The Yemen war may be coming to an end, according to Maysaa Shuja al-Deen of AL Monitor‘s Gulf Pulse:
As soon as Saudi Arabia declared the end of Operation Decisive Storm on April 21, all parties to the Saudi war, the Houthis and former Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh, jointly declared victory on the same day, in a war where no one achieved gains, and joint losses were the name of the game.
A fight to a draw? Despite the destruction of the Houthi’s and Saleh’s air power,
the Houthis and Saleh’s forces were able to further expand, given their internal organization; Saleh’s forces were once part of the regular army forces while Houthi forces are composed of soldiers who receive fixed salaries.
Did Saudi Arabia’s proxy opponent, Iran, profit from this war?
Iran did not earn anything in the war in Yemen. It has lost all of its alliances in the non-sectarian Yemen. The network of alliances it has built in Taiz and the south has completely collapsed. Chief among these is the alliance in the south with prominent southern leader Ali Salim al-Beidh, who announced his support for Operation Decisive Storm in line with the position of the southerners, albeit at the expense of his ally Iran. Iran now has to settle for one party, the Houthis, who will remain its ally, despite all of its expansion attempts.
But Saudi Arabia still scrapes up a few pennies:
… Saudi Arabia succeeded with the passing of UN Resolution 2216, which was issued in favor of its military intervention. Saudi Arabia was able to neutralize Russia and bring down its project, which aimed at seeking equality between the Houthis and Saleh on the one hand, and the Saudi-supported military forces on the other. …
Saudi Arabia enjoyed wide international political support, as seen when a US warship stopped an Iranian ship loaded with weapons near the coast of Yemen on April 20. Russia also stopped opposing the Saudi strikes. This means that the world recognizes Yemen as a region under Saudi Arabia’s influence and believes that Iran is not entitled to manipulate it, especially since it supports a militia, not the authorities of a country, as is the case in Syria.
A microcosm of war: even if you can identify the winners, they’ve lost nearly as much as the losers. Asharq Al-Awsat‘s Tariq Alhomayed has a more definite opinion:
So, who were the Houthis and Saleh seeking to target with all these arms and missiles? What would have happened if Riyadh did not take action at this time? It is clear that these arms were being amassed in order to attack Saudi Arabia, which has always had only the best intentions for Yemen—otherwise why else would Saudi Arabia and its allies have waited for so long before militarily intervening to deal with this threat? Therefore, the biggest achievement of Operation Decisive Storm is that it neutralized a great threat not just to Saudi Arabia but also one the rest of the Gulf region, destroying Iran’s stranglehold on Yemen. This also sent a decisive message to Tehran and its followers that Saudi Arabia is more than prepared to respond to any provocation and preserve its security and defend itself.
The paper’s editor-in-chief, Salman Aldosary, has much the same opinion:
Operation Decisive Storm has achieved one success after another, whether militarily, politically or diplomatically, and is now approaching the end of its military operation once it achieves all of its projected objectives—and without the need for adopting a boisterous or disrespectful attitude. This marks the difference between Saudi policies, which are based on facts, and those of Iran, which rely on conspiracies, devious machinations and ostentatious displays of power.
Neither mentions the Pakistani refusal to join the ground war at the behest of the Saudis, though.
The editor-in-chief of Al Arabiya English lauds the efforts of the Saudis:
Having been a victim of several atrocious terrorist attacks itself, Saudi Arabia has always been a key ally in the war against terror and has been relentlessly pursuing al-Qaeda and ISIS militants in Yemen, Syria and Iraq. However, while Yemen’s proximity as well as the despicable crimes committed by Houthis against innocent Sunni men, women and children were all factors that led to the Saudi decision to use force, one needs to remember that Saudi Arabia and its allies are waging this war in the name of humanity, civilization and on behalf of the whole world.
After all this blame on Iran’s ambitions, Stephen Lendman at Real Independent News & Film places the blame directly on the USA:
Yemen is in the eye of the storm. Washington planned and orchestrated ongoing war on an entire population.
Its using Saudi Arabia, other regional rogue states, and extremist takfiri mercenaries to do its killing and dying.
It’s systematically destroying an entire nation to tighten its regional chokehold.
Will millions of Yemenis die, sustain disabling injuries and/or lose all future hope before things end?
No nation in world history caused more harm to more people over a longer duration than America.
None operate more ruthlessly. None more callously ignore human lives and welfare.
And how did the Saudi public feel about this war? Back on April 21, AL Monitor, after registering caveats, attempted to assess Saudi public opinion via statements from various prominent figures. Typical was this:
Meanwhile, Abdallah al-Maliki, a researcher and writer close to the Islamic Enlightenment current, expressed his support for Operation Decisive Storm March 26 on Twitter. He stated: “The war led by the kingdom is fair and attempts to deter Iranian expansion in the region.” He wondered, “What are Arabs doing as another Arab capital falls into the hands of Iran — after Baghdad, Damascus and Beirut?”
OpenDemocracy reports that Sudanese factions appear to support the war:
Sudan’s decision to join Operation Decisive Storm with Saudi Arabia and a coalition of Gulf countries to fight Yemeni Houthi rebels comes as no surprise. …
Considering Sudan’s history, the government is neither concerned with human rights nor the protection of civilians in Yemen or elsewhere. However, what is surprising is the opposition parties’ overt support for Sudan’s participation in Operation Decisive Storm. …
Major opposition parties in Sudan boycotted the elections that took place earlier this month, because they are refusing to give the regime legitimacy. However, representatives of National Umma Party (NUP), Sudanese Communist Party and Sudanese Baath Party support the government’s decision to join Operation Decisive Storm.
What does it all mean? Perhaps simply that truth never wins out in war’s time; only in the assessment of historians who have no stake in the game.
