Difficult but Necessary Lessons from the Yemeni Conflict

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Difficult but Necessary Lessons from the Yemeni Conflict

The exit of Saudi Arabia and Iran on the road of normalization of relations has already affected the entire region - lengthy, seemingly almost endless negotiations are becoming truly productive. We are best known for the Syrian conflict (although it is difficult to call it a conflict), and this is quite understandable, since the interests of dozens of players of various levels and influence converged in it. However, there is another long-standing bloody regional knot - Yemen.

If Syria became the point where global figures clashed, then Yemen did not have such a scope, nevertheless, for the UAE, Saudi Arabia and Iran, the Yemeni war was no less significant, and it began earlier. At the same time, it was the situation in Yemen that often directly affected the stability of oil production and supplies, the security of its transportation, and for Saudi Arabia, victory in this conflict was also a matter of personal prestige of the heir to the throne, since it was not only about financing proxy formations, but also on the direct participation of the armed forces of the kingdom.



And now, in addition to signals that the countries of the region are ready to discuss in detail the return of Syria to the Arab League, the restoration of ties between Syria, Iran and the Middle East regimes and Egypt, for the first time from various sources came newsthat Saudi Arabia is ready to consider withdrawing troops from Yemen.

In one of the previous materials, the question was considered that the normalization of relations between Bahrain and Iran is a kind of marker that the period of restructuring and reshaping the region associated with a number of American projects is ending in the Middle East (by the way, Qatar and Bahrain have already announced the restoration of diplomatic relations). The period took twenty years - from 2003 to 2023, and reaching the end of the war in Yemen is an equally significant marker.

However, there is an equally important aspect related to historical in retrospect, another period is ending in the Middle East, connected with the redistribution of the territories of the Ottoman Empire by Britain. It is unlikely to be a significant exaggeration to assert that approximately 80% of the region's conflict nodes are somehow connected precisely with the consequences of British military and diplomatic games between various ruling houses, clans and simply elite groups.

The completion of these interrelated processes, taking into account the role of the Middle East as a kind of energy center, is also important because today the world economy is rapidly divided into several clusters, even, one might say, “superclusters”. Two of them "Western" (Euro-American) and "South-Eastern" (Chinese) are visible to the naked eye, but there are other economic systems.

And so the delegations of Oman and Saudi Arabia met with representatives of the so-called movement. "Houthis" in Yemen's Sana'a to hand over a draft agreement on a long-term truce, during which the leadership of the movement and Saudi Arabia with the government of M. Hadi under their control intend to reach a full-fledged peace agreement in two years.

At the same time, a year ago, the Houthis characterized the Political Steering Council of M. Hadi only as "a farce that has nothing to do with legitimacy." As with the Iranian-Saudi agreement, we see here the finalization of the negotiation work, with a picture for news agencies, official delegations and receptions. And it should be noted that this work for the long-term violent conflict, which, according to various estimates, up to 380 thousand people became victims, was carried out rather quickly.

If you look at the journalism of past years, then in general the characterization of the war in Yemen as one of the main fronts of confrontation directly between Saudi Arabia and Iran prevails, where Prince M. bin Salman's personal vision of the future of the region played a significant role, who at a certain stage managed to gather quite a few people around him. broad coalition.

There really is a texture under such a notion, especially since since 2011 the United States has clearly not expressed any particular desire to delve deeply into this complicated history, rather, on the contrary, the Yemeni war, having gained momentum, created certain media obstacles for the traditional military support of the Saudi state by Washington.

However, if we look more broadly and more carefully at the same time, we will see not a decrease in American interest in a particular direction, but a significant change in the very approach and methodology. The Arab Spring, followed by the reshaping of the Middle East, was to be carried out by the Arabs themselves and, characteristically, at their own expense.

Conceptually, this is an order of magnitude more difficult task to perform than the traditional for the United States military intervention, even if it is furnished in the formal framework of international law. We must pay tribute to the Obama administration, which developed such a political puzzle, where at the same time on a dozen fields the players supposedly act in their future interests, according to the “individual gain” program, but in the end reshaping their region against themselves.

Even the financing of ISIS (banned in the Russian Federation) was de facto carried out at the expense of the resources of the region, not to mention the fact that the stockpiles of weapons accumulated there since the Cold War were utilized. The United States often did not even invest in logistics, when, for example, the remains from the Libyan warehouses went to Jordan, Sudan and Turkey, and then to the areas of hostilities - the parties successfully financed and transported themselves. After all, it was not Washington that handed over the gold for minting the new “golden dinar”.

