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Saudi's Yemen move reflects security fears, say experts

Increasing influence of Iran also behind kingdom's intervention, experts say.

30.03.2015 - Update : 30.03.2015
Saudi's Yemen move reflects security fears, say experts

By Kasim Ileri and M. Bilal Kenasari 

WASHINGTON

Saudi Arabia's intervention in Yemen not only reflects the kingdom's security concerns in the peninsula, but also has crucial implications for the balance of power in a region where U.S. influence has dimmed, experts say.

While some argue that the Saudi involvement predominantly stems from its own security concerns, others describe it as a tacit conflict between the two regional powers -- Saudi Arabia and Iran -- which has a lot to do with the failure of U.S. strategy in the conflict-rocked region.  

Former U.S. Ambassador to Yemen, Barbara Bodine said: "I don’t think they (Saudis) are thinking in political terms, they think simply in terms of what is a state, stable and tamed and not threatening them. They are looking for a safe state."

The fact the Kingdom's choice of partners in Yemen has not been consistent historically justifies the former American diplomat's argument.

Riyadh has long advocated a policy of "containment and maintenance" in Yemen, where it has given support to whichever regime is in power in Yemeni capital Sanaa to prevent state collapse.

Top priority

They have formerly supported Zaydis -- Yemeni Shias -- against Sunni Shafais, while currently feeling threatened by the Houthis, a group of revivalist Zaydi Shias.

Bodine said: "Saudi policy towards Yemen was seen as a domestic issue not a foreign policy issue. 

"They share an extremely long border and a very long history. The Saudis have always been high presentative to the instability in Yemen and change in Yemen." 

CIA veteran William Murray also agreed that the stability in the south was the number one priority for the kingdom but noted that the Saudi leadership is not clear about what to do in the tip of the peninsula. 

He added that there is  already an existing security problem between the Houthis and Saudis as the kingdom fought the Shia group in 2009 alongside President Ali Abdullah Saleh, the 31-year autocratic president who was removed from his post as a result of a Gulf initiative in 2012.

Paradoxically, the Saudis are now fighting Houthis and Saleh loyalists who attempt to takeover Abd Rabbuh Mansour Hadi's government.

"Indeed, Saudis have never been reconciled to have the Yemenis as their neighbors," Murray added, saying traditional conflicts and problems are sprouting out in different power settings and times.

'Failed policy'

Saudi's border security concerns reflects the one side of the coin of the intervention in Yemen, some experts say, while on the other lies concerns regarding the increasing Iranian influence in the region.

There has been a tacit restlessness among the Gulf countries towards Iran since the revolution in 1979, based on ideological differences between Iran's Shiism and Gulf's Wahhabism, an offshoot of Sunni Islam described as "orthodox," "ultraconservative" or "puritanical." 

American experts say the sectarian controversy has become more visible as U.S. Middle East policy has failed. 

President Barack Obama's strategy was based on having a consolidated power on the ground as a partner to fight al-Qaeda and its affiliates in the region. 

But the failure of the central governments across the region left Washington without such partners, while giving way to the Shia and Sunni "extremists" to fill the vacuum. 

During his State of the Union address President Obama showed Yemen as a "model" of success for his counter-terrorism strategy, which turned into failure as the central government collapsed in the face of Houthi upsurge.

Troops withdrawn

The case was no different with Iraq, where Nouri al-Maliki's Shiite-coalition government left Sunnis outside and opened the way for the upsurge of Daesh. 

As the Houthi takeover raged in Yemen the U.S. had to close its embassy and withdraw its remaining troops.

Republican Senators John McCain and Lindsey Graham have called the conflicts in Yemen "another tragic case of leading from behind," using an oft-repeated Republican critique of Obama's foreign policy measures.  

But it is questionable to what extent the U.S. was leading Saudi intervention from behind, as the Saudis did not even inform the U.S ahead of their airstrikes.

"The Saudis have lost so much trust in the Obama administration that it’s certainly believable that they did not inform the United States," said Thomas Donnelly, a defense and security policy analyst at the Washington-based American Enterprise Institute. 

A lack of prior coordination between Washington and Riyadh tells a lot about diminishing American influence on Saudi leadership, which has regarded the U.S. as its protector for decades, Donnelly added. 

US 'disengaged'

According to Donnelly, the kingdom's move in Yemen is a part of the tacit mistrust that the Sunni powers feel towards the U.S.  

"Egyptians and Saudis, the two major directly-involved Sunni powers in the region, see the overall situation is tipping against them. They see the United States not just disengaged but also more tilting towards Iran," he pointed out.

The U.S. has spared Syria's Bashar al-Assad regime while it has called for Assad to leave power, he said.

It also provides airpower to the Iran-led Shia militias in their fight against Daesh in Iraq's Tikrit city. 

The White House is pushing for a deal with Iran on its nuclear program while demonizing Israel's prime minister for his criticism of the nuclear talks. 

Donnelly said: "Taking the administration's behaviors as a whole, the patterns seem relatively clear.

"The U.S. tilts toward Iran for a nuclear deal as well as for seeing Iran as the strongest regional power."

Therefore, the American analyst concluded, the intervention in Yemen is a test for the Saudi-Egyptian alliance without the leadership of the U.S.

"Saudis and Egyptians are taking a long-term view; they have to bend together in a pan-Arabic way to respond to the rise of Iran and also to the Sunni extremist wing -- everything from the Muslim Brotherhood to Al-Qaeda and ISIS," he said using the English acronym for Daesh.

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