Houthis in San'aa. Luke Somers/Demotix. All rights reserved.
The recently crowned
King Salman of Saudi Arabia has taken a major gamble by launching ‘Operation
Decisive Storm’, a campaign of air strikes in Yemen. Bringing together a
military coalition of Arab countries, Riyadh has pledged ‘to do whatever it
takes in order to protect the legitimate government of Yemen from falling’. The
elected leader of Yemen, President Abdrabbuh Mansour Hadi, has been
ousted from power by a coalition of rebels headed by Abdul-Malik al-Houthi, the
leader of a group of Zaydi Shia tribesmen from the North of the country, and
former President Ali Abdullah Saleh.
Saudi Arabia has been
quick to point a finger at Iran, claiming that Tehran’s support for their Shia
allies in Yemen, the Houthi movement, is directly responsible for the collapse
of the transitional government formed after the deposal of President Saleh in
the region-wide Arab revolutions of 2011. Riyadh has a point: the Houthis,
mistrustful after decades of perceived discrimination and war against the
Yemeni military and jihadi extremists, have been the biggest spoilers of the
peace plan and transition process brokered by the United Nations and the
regional Gulf Cooperation Council (of which Saudi Arabia is the leading
member).
The transition process,
which included the election of President Hadi in 2012, was ostensibly designed
to rebuild Yemen’s democratic institutions and to find a better way of
representing minority interests, including those of the Zaydi Shia who
supported the Houthi movement. The Houthis believed none of this – they were
convinced that Hadi would become a proxy of Riyadh. Instead Abdul-Malik
al-Houthi decided to seize as much territory as he could.
The Houthis took full
advantage of the collapse of the Yemeni military in 2009 – its elite units
initially sided with President Ali Abdullah Saleh. They made practical
alliances with tribal groups in the provinces surrounding the country’s
capital, Sana’a, and took the capital itself in September of last year. A
demoralized, divided Yemeni military melted away or appears to have been
co-opted by the Houthis. In a realist masterstroke, the Houthis forged an
alliance with their former enemy, ousted President Ali Abdullah Saleh, whose
enduring connections to Yemen’s military, business and tribal elites remain
formidable.
Saudi Arabia, by
committing itself to an unlimited military escalation in Yemen, has
over-reached itself. There are several reasons for this. First, they have
already lost one war against the Houthis. In 2009 the Houthis killed more than
100 Saudi soldiers after Riyadh bombed Houthi positions along the border.
Chastened, the Saudis backed off. This time around, it is doubtful that Saudi
Arabia has the stomach to comprehensively defeat them.
Second, President Hadi
is, from a military point of view, beyond saving. He has few allies within the
Yemeni military – many of the units operating in and around Aden have refused
to follow his orders. His tribal allies are no match for the experienced,
better organised and well-armed Houthi rebels.
Third, the other big
winners out of Yemen’s collapse are al-Qaeda and Islamic State-linked jihadi
extremists, who have seen their funding increase, including from private donors
in the region. These extremists are a much greater threat to the Saudi
government than the Houthis whose ambitions are limited to Yemen.
Al-Qaeda attacks in
Saudi Arabia, including a 2009 failed suicide bombing against the Saudi
Minister for the Interior, Prince Mohammed bin Nayef, should have alerted
Riyadh to the perils of over-focusing on the threat from Iran, instead of
dealing with the links between extremists in Yemen and in the wider Arabian
Peninsula. Those dangers still exist and the Saudis should not do anything that
indirectly empowers jihadi groups along its southern border.
Finally, Saudi Arabia’s
key ally, the United States, will negotiate with the Houthis; it will not
negotiate with Yemen’s jihadi movements. Washington’s military actions will
likely escalate against al-Qaeda and Islamic State-linked groups in Yemen,
creating a confusing paradox whereby two allies are bombing different sides in
a civil war. If a nuclear deal is signed with Iran in the coming months, then
Saudi Arabia will come under increasing pressure to compromise with the Houthis
so that the US and its allies in the Gulf can concentrate on the jihadi threat.
Saudi Arabia needs to be
saved from itself in Yemen. The Houthis are a locally driven movement. They
value external support from Iran but are not controlled by it. But Iran still
has some useful influence with the Houthi leadership. Tehran should know that
it is not in its interest to allow Yemen’s deepening sectarian conflict to
become an even greater fulcrum for global jihad. A senior UN intermediary is
urgently required to hold talks between the US, Iran and Saudi Arabia, as well
as in Yemen, in order to negotiate a détente.
As part of an initial
ceasefire, it will be necessary for the Houthis to retain, at least
temporarily, some territory based on their recent military conquests. However,
in the long-term the Houthis have no interest in seeing their own country, the
poorest in the Arab world, slip further into deprivation and bloodshed.
Ultimately, neither they nor Saudi Arabia can win by force alone.