Traditionally, the cause of the Yemeni war is the struggle for control over the sea route for transporting oil, but the logistics are such that the western outlet of oil into the sea is located much north of Yemen (Jeddah), and the eastern one has a “bottleneck” in the form of the Strait of Hormuz. The reason is logical, but clearly not sufficient for the "big game". From a logistical point of view, the port of Aden played a greater role than oil transit itself. To understand the other springs of this war, it is necessary to turn to the description of what internal historical significance Yemen has for the Arab world.

Yemen and the tribal communities that inhabit it are the Arab ethnic base. Arab clans originate there, Arabs formed there in the pre-Islamic period. To us, northerners and Europeans, such a retrospective seems to be a blatant abstraction, something from the category of myths and legends, but for the Arabs it is quite a tangible reality.

There, in general, family intersections and ties play an important role. Even for the Kurds, for example, such a famous person as A. Ocalan is a “dubious Kurd”, since there is no reliable information about his family tree “only” for two centuries. Later, the maintenance of tradition becomes part of religious norms. For example, in one of the authentic hadiths, the words of the prophet are transmitted in this way. Muhammad: "Study your genealogy, through which you will maintain family ties ..." (Abu Hurairah). There are many variations of such evidence, and they form a whole code of ethics.

The attitude towards the “historical homeland”, and after all, even Ibrahim and Hagar, expelled by Abraham, did not go “somewhere into the desert”, but to the future Yemen, such that any significant event in this part of the Arabian Peninsula automatically becomes significant for the entire Arab peace. That is, one way or another, but a priori everyone will be involved in solving important issues: from Egypt and Syria, to Bahrain and Iraq.

Here it will not be out of place to recall that in the 1960s, Nasser's Egypt seized Yemen with pincers, promoting either together with the USSR, or frankly separately, its version of pan-Arabism. What pan-Arabism without the ancestral cradle of the Arabs! And this is also why Riyadh, despite long-standing territorial disputes, in defiance of Cairo, sponsored adherents of the monarchy and the ruling elites of numerous principalities of South Yemen from the so-called. Federation of South Arabia - an unstable formation, designed in the 1960s to slow down the extrusion of Britain, but in the end was destroyed by Britain itself and finished off by the National Front.

And after all, how interesting it turns out, the conflict in Yemen today is usually described as a confrontation between Sunnis and Shiites, Iran and Saudi Arabia, but forty years before that (a very short period by local standards), those tribal groups that today are the backbone of the Houthis, just were in the monarchist camp. What happened so that Saudi Arabia not only decided to bomb the former allies in the Stone Age, but quite amassed a broad coalition?

The Houthis are usually viewed as nothing more than "Iranian proxies", but when they needed a platform for negotiations a few years ago, they turn to Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, the spiritual leader of Iraqi Shiites, including Iraqi Sadrists, who are in very, very difficult relations with Tehran. And who supported this coalition least of all, although they were forced to join it? Jordan. Where did the Houthis go to negotiate in 2019? In Amman, the capital of Jordan.

The fact that the Houthi movement (named after the founder Hussein al-Houthi) is something other than a simple union of tribes under the banner of one of the Shiism trends (Zaydism) is already evidenced by the fact that it does not cover strictly tribal boundaries. So the main tribal confederations of the north of Yemen (Bakil, Khaulan, Rayma, Hamdan) did not act as a monolith for them, the Houthis used measures of coercion that were completely atypical for the region against some leaders. In general, the Houthi practices in a number of areas, such as education, are very similar to the methods of the PKK in Northern Syria.

The fact that since 2004 the Lebanese Hezbollah in its rather radical current (and Hezbollah is not quite a monolith) has been aligned with the Houthi movement Ansar Allah is an undoubted fact, however, to consider that the Yemeni Zaidis were historically predetermined for this, due to "Shiism" was would be a very free admission. In the end, and among the neighbors to call the Yemeni Zaidis "Rawafids" - outcasts, until recently, although it was not forbidden nominally, it was not encouraged and was not a common practice.

But the fact that the Houthis simultaneously begin to act in Yemen in such a way that they split the tribal and even religious unity, Al-Qaeda, which Saudi Arabia and the UAE had almost no influence in Yemen, then enters the arena simultaneously in Yemen, Syria , Iraq, in the Sinai ISIS (banned in the Russian Federation) - this cannot be a mere coincidence, a coincidence. What do we see on various “maps-projects”, which today do not seem to cause a sensation? A single Yemen, a part of Saudi Arabia, a separate area-state of the “holy land” or “land of shrines”, on part of the maps Israel within the 1967 borders, and on some it does not exist at all.

