The U.S. and Gulf are confused over Yemen and Iraq
Raghida Dergham
Sunday, 1 March 2015
The Great Shia Horn
Raghida Dergham
Sunday, 1 March 2015
The
return of former Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh to bloodily
shaping the country’s history has not come overnight, on the eve of the
house arrest imposed by the Houthis on current President Abd Rabbo
Mansour Hadi before they allowed him to flee to Aden – the capital of
South Yemen before reunification. Ali Abdullah Saleh, since he agreed to
step down three years ago, has been planning to return to power either
on the Houthi bandwagon or through elements in the military
establishment, not to mention deploying his huge influence and financial
assets to buy loyalty and empower his party, family, and son to retake
power at any cost.
Another
man in the Arab region preparing behind the scenes and plotting in
secret to return to his devastating role in Iraq’s history is former
Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki.
The
common denominator between Yemen’s strongman and Iraq’s strongman is
that they both left power as a result of regional and international
pressures and bargains in which the United States and the GCC countries,
as well as Iran, played important roles. The difference is that the
Iraqi event attested that Tehran had to sacrifice Nouri al-Maliki in
what appeared as signs of strategic accords between Iran and key Gulf
powers, especially Saudi Arabia, as well as the United States. By
contrast, the event in Yemen is a clear indication of the absence of
accords and reconciliatory strategies.
Parallels
The
Iranian role backing the Houthis in Yemen emerged in parallel with the
Iraqi event, in tandem with the determination of Ali Abdullah Saleh to
enter into an alliance with the Houthis and Iran to settle scores with
Saudi Arabia and other GCC countries, which had helped remove him from
power. The two men have an ugly agenda for Iraq and Yemen. If the Gulf
leaders are serious and vigilant, they must develop a comprehensive
strategy for both Iraq and Yemen, two majorly important countries for
the Arabian Peninsula and the Gulf. Otherwise, the GCC countries will
pay a heavy price, and not just Iraq and Yemen.
This
week, a U.N. Security Council expert team said in a report that Saleh
had amassed close to $60 billion in 30 years as Yemen’s president,
through corruption, embezzlement, and commissions imposed on oil
companies. According to the experts, he has stashed away these funds
across 20 countries using other figures and companies as fronts.
The
experts who report to the U.N. Yemen sanctions panel told the Security
Council that Saleh facilitated it for the Houthis and al-Qaeda to expand
their control in northern and southern Yemen, and that he continues to
run a broad network of financial, security, military, and political
interests in Yemen that allowed him effectively to avoid the effects of
the sanctions imposed on him under U.N. Security Council resolution
2140. The panel’s report said, “It is also alleged that Ali Abdullah
Saleh, his friends, his family and his associates stole money from the
fuel subsidy program, which uses up to 10 per cent of Yemen’s gross
domestic product, as well as other ventures involving abuse of power,
extortion and embezzlement.” “The result of these illegal activities for
private gain is estimated to have amounted to nearly $2 billion a year
over the last three decades,” it adds.
Changing loyalties
These
funds were instrumental in changing the partisan loyalties to the
extent of forming “unexpected alliances between former enemies, such as
the Houthis and former President Saleh; the weakening of dominant
political parties like the Islah party; the departure of leading
political and influential figures like Hamid al-Ahmar and Ali Mohsen
al-Ahmar from Yemen; an increase in al-Qaeda activities in the south and
Hadramaut; and an increased call for separation by the south,” the
report argues.
So
how did a panel of experts with a specific mission manage to understand
the equations and developments in Yemen, while Gulf countries including
Saudi Arabia were not able to ascertain and prepare for what was
obvious in Yemen?
The
question is important to identify whether the flaw is fundamental, or
whether it was an exception, and – as it is being said – was possibly
related to the health of the late King Abdullah bin Abdulaziz and the
transition in the kingdom.
Either
way, what happened is extremely dangerous, not only for Yemen, but also
for Saudi Arabia and the Gulf. However, if the events in Yemen are the
result of a deliberate policy based on mutual attrition, then this is an
unwise policy similar to the unwise policy on Syria. Its risks would be
twofold for Yemen and the Gulf region, led by the Saudi kingdom.
