(LifeSiteNews) — Since the outbreak of the war in Yemen in 2015, Saudi Arabia has been fighting Yemeni rebels in a war for control of the oil and gas producing nation. Peace has been elusive in a conflict which has seen several factions vying for control of this strategically significant – if impoverished – nation.
On Good Friday, April 7, the Saudis announced they would end the war with Yemen. which is widely interpreted as the result of a meeting in Beijing the previous day between Saudi and Iranian diplomats.
In a further blow to U.S. influence in the Middle East, this is seen as a result of Chinese efforts to normalize relations between Saudi Arabia and Iran.
History of the war
In 2014, Ansurallah, known as “the Houthi rebels,” occupied the capital, Sanaa, and conducted a military offensive in the south of the country. Their goal was to overthrow the government of President Abdrabbuh Mansur Hadi.
The next year the Saudis invaded Yemen and began an aerial bombing campaign, supported by U.S. drone strikes. Their aim was to reinstall President Hadi, and to dislodge Ansurallah.
A Saudi blockade of food and medicine was undertaken, with the assistance of the U.S. navy. The underreported humanitarian crisis which resulted has been estimated to have killed 85,000 children between 2015 and 2018 alone.
The happy Arabia
Yemen was called Arabia Felix – “happy Arabia” by the Romans for its outstanding beauty. It is the site of the fabled Queen of Sheba’s temple, and the island of Socotra is seen as a “second Galapagos” for its fascinating flora and fauna.
Its troubles have been framed as a proxy war between Iranian Shia and Saudi Sunni Islam. Yet this does not tell the whole story.
Ansurallah, or the “Houthis,” belong to the Zaiidi sect of Shia Islam. This is not the tradition followed in Iran, and is arguably closer to the Sunni Islam of the Saudis. Why then the power struggle?
Who are the ‘Houthi’ rebels?
The Houthis are a rebel army often described as an Iranian proxy. Whilst they have benefited from Iranian advice and supply, this was not always the case.
The Zaiidi have been the dominant faction in Yemen since the tenth century, ruling after the Ottomans until the 1962 revolution. Soviet-backed Marxists declared a Republic of South Yemen in 1967. When the Soviet Union fell, Yemen reunified in 1990.
Saudi invades, Iran begins support
Yet Iran was not involved in Yemen in any significant way until the Saudis took the offensive.
As this 2019 report from Foreign Policy argues, the invasion of Yemen led by Saudi Arabia was the moment Iran chose to weaken its regional rival in a proxy war. The Saudis were joined by the United Arab Emirates, who suddenly withdrew all their ground forces in 2019. The Saudis were then alone on the ground, stranded in a “military stalemate.”
The Saudis were humiliated in 2019 when the Houthis pushed over the Saudi border, capturing Saudi soldiers, allies and armor. In September 2019, using Iranian made drones, the Houthis carried out attacks on two Saudi Aramco refineries near their southern border, disrupting world oil supplies.
Former CIA director and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo was keen to frame the Iranians for the bombing of these facilities, jointly owned by the U.S. and the Saudis.
Aerial bombing of Yemen by Saudi Arabia continues to this day, despite the Saudis announcing the cessation of hostilities in 2022.
Why is the US involved in Yemen?
The U.S. under Barack Obama, Donald Trump and Joe Biden has supplied over $100 billion of arms – and aircraft – to Saudi Arabia, and has been conducting drone strikes since 2016.
As Robert Parry pointed out in his 2014 article A Shadow US Foreign Policy, the national security state has been directing military and diplomatic operations overseas regardless of the position of the President of the United States for decades.
The U.S. bombed Yemen under Obama, and under Trump Pompeo took pains to frame the war as an opportunity to combat Iran.
The Biden administration has continued to arm and support Saudi’s war in Yemen, as it sees close ties with Saudi Arabia as vital to U.S. interests.
Saudi Arabia is influential in OPEC, the global oil cartel, and is a regional rival to U.S. Deep State enemy Iran. It has been until recently one of the strongest allies of the United States.
The loss of Saudi Arabia
The U.S. arms industry has profited from these relations with the Saudis – and another oil boom is on the way. This accidental good news is due to Biden having insulted the Saudi leader, Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman (MBS), over his alleged connections to the 2018 murder of Jamal Khashoggi, the nephew of the arms dealer to the Saudi Royal Family, Adnan Khashoggi.
Biden vowed to make Saudi Arabia a “pariah” for Khashoggi’s murder, which is alleged to have taken place in the Saudi embassy in Istanbul on October 2, 2018. In a clear reference to Yemen he also pledged to “…end the sale of material to the Saudis where they’re going in and murdering children.”
The end of US alignment
The remarks were reported during Biden’s campaign for the Democratic nomination in 2019, as the murder “led to Democrats to call for fundamental changes to the U.S.-Saudi alliance.”
These fundamental changes have arrived.
The Saudi leader has responded by refusing to pick up the phone to Biden, and announcing major oil production cuts to see oil prices – and inflation – rise yet again.
Biden’s insult was celebrated as the defense of moral values, which had been outraged by this murder. The same values evaporated over the matter of those murdered children, whose suffering did so much for Joe’s nomination.
Whilst he announced an “end” to U.S. military aid to Saudi Arabia in February 2021, by September he announced another $500 million deal for military support. Full arms sales were resumed early in 2022 – “to seek better ties.” Despite all the talk of values, the United States remains directed by a faction dedicated to permanent war – regardless of the assurances of any president.
Joe Biden’s diplomacy masterclass
Yet Biden does deserve some credit. His desperate bid for popularity saw him make assurances which, despite never being realized, would dissolve one of America’s closest and most crucial partnerships.
The United States, under Franklin D. Roosevelt, offered the Saudis protection in exchange for oil in 1945 – when Biden was two years old. Since then the relationship has been vital – until one of the voices in Biden’s ear decided it wasn’t.
Neither the Saudis nor the UAE wish to speak with Biden now. They have been driven into the arms of their new friends, agreeing a shock cut in oil production with Russia and re-establishing relations with Iran in a Chinese-brokered deal. This has been a disaster for the United States, economically and diplomatically.
The end of the tunnel?
The Chinese initiative appears to have led to the renewed efforts for peace in Yemen’s long war. This too is taking place without any U.S. involvement. The United States has never looked so weak, nor so foolish, as it has under this doomed administration.
There is an idea which describes what happens to people when they lose touch with the outside world and become enveloped by their own imagination. This “reality tunnel” prevents them from seeing anything which contradicts what they think they already know. This is the mindset of the permanent war bureaucracy, which wraps itself in the flag as it betrays – and destroys – America.
Perhaps it will take the coming economic train wreck to shatter the brittle ideology of the deep state faction. This is the real enemy of America. Not the Russians, not even the Chinese – but the fact it is being led by the willfully blind into the abyss.