And how can one not pay attention to the fact that part of the ideologemes of the Hussites includes the thesis about the correctness of the Hashemite imamate - rule under the leadership of the immediate descendants of Muhammad (Hashimi dynasties). The Hashemites ruled Mecca and Medina before the coming of the House of Saud, before the revolution in Yemen the ruling house in the north was Hashemite, and today the Hashemite dynasty governs Jordan. The idea of ​​a Hashemite government does not fit very well with the positions of the Shiites in Iran, but here we see how different interest groups come together to solve separate problems: Hezbollah to ease pressure in Syria, the Houthis to get funding and weapons.

It would seem that the United States should have supported its allies in Riyadh, but the United States concluded a nuclear deal with Iran and in 2015 began the process of lifting sanctions.

The prospect of getting a reshaping of established schemes and relations seemed at that time so negative for the players that Saudi Arabia managed to attract even Egypt to the coalition. The current Saudi provinces of Najran, Asir and Jazan were disputed territories between the Saudis and the Yemeni kingdom until 1934. Another thing is that the closest ally of the Saudis, the UAE, decided to get the most (Aden and Soctor), and it was not easy to encourage the Arabs themselves to participate not just in a quick campaign, but in a tough meat grinder in the very "heart of the Arab world", and Er Riyadh had to hire thousands of Sudanese.

Before us, another layer of the American concept is revealed, when each player has his own model and his own winning option, his own strategy, but as a result, all parties get a completely different region and everything at their own expense. When Russia got into all this mess in 2015, after all, it was the Jordanian king who was one of the first to come to Moscow and it was at that moment that our front-line bomber was shot down over Syria. Many already then guessed that the entire Middle East was playing someone else's game with a triple bottom, and it is not at all a fact that the head of the Hashemites of Jordan would have been tempted by the new Middle East according to the American plan.

Washington quite consciously allowed the growth of the influence of the Houthis, creating only the appearance of coordination with Riyadh. And this process was not much able to change Trump, and in general, he did not try very hard. But one can understand the frenzied reaction of Saudi Arabia when it became clear there that the Biden administration was not going to deviate from the tracks laid under B. Obama. In our country, many admired the courage and resilience of the Houthi resistance, when the militia “in slippers” repulsed the seemingly strongest army in the Middle East, but this courage is not at all a Yemeni strategy. Although the Houthis gave the world really a fair amount of examples of resilience.

At the beginning of 2023, we see that the Americans have left the idea of ​​reshaping the region in the past, and the regional players themselves, having got a little out of the influence of this external “planner”, have ceased to see the point in tactical combinations with individual gains. As a result, artificially created problem knots begin to weaken and even untie themselves. After all, Riyadh is going to withdraw its forces not only from Yemen, it has been announced that Saudi Arabia sees the transfer of control over the entire territory of Syria to Damascus as the best solution. The Syrian opposition is gradually left without a major financial donor.

We must pay tribute to those design institutes in Washington who were involved in Middle East politics in those years - to create such an advanced management model, where each player digs a hole for himself with enthusiasm and at his own expense, and even in such a confusing and complex region, it was necessary to have a sufficient supply of energy and a certain political boldness. But the Americans did not cope with the task, they were not able to conduct and control such a number of processes, especially since the American elites themselves grappled with each other.

Russia has also been a part of this Middle East American game, and over the years a certain amount of experience has been gained in this area. It can be gradually forgotten and analyzed through simple linear schemes, such as “everything was for the sake of the Qatari pipe”, “Yemen is a confrontation between Iran and Saudi Arabia”, but it would be more correct to thoroughly study, generalize and systematize the methodology itself. Firstly, the Americans themselves will learn from their mistakes and work out the technique again and again, including for us, and secondly, it would be highly desirable to learn how to develop such models ourselves, because compared to a classic military campaign, they are an order of magnitude less costly.
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14 comments
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  1. -1
    April 17 2023 04: 59
    My head is spinning from all these tribal troubles. But Russia should be harnessed, it’s a very tasty morsel. China, too, fussed in time. The most important thing is that people will stop dying.
  2. 0
    April 17 2023 08: 28
    As they connected, North Yemen and South from that moment on, the conflict started. They connected, not connected. Before the figs of the players, it was who planted the bomb for the conflict. Now, yes, the Saudis no longer need a conflict, they sniffed with the PRC, and the Chinese are for peace, all over the world, where their interests are.
  3. +1
    April 17 2023 11: 57
    it would be highly desirable to learn how to develop such models ourselves, because compared to a classic military campaign, they are an order of magnitude less expensive.