Mutual attrition
Indeed,
mutual attrition or destruction has failed in Syria, and has helped
destroy the present, future, and even past of the nation – if we
consider the archaeological and cultural heritage of the country now in
ruins – at the hands of the regime and the terrorists like the Islamic
State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) and al-Nusra Front, with local, regional,
and international enablement from which no-one emerges innocent.
Attrition is a foolish policy because it helped terrorism grow, and
created an opportunity for ISIS to proliferate until it drew attention
away from what is happening in Syria.
If
an international team was able to obtain detailed information and
produce a logical and realistic analysis of the Yemeni situation, while
the Gulf countries – as it is claimed – were taken by surprise by the
events in Yemen and are still unable to develop a strategy to deal with
them, then this is a frightening testimony of the utter lack of
intelligence and analysis capabilities in the Gulf region.
The
international report to the U.N. Security Council stated that according
to a confidential source, al-Qaeda is taking advantage of such
sensitivities and is recruiting Sunni tribesmen to fight on its side
against the Houthis. The report also states, “The
geographical proximity of Eritrea to Yemen lends itself to licit and
illicit activities, and several trusted interlocutors mentioned
confidentially the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) training of
Houthi forces on a small island off the Eritrean coast.”
Close ties
According to the same report as well, there is a close relationship between Saleh, his family and al-Qaeda.
The report quotes sources as saying that Mohammad Nasser Ahmed, the
former Minister of Defense, saw al-Qaeda leader Sami Dayan in the-then
President Saleh’s office with the president, in 2012. This is in
addition to the quasi-alliance between Saleh and the Houthis.
That’s
right. The paragraph may need to be read two or three times to
comprehend the strange alliances in Yemen today, with a central role
played by a former president who wants to return to power. He is
completely disregarding the sanctions imposed on him under a U.N.
Security Council resolution, moving ahead with a clear strategy and
goals, with a calculated cost.
If
the Gulf countries have a deliberate strategy to address the agendas of
Saleh, the Houthis, and al-Qaeda – the three are enemies and not allies
– then this strategy requires elucidation. The GCC countries appear
today in a state of loss, denial, and dithering. This carries a bad
message on multiple levels.
Today,
Saleh in Yemen, and tomorrow Maliki in Iraq both intend to return to
power. Both have partners or allies in Iran. In Yemen, there is a
transitional alliance between the Revolutionary Guard in Iran,
Saleh, and al-Qaeda for transient mutual interests, and a structural
alliance between Tehran and the Houthis. The Houthis can claim to be the
party that defeated a major regional power like Saudi Arabia, and that
it can threaten it at its border. The Houthis are the group that toppled
a legitimate government and put Yemen on the road to secession and
fragmentation. Yet this is not the sin of the Houthis alone, because of
the failure of the Gulf and the U.S. in Yemen contributed greatly in
stoking its internal tragedies and exacerbating geopolitical risks
beyond its borders.
Faltering policies
The
pace of the coming shifts in the balance of achievements vs.
implication will be dictated to some degree by the nuclear negotiations
between Iran and the P5+1 countries (the U.S., Britain, France, Germany,
Russia, and China).
No
one knows accurately if these negotiations are on the brink of collapse
or are on the eve of making history. If they produce an agreement, this
would be the first time both the West and the East agree to give a
non-nuclear state the right to possess military nuclear capabilities in
return for postponing the manufacturing date of said capabilities. In
turn, this will give Iran the euphoria of belonging to the nuclear club,
which will most likely increase its confidence in fulfilling its
regional ambitions, however, there is a small possibility that reining
in regional ambitions would be part of the nuclear accords.
However,
if the nuclear deal fails, the United States will lay trap after trap
to implicate Iran in regional quagmires, to create Iran’s own version of
Vietnam in Syria, Iraq, and Yemen.The region is entering a critical
phase soon, during which men addicted to power are aligning with tribes
taking advantage of alliance in the regional absence of strategies.
This article was first published in al-Hayat on Feb. 27, 2015 and was translated by Karim Traboulsi.
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