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Yasin Al Tamimi
What is the change in the US military and diplomatic movements in the Yemeni arena?
Opinions| 3 November, 2024 - 3:15 PM
The United States cannot convince anyone that its strategy towards the role of the Houthi group in Yemen has changed in a way that would harm the Houthis’ political and military project in the foreseeable future, despite the disproportionate display of force shown by the United States by announcing the use of B-2 stealth aircraft in a mission to target Houthi fortifications and weapons in the middle of last month.
There is no evidence that the US strikes have reached targets that would require the use of such advanced and large aircraft, the long distance travelled, and the Australian Air Force to refuel the stealth aircraft. What is the benefit of resorting to this weapon in an open arena that has no cover from appropriate air defences, at a time when it is difficult to predict whether the exceptional US air strikes are a prelude to a shift that could make the Houthis a military target?
In fact, the introduction of these aircraft in a mission to strike targets that have not been precisely identified and disclosed until now was part of a show of force and deterrence, not to the Houthis but to those who support them, and at the same time to demonstrate the extent of the United States’ commitment to asserting its authority and giving more confidence to its allies to engage more strongly in the post-war phase of aggression on Gaza.
Therefore, the United States may continue its political and diplomatic maneuvering in the Yemeni arena, based on the same conviction regarding the need for the Houthi group to remain as a political, military and security actor, as an extension of its strategy to contain the Yemeni arena, which was once classified as the second largest arena for Al-Qaeda activity after Afghanistan. This is a conviction that it unfortunately shared with the Saudi government, which was in dire need of liberating its country from the influence of deadly terrorist activity at its true source and re-exporting it to the Yemeni arena, and then making the most of this pretext to further negatively control the Yemeni scene.
The American strategy was built on choosing Yemen as one of the deadly battlefields within the framework of the battle to build Shiite influence in our region, based on a vision that was adopted in the eighties of the last century. Therefore, Washington needs a considerable period of time to withdraw from this harmful strategy that removed Yemen from the international stage and isolated it, and harmed its people and turned them into millions of outcasts to whom ports, airports, countries and havens were closed, and as a result the Yemeni economy was greatly harmed.
I am not trying here to adopt ready-made concepts or to recall American positions with an explicit ideological character and bias towards the option of Shiite empowerment, which may have undergone changes affected by field developments, as Washington appears practically to be in a state of military engagement with the Houthis and with the Iranian alliance in general.
But wait, the moves made by the US Ambassador to Yemen, Stephen Fagin, in Yemeni political circles in Yemen, Riyadh, Cairo and Istanbul, have revealed that US diplomacy continues to talk about the Houthi group as a political party. It is true that it is not in the perceptions that prevailed during the period of political tension between Riyadh and Washington, which reached its peak with the arrival of President Joe Biden to the White House in January 2021, but in the context of a new vision aimed at weakening the Houthis, not eliminating them.
Ambassador Fagin, in the context of his exploratory mission, confirms that his country is making an investigative effort this time; perhaps it wanted to reach a turning point in the Yemeni crisis, as evidenced by these systematic meetings, part of which is concerned with tracking the positions of the Yemeni Islah Party in particular, and investigating allegations that may have been cooked up in some regional capitals, regarding talks that took place between him and the Houthis in Istanbul, the two parties between whom the real and costly military confrontation on the ground is confined.
The ongoing war in Gaza and Lebanon has certainly shuffled the cards regarding the settlement in Yemen and disrupted the UN mediation mission, and because of it, the state of deadlock has been established, after the rapid achievements to reach a settlement whose main focus was Saudi Arabia and the Houthis.
The American role will have to be monitored, but before that, Saudi positions on the Yemeni crisis must be tracked, after it was given a valuable opportunity to break away from the arrangements that pushed it towards taking steps to conclude a deal with the Iranian-backed Houthi group, which was described as defeatist.
What we are asking of Saudi Arabia today is to return as quickly as possible to the real basis of peace and to the references that constitute the most important building blocks of this basis, and to seriously consider the option of force to achieve this goal, if political efforts falter.
However, Saudi Arabia must first show sincere goodwill towards Yemen, which requires it to ease the iron grip on the legitimate authority, restructure it, show full respect for its sovereign position, and contribute intensively to restoring the unity of this authority and its efficiency in advancing the entitlement to restore the state and its resources, and re-pave the optimal path to reach a comprehensive and sustainable peace that preserves the state and its institutions and provides dignity for the Yemeni people.
(Arabic 21)
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