It has now been a little over a month since a coalition of ten Sunni Arab nations, led primarily by Saudi Arabia, began launching air strikes against Yemen’s Houthi rebels intended to restore the country’s deposed president Abdu Rabbo Mansour Hadi to power. Riyadh and its allies initiated the military campaign in response to Hadi’s request for outside help in late March just before he was forced to flee the country by advancing Houthi forces. The bombing and the accompanying naval blockade have plunged the nation into a humanitarian crisis but has so far failed to force the Houthis to yield.
The Saudis and their allies intervened because they saw the impending Houthi takeover of Yemen as an extension of Iranian expansionism. Riyadh in particular was alarmed by the possibility that Tehran could establish a foothold on its southern border. Like Iran, the Houthis are members of the Shiite faith, and they have received support from Iran in recent years, mostly in the form of financial assistance. However, the perception that they are Iranian proxies along the lines of Hezbollah is simply inaccurate. The Houthi movement is motivated by local concerns. There is little reason to believe they have any interest in furthering Iran’s geopolitical aspirations. Moreover, the Houthis are adherents to Zaydism, a branch of the Shiite faith found almost exclusively in Yemen that differs from the Shiitism practiced in Iran – one that is in many respects closer theologically to Sunni Islam. As a result, Tehran’s influence on the Houthi leadership appears to be quite limited. In this context, the Saudi-led intervention seems misguided.
The notion that the Houthis represent another manifestation of Iranian adventurism is not limited to the Sunni nations of the Middle East, however. In his speech to the U.S. Congress on March 3, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu warned that “Iran now dominates four Arab capitals, Baghdad, Damascus, Beirut and Sanaa.” Turkish president Tayyip Erdogan praised the Saudi-led intervention in Yemen shortly after it began, stating that it was justified because “Iran is trying to dominate the region.” Such sentiments have been echoed by many in Congress. On April 14, Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-FL) chaired a hearing on Yemen held by the House Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on the Middle East and North Africa. In her opening statement, she commended the Saudi-led coalition “for taking a strong stance against Iran and stepping up to the plate in Yemen,” adding that the turmoil there was “in large part due to Iran's antagonism and meddling.” Rep. Randy Forbes (R-VA), chairman of the House Armed Services Seapower and Projection Forces Subcommittee, released a statement on April 22 arguing that the turmoil in Yemen was the result of “Iranian aggression.” The Obama administration has also voiced concern about Iranian support for the Houthis. In an interview with PBS on April 8, for instance, Secretary of State John Kerry told Judy Woodruff that “Iran needs to recognize that the United States is not going to stand by while the region is destabilized.”
However, it seems clear that the administration understands that Iranian support for the Houthis is not what is driving the conflict in Yemen. Speaking before the House Foreign Affairs subcommittee April 14, Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary Gerald Feierstein testified that “the conflict in Yemen is enormously complicated and has roots that are largely parochial and locally focused.” At a Defense Department press briefing two days later, General Martin Dempsey, Chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, noted that the Iranians “have not exerted control [over the Houthis] in the same way that they exert control over Lebanese Hezbollah.” On the same day, White House press secretary Josh Earnest told reporters that it is “unclear . . . whether or not there is [Iranian] command and control of the activities of the Houthis in Yemen.” A few days later, U.S. National Security Council spokeswoman Bernadette Meehan told the Huffington Post that “it remains our assessment that Iran does not exert command and control over the Houthis.”
Yemenis search for survivors after a Saudi air strike. [Source: The Telegraph]
The Obama administration has expressed public support for the Saudi-led intervention, and the U.S. has provided limited intelligence and logistical assistance. However, these gestures have been driven by more by Washington’s need to maintain a good relationship with Riyadh rather than a belief that the month-long military campaign is a good idea. U.S.-Saudi relations have significantly eroded over the last year and a half dating back to Obama’s decision in September 2013 not to bomb Bashar al-Assad’s regime after it used chemical weapons against Syrian civilians, followed by the administration’s decision a few weeks later to cut aid to Egypt after its military seized power in a coup. The Saudis have also worried that the international negotiations over Iran’s nuclear program could lead to a rapprochement between the U.S. and Iran. Now that a tentative agreement has been reached with Tehran, U.S. officials believe it is important to persuade the Saudis to support it. A failure by the Obama administration to support the Saudis in a campaign against what they believe to be an Iranian-sponsored uprising in a neighboring country would have made that goal much more difficult to achieve.
Behind the scenes, however, Washington has conveyed its growing misgivings about the intervention to Riyadh. These concerns have stemmed in part from the high number of civilian casualties caused by the air strikes. At a deeper level, however, it has been apparent to U.S. officials that the Saudis initiated the bombing without a clear end game in mind. General Lloyd Austin, head of U.S. Central Command, expressed this uncertainty at the outset, saying, “I don’t currently know the specific goals and objectives of the Saudi campaign.” There was never any reason to believe that air strikes by themselves would dislodge the Houthis from the territory they had seized. In fact, they have actually taken more ground since the intervention began. The Saudis have reportedly mobilized 150,000 troops along their border with Yemen and have threatened to send in ground forces. Such a move would be extremely unwise. An invasion of Yemen would likely be long and costly, and the Saudis could easily find themselves bogged down in a quagmire. Yet it’s difficult to see how the current air campaign, combined with a naval blockade, can achieve the Saudis’ stated goal of restoring Hadi to power.
The primary U.S. concern is that the conflict has given al-Qaeda on the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) additional breathing room. The U.S. intelligence community believes that AQAP represents the most potent terrorist threat to the American homeland today. It has attempted attacks against the United States in 2009, 2010, and 2012, each of which was thwarted. AQAP also claimed responsibility for the Charlie Hebdo attacks in Paris earlier this year that left twelve people dead. Up until recently, the U.S. has sought to counter AQAP by supporting the Yemeni security forces with equipment and intelligence, and by carrying out drone strikes against the organization’s leadership. However, the U.S. has withdrawn almost all of its personnel from Yemen because of the turmoil, including counterterrorism officials and Special Operations Forces that have helped direct U.S. counterterrorism efforts, and Yemen’s military is shambles. American drone attacks have apparently continued, but at a reduced level.
The U.S. lost an important ally in the fight against AQAP when Hadi resigned after the Houthis seized Sanaa in January. However, it’s also true that the Houthis view Yemen’s al-Qaeda affiliate as a mortal enemy, and vice versa. Thus, the two main sides in the Yemeni conflict – the remnants of Hadi’s government, backed by the Saudi-led coalition, on the one hand and the Houthis on the other – are opponents of AQAP, yet both are preoccupied with fighting one another. The result has been to take the pressure off of al-Qaeda. On April 2, AQAP seized a prison in the city of Mukalla and freed 300 inmates, many of whom were Sunni militants affiliated with the group. It subsequently took control of a nearby airport and military base, as well as the Dhabah oil terminal located on the coast of the Arabian Sea. There is concern that the ongoing bombing campaign against the Houthis may be making this problem worse. According to an April 16 story in the New York Times, “Pentagon officials acknowledged that the American-backed Saudi airstrikes have created more space for Al Qaeda to gain territory.” A week later, a Reuters article reported that “[T]he Saudis are aware that their bombing campaign has presented opportunities to AQAP.” However, Riyadh sees this as only a temporary problem, one that will be remedied once it succeeds in restoring Hadi to power. Such an outcome seems unlikely, though. As the fighting in Yemen continues, al-Qaeda’s ability to capitalize on the chaotic situation there is likely to continue to grow.
-- Richard Purcell
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