    But mentally more costly.
  4. fiv
    -1
    April 17 2023 11: 59
    It would be reasonable to transfer all these conflicts to the territory of their creators - to Foggy Albion. Let him become first from Foggy Smoky Albion, and then - Desert. And let peace reign in the lands of the Arabs.
  5. -1
    April 17 2023 17: 24
    Better look at something else: how did it happen that Saudi Arabia and the UAE, armed to the teeth with the most modern Western military equipment, as well as trained Saudi-Emirati officers in the most prestigious Western military academies, completely and miserably lost to the primitive tribes of the Houthis, who have no there were not the most modern tanks and other armored vehicles, there was not a single plane and helicopter, modern military electronics and everything else.

    The answer is banal: smart people in Iran realized back in the early 2000s that future wars would be inconspicuous small unmanned kamikaze aircraft and mobile detachments of the Mujahideen.
    Russia has gone through 2000 wars since 3 - but has not drawn any conclusions. Although after each of these wars, promises were made to the right and left to modernize the Russian army.
  6. 0
    April 18 2023 00: 37
    It's a pity that you can not subscribe to the author. Cool article. I will add that not only the USA played, but also Britain and even France. If the interests of the United States and Britain almost always coincide, then the interests of France are opposite.
    If you really dig deeper, you can come to the conclusion that if France does not have a strong influence on Iran, then at least their interests coincide. At the same time, the control of Iran through the supreme religious leader is very similar to the control of the Pope, only in a more rude form (by the way, before he overthrew the Shah, he was in France). France, through the hands of Iran, strengthens Armenia, Lebanon through diplomatic, economic, military methods, against pro-American and pro-English Turkey, Azerbaijan, Israel, in order to prevent full control in this region.
    At the same time, the United States and Great Britain have other mechanisms for influencing this region through small nations: Kurds, Pashtuns, Balochs...
    What will come of it? - The devil knows.
    1. +2
      April 18 2023 01: 49
      Thank you for your rating, because this is one of the most difficult topics. Even technically composing the material was a problem.
      1. +1
        April 18 2023 06: 22
        This region is the most complex in terms of geopolitics, and in my opinion it is impossible to systematically explain who is behind whom without insider information. The only thing I am 95% sure is that nothing has ended in this region, and in this decade we will be convinced of this.
    2. +1
      April 20 2023 11: 03
      It's a pity that you can not subscribe to the author.

      I would say that Mikhail is generally the only author of VO who writes precisely review analytical materials, although sometimes, for some reason, by the will of the moderators, his articles are thrown into the "Opinions" section.

      I only have a big request - Mikhail, but in no case stop writing for the VO audience. Of course, there are very few orientalists here, but for me personally, as a person, whose first diploma was called: "The evolution of ideological paradigms in the foreign policy of the Russian state in the mid-late 19th - in the first half of the 20th century" Your articles are always like a balm for soul.
      1. 0
        April 21 2023 08: 12
        Thank you for your appreciation of the work. And sometimes I think about how to arrange the material so that the review logically fits into about 3 A4 sheets. It is more clear from experience that it is difficult to read in electronic format. The topic is well revealed on a volume of about 1.5 newspaper pages, but it is only readable from the page.
        1. 0
          April 22 2023 11: 41
          Quote: nikolaevskiy78
          And sometimes I think about how to arrange the material so that the review logically fits into about 3 A4 sheets.


          Large materials are written in series of articles. A paragraph with a list of subtopics is inserted at the beginning of each, and then it is written that one specific one is analyzed in this material.
  7. Des
    0
    April 21 2023 08: 00
    Thank you for the article. It is interesting to read, think, remember history.
  8. -1
    April 21 2023 10: 50
    In any case, there is no chance for Yemen to become an ordinary country with a centralized government. If only in the form of some kind of confederation.
    1. 0
      April 21 2023 11: 38
      And it cannot be a single country. This is a fairly large tribal confederation, where the strongest part is the one that today is controlled by the ideologues of al-Houthi. The Houthis are not a faith, not a sectarian trend, but an ideology. It is possible to create a single state there in theory, but hardly in practice. The Houthis are alien not just to the "southerners", but to almost the entire Arab conglomerate, but bin Salman's mistakes at the beginning of the military campaign were so great that those to whom they are not ideologically close began to support the Houthis. The prince did not very correct things by the standards of the region, and this, in fact, broke up the coalition. But this does not mean a united Yemen. It is too different and too important for every ruling Arab house at the same time.

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