Between the Beijing Declaration and the Yemen Truce.. “Need” is the mother of the agreement

English - Sunday 12 March 2023 الساعة 03:05 pm
Aden, NewsYemen, Ammar Ali Ahmed:

The sudden announcement by Saudi Arabia and Iran, Friday, of resuming diplomatic relations between them following talks sponsored by China, raised controversy and questions about the durability of the agreement and its ability to settle a decades-old "cold" war between the two parties over influence and several files in the region.

Controversy and question stems from the first paragraph of this declaration, which indicates that the agreement to resume diplomatic relations after talks sponsored by China lasted for only 4 days.  While the declaration refers in another paragraph to the secret talks that the two parties have engaged in over the past two years in Iraq and Oman without reaching any agreement.

The success of the China talks in 4 days, while talks that lasted for two years failed.  It indicates that there is a strong interest or motive among the three parties to reach an agreement that is closer to being a "calm" or an agreement to freeze the conflict between Riyadh and Tehran, rather than a settlement agreement to end the conflict that extends for decades and over many files and arenas.

One of these arenas is Yemen, which is currently living in a state of "no peace and no war" with the continued failure to reach an agreement to extend the UN armistice, which is approaching its first year.  Without succeeding in its main goal of pushing the parties to move to comprehensive settlement negotiations to end the war in Yemen.

The failure of the armistice course in Yemen is mainly due to the circumstances that prompted the parties to accept it and represented a rescue for them from failure and defeat more than a real desire to end the war and establish peace, which was later reflected in the continuous failure of more than 5 months to renew it.  Especially for the most important party that caused the war, which is the Houthi group.

The agreement of Al-Houthi, who represents Iran's arm in Yemen, to the armistice in April of last year, came only as a compulsory option, only two months after the military defeat he suffered in Shabwa at the hands of the forces of the southern giants, and it also came to destroy his dreams of controlling the sources of power.  Oil and gas in Marib, after two years of battles, in which the Houthi militia suffered heavy losses that are difficult to compensate.

The truce represented a rescue for al-Houthi in front of his supporters and a cover-up for his military inability to continue the battle of Marib after the defeat of Shabwa. It also represented an opportunity to take a breather, rearrange his ranks, mobilize fighters for his next battles, and obtain financial gains through the truce by opening the port of Hodeidah to Iranian oil shipments.

On the other hand, the armistice was also a compulsory option for Saudi Arabia, the leader of the coalition, after the bitter harvest that it reaped militarily on the northern fronts of legitimacy, and reaching conviction of the failure of the military option in light of the survival of the legitimacy system and the need to reshape it and include all forces on the ground to deal later with Houthi, either militarily or politically.  What happened with the formation of the Presidential Leadership Council one week after the declaration of the international armistice.

The Yemeni scene before and after the armistice coincides to some extent with the scene before the announcement of the Chinese reconciliation between Tehran and Riyadh, and it may coincide later, if we do not witness the implementation of the reconciliation texts during the two months, which is the same period stipulated in the armistice agreement in Yemen.

Anyone who follows the scene in Iran during the last three years, and specifically since America succeeded in assassinating the second man in the Iranian regime, Qassem Soleimani, realizes the magnitude of the crisis that the regime is suffering from politically, militarily, and economically, and it was also reflected in its arms in Yemen, Iraq, Syria, and Lebanon.

The assassination of the man was only the beginning of a comprehensive penetration of the Iranian system by militia leaders or officials of the nuclear program, and the matter reached the assassination of the first official in the heart of Tehran in late 2020 AD, in addition to the recent strikes that the sites of this program have been receiving recently by the American and Israeli drones.

In addition, the Iranian regime is currently experiencing a real crisis with increasing popular rejection, the growing economic crisis, and the complete suffocation of hard currency sources imposed by US sanctions, to collapse with it the Iranian riyal, which last week reached a ceiling of 600,000 against one dollar.

A severe economic crisis makes the Iranian regime in dire need of a strong economic ally to save it from it, which is what it currently sees