/ world today news/ Washington, according to the director of the CIA, is “stunned”. And all this because it is losing influence in one of the key regions of the world – the Middle East. And the latest symbol of what was happening was the reconciliation between Saudi Arabia and Yemen. Why was the military conflict between these two countries extremely beneficial to the United States – and why will we eventually see America’s position weaken?
The Middle East is slipping out of American control. Step by step, the US is losing the tools with which it maintained its military, economic and political presence in the region. And now it’s the Yemeni instrument’s turn.
The occasion goes away
Yemen is one of the poorest and at the same time the most militarized countries in the Middle East. This is a country that has been in a civil war since 2014. On the one hand, there are the local rebels from the “Ansar Allah” movement (which are often called simply the Houthis – after the movement’s founder, Hussein al-Houthi), supported by Iran, and on the other, the local government, supported by the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA). .
Since 2015, Riyadh (which feared the emergence of pro-Iranian groups near its oil provinces) formally entered the war and began military operations and large-scale bombing of Houthi-controlled cities. As a result, a real humanitarian disaster began in the country. More than a hundred thousand dead, the economy destroyed – and no chance of victory for either side.
The Saudi coalition (with all its soldiers, mercenaries, weapons) has not been able to capture Houthi territory or even completely cut it off from ports and other means of supplying weapons from Iran. In turn, the Houthis cannot expel Saudi troops from Yemen.
The United States of Americawowand hands
The Americans were perfectly happy with this situation. First, the mere presence of several hundred thousand armed rebels on the border with Saudi Arabia posed a direct threat to the kingdom’s security — and therefore made Riyadh dependent on American defense guarantees. Second, KSA’s largest oil fields were within range of missiles and combat drones that Iranian partners graciously provided the Houthis, and the Houthis regularly attacked these fields.
All this forced the kingdom to include the US in the organization of its air defense system, and also made the security of Saudi oil production dependent on the Pentagon.
Finally, at any moment of escalation of bilateral relations, Washington, through its “independent” press, can raise the issue of human rights violations in Yemen (see the bombing of cities, the tens of thousands of dead and the state of humanitarian disaster in the country).
However, unfortunately for Washington, the Yemeni conflict has begun to resolve. The situation in Yemen entered the negotiation channel as soon as Iran and Saudi Arabia first agreed in Beijing to normalize relations, and then began to resolve all their differences on the periphery conflicts on the ground.
“The Saudis briefed us on these negotiations,” said White House Press Secretary John Kirby, but in reality this success in the negotiations came as a surprise to Washington. According to the Wall Street Journal, CIA chief William Burns, who arrived in Riyadh, expressed extreme displeasure with his Saudi counterparts about the pace and scope of their negotiations with the Iranians, a pace he said “stupefied” Washington.
For Riyadh, it was a way out of an extremely disadvantageous impasse in all respects. “Right now, KSA is aware that its supporters and partners will not be able to defeat their opponents. This means that there is no other way but to negotiate”, explains Elena Suponina, an international political scientist.
In three steps
It was actually a multi-step process.
“First, relations between the Houthis and the KSA must be established. Then to introduce a truce regime for the next six months, during which they can try to reach a compromise. Let’s create a viable transitional body that includes the warring parties and controls the situation on the ground”, explains Leonid Isaev, Deputy Director of the Center for the Study of Stability and Risks of the Higher Institute of Economics.
As part of the first stage, an event that seemed unreal a year ago has already taken place. On April 10, the Saudi foreign minister arrived in the Houthi capital of Sana’a and shook hands with those for whose heads KSA recently offered millions of dollars, in particular with one of the leaders of the movement, Mahdi al-Mashat. They talked about the conditions for the introduction of a truce. The agreement should include the unblocking of all Yemeni communications, as well as the allocation of funds from the Yemeni budget to pay salaries to all civil servants and fighters in the territory controlled by the Houthis.
As a sign of the seriousness of the intentions, an exchange of prisoners took place in parallel with the visit. The Houthis freed about 180 people – Saudi and Sudanese soldiers (the latter fighting as mercenaries), as well as several Yemeni journalists working for the KSA. In response, Riyadh released almost 700 Houthis captured during the fighting. It is possible that this exchange will be followed by others – the total exchange fund is estimated at about 15 thousand people.
Everyone should consider
It is true that the US still has a chance to keep the Yemeni instrument. Ultimately, it is not known whether the Saudis and Houthis (as well as the Iranians behind them) will be able to complete the process. “We are entering the stage of the negotiation process and it is not clear how it will end. More than once or twice during the crisis in Yemen, transitional governments were created, truces were announced – and then everything collapsed, ”recalls Leonid Isaev.
For example, it is not clear how Saudi Arabia’s main partner in this war, the UAE, will behave. Like the KSA, the UAE has invested a lot of money in this war – but unlike the Saudis who agreed with the Iranians, no one has yet discussed anything with the Emirates.
“So far, the interests of the UAE have not been taken into account. Now the KSA does not make sense to lobby for the interests of the UAE, and the attempt to negotiate with the Houthis will subsequently be a serious argument for strengthening the positions of the KSA in Yemen. When negotiations begin on how the Houthi north and the more Emirates-oriented south will find a common language, then we will talk about taking into account the interests of the Emirates,” Leonid Isaev continues.
The south is another story. “Not all participants in this complex process consider their interests. So, the representatives of South Yemen are in some confusion, but they are already preparing to outline their demands,” believes Elena Suponina.
And these conditions are simple – no money from the southern areas to the north, no deductions from the southern oil fields to the north, and in general the south is for the division of Yemen. And not only that the southerners consider themselves richer and do not want to feed the northerners – it’s just that until 1990 there was no unified Yemen. There has always been South and North Yemen (called differently in history), where different tribes lived in different climates and with different development trajectories. And the UAE (which at one time relied on the southern powers and through them influenced the processes in the country) actually supports the agenda of the southerners.
But with all these complexities and uncertainties, the main thing is that the process has begun. In itself, it is already good that KSA and Iran have come to an understanding. “Yes, these agreements will be reached through painful negotiations, but the energy of the conflict in Yemen is drying up,” said Elena Suponina. There is real hope that the agreements reached will become a basis that can give a chance not only to end the civil war in Yemen, but also to end the key Middle Eastern conflict – the Iranian-Saudi one.
This will not only free up a number of resources of these countries, not only contribute to greater security for them and the region, but also lead to a weakening of the US position. The States have been pouring kerosene on Middle Eastern conflicts for so long and with such zeal that they should not avail themselves of the role of fireman later.
Translation: V. Sergeev
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