leadership takes very seriously the threat of invasion given the open discussion in the United States of regime change, speeches defining Iran as part of the “axis of evil,” and efforts by U.S. forces to secure base access in states surrounding Iran.
Whatever
imperative Saudi Arabia is attempting to cite in justifying its
military aggression against Yemen, and whatever support the US is trying
to give the Saudi regime rhetorically, diplomatically, or militarily,
the legitimacy of this military operation crumbles before the words of
the West’s own policymakers who admit Iran and its allies are simply
reacting to a concerted campaign of encirclement, economic sanctions,
covert military aggression, political subversion, and even terrorism
aimed at establishing Western hegemony across the region at the expense
of Iranian sovereignty.
Saudi Arabia’s Imperative Lacks Legitimacy
The
unelected hereditary regime ruling over Saudi Arabia, a nation
notorious for egregious human rights abuses, and a land utterly devoid
of even a semblance of what is referred to as “human rights,” is now
posing as arbiter of which government in neighboring Yemen is
“legitimate” and which is not, to the extent of which it is prepared to
use military force to restore the former over the latter.
The
United States providing support for the Saudi regime is designed to
lend legitimacy to what would otherwise be a difficult narrative to
sell. However, the United States itself has suffered from an increasing
deficit in its own legitimacy and moral authority.
Most
ironic of all, US and Saudi-backed sectarian extremists, including Al
Qaeda in Yemen, had served as proxy forces meant to keep Houthi militias
in check by proxy so the need for a direct military intervention such
as the one now unfolding would not be necessary. This means that Saudi
Arabia and the US are intervening in Yemen only after the terrorists
they were supporting were overwhelmed and the regime they were propping
up collapsed.
In
reality, Saudi Arabia’s and the United States’ rhetoric aside, a brutal
regional regime meddled in Yemen and lost, and now the aspiring global
hemegon sponsoring it from abroad has ordered it to intervene directly
and clean up its mess.
Saudi Arabia’s Dangerous Gamble The aerial assault on Yemen is meant to impress upon onlookers Saudi military might. A ground contingent might also attempt to quickly sweep in and panic Houthi fighters into folding. Barring a quick victory built on psychologically overwhelming Houthi fighters, Saudi Arabia risks enveloping itself in a conflict that could easily escape out from under the military machine the US has built for it.
It
is too early to tell how the military operation will play out and how
far the Saudis and their US sponsors will go to reassert themselves over
Yemen. However, that the Houthis have outmatched combined US-Saudi
proxy forces right on Riyadh’s doorstep indicates an operational
capacity that may not only survive the current Saudi assault, but be
strengthened by it.
Reports
that Houthi fighters have employed captured Yemeni warplanes further
bolsters this notion revealing tactical, operational, and strategic
sophistication that may well know how to weather whatever the Saudis
have to throw at it, and come back stronger.
What
may result is a conflict that spills over Yemen’s borders and into
Saudi Arabia proper. Whatever dark secrets the Western media’s decades
of self-censorship regarding the true sociopolitical nature of Saudi
Arabia will become apparent when the people of the Arabian peninsula
must choose to risk their lives fighting for a Western client regime, or
take a piece of the peninsula for themselves.
Additionally,
a transfer of resources and fighters arrayed under the flag of the
so-called “Islamic State” and Al Qaeda from Syria to the Arabian
Peninsula will further indicate that the US and its regional allies have
been behind the chaos and atrocities carried out in the Levant for the
past 4 years. Such revelations will only further undermine the moral
imperative of the West and its regional allies, which in turn will
further sabotage their efforts to rally support for an increasingly
desperate battle they themselves conspired to start.
America’s Shrinking Legitimacy
It was just earlier this month when the United States reminded the world of Russia’s “invasion” of Crimea.
Despite having destabilized Ukraine with a violent, armed insurrection
in Kiev, for the purpose of expanding NATO deeper into Eastern Europe
and further encircling Russia, the West insisted that Russia had and
still has no mandate to intervene in any way in neighboring Ukraine.
Ukraine’s affairs, the United States insists, are the Ukrainians’ to
determine. Clearly, the US meant this only in as far as Ukrainians
determined things in ways that suited US interests.
This
is ever more evident now in Yemen, where the Yemeni people are not
being allowed to determine their own affairs. Everything up to and
including military invasion has been reserved specifically to ensure
that the people of Yemen do not determine things for themselves,
clearly, because it does not suit US interests.
Such
naked hypocrisy will be duly noted by the global public and across
diplomatic circles. The West’s inability to maintain a cohesive
narrative is a growing sign of weakness. Shareholders in the global
enterprise the West is engaged in may see such weakness as a cause to
divest or at the very least a cause to diversify toward other
enterprises. Such enterprises may include Russia and China’s mulipolar
world. The vanishing of Western global hegemony will be done in
destructive conflict waged in desperation and spite.
Today, that desperation and spite befalls Yemen.
Tony Cartalucci, Bangkok-based geopolitical researcher and writer, especially for the online magazine“New Eastern Outlook”.
No comments:
Post a Comment