Saudi failure to accumulate Iran's gains on the Yemeni soil
English - Monday 30 March 2020 الساعة 04:44 pm
Aden, Newsyemen, Sayyaf Al-Gharbani:
In April 2015, one month after the start of the military air campaign against the Houthi group in Yemen, a former spokesman for the Saudi-led coalition forces seemed confident that the Iranian-backed movement would collapse within a few months.
Five years have passed, while the war - which was said several weeks after its outbreak that it had achieved its goals - is far from putting an end or from undermining the Houthis' control of half of Yemen, as much as its humanitarian cost has increased, its arenas have expanded and it has reached the Saudi depth.
Meanwhile, Saudi Arabia, which has led the war with catastrophic failure, appears to be willing to back down at least militarily, but finds no safe exit strategy. The path of conflict now, and the attacks on oil installations on its soil, indicate that the prospects of war are heading in the opposite direction.
Although Saudi Arabia had sought, through military intervention, to thwart Tehran's attempts to plant sectarian militia in its backyard, the escalating attacks seemed to signal a marked failure in managing the confrontation with the Houthis and their successors, Iran.
The fourth and fifth years of the war witnessed an escalation in the frequency of Houthi attacks by ballistic missiles and Drones mined, on Saudi border cities, and even on remote targets such as the capital Riyadh.
It is noted that the war has achieved little benefit, either for Saudi Arabia, which has spent a lot of money, and currently finds its cities and airports targeted by Iranian drones, or in terms of recovering the Yemeni state from the hands of the Houthis, and strategically it can be said that the Hadi government residing in Riyadh is in a weaker position than it was In 2015
In the face of a confused Saudi strategy, relying mainly on local parties exploiting the war for material gain, there was no possibility to accomplish the task of liberating all Yemeni lands seized by the Houthis in 2015. As a result, the likelihood of winning the war seemed to be gradually diminishing, and later fading after losing Emirati forces operations in the main battlefields.
The UAE that entered Yemen was governed by the rule of "fixing the situation or leaving the country", as one of its senior officers revealed, the fastest and most decisive in dealing with this fact, and it initiated a partial withdrawal of its forces from some areas in Yemen.
The Emiratis managed to prevent the Houthis from seizing most of Yemen's lands, and thus deprived Iran of control of the strategic Bab al-Mandab strait, and at the same time they prevented al-Qaeda from establishing its largest regional caliphate after it seized Mukalla in 2015.
With reference to the Emirati Special Forces when they began ending Houthi control of Aden in April 2015, they were almost alone. While the liberation of southern Yemen was achieved by a unilateral operation carried out by the Emirates, while the Houthis were able to retain the north of Yemen, which includes about three quarters of the population, which is the theater of operations for Saudi Arabia and the Yemeni forces supported from it.
In fact, Riyadh and the authority of interim President Abd Rabuh Mansour Hadi have suffered resounding failures during the last two years of the war, as militarily, the Houthis still control most areas of northern Yemen, including the capital, Sana'a, despite their low capabilities, compared to the capabilities of the forces backed by the coalition, and after their exposure Devastating air strikes.
Rather than achieving the strategic goal for which the air operation was launched, which is to undermine Iran's strategy to transform Yemen into another Lebanon that it controls through its domestic arms, Tehran has managed to achieve a number of tactical and political goals that have strengthened its presence on the track of Yemen.
However, political failure remains the worst ever, as evidenced by Saudi Arabia's inability to implement the Riyadh agreement, which was sponsored by the government of Abd Rabbuh Mansour Hadi, and the Southern Transitional Council, or at least curbing the surge of forces loyal to the Muslim Brotherhood, towards the liberated areas of the south, which is what Houthi hearts.
This conclusion is reinforced by the fact that the major setbacks of the forces of the government of interim President Abd Rabuh Mansour Hadi on the "Nehm" fronts east of Sanaa and "Al-Ghail and Al-Hazm" in Al-Jawf Governorate occurred after an attack of a strategic nature by the Houthis, while the forces of General Ali Mohsen Al-Ahmar were reinforcing their elements in Abyan Governorate, south of the country, with Saudi equipment.
It was clear from that step, that the Islamic Islah Party's control over the decision of the legitimate government and its forces places the government on the other side of the coalition-led war against the Iranian-backed Houthi group, and it also leaves doubts about the role of the Qatari player in penetrating the coalition leadership forces through its tools in the pyramid of President Hadi's authority.
The recent Yemeni developments would increase the embarrassment of the coalition leadership, and what is exacerbating the embarrassing situation facing the Kingdom is the fact that Iran has provided ample secret assistance to the Houthis, including long-range missiles launched to long distances that amounted to hitting Riyadh, as well as fast boats floating to threaten international shipping lines in the Red Sea.
In return for the failures of the internationally recognized government in the areas of north and east Yemen, Saudi Arabia contributed in some way to disrupting the battles on the Hodeidah front on the eastern bank of the Red Sea, a process that had opened the door to break the Houthis militarily and achieve a coup in the field scene on The land prepares for the achievement of a political agreement governed by the "victor-loser" equation, and this is what the UN delegate (Martin Griffiths) alluded to when he spoke of a "serious desire" for the Houthis to participate in the consultations, after the joint forces broke their defenses around the city and penetrated deep into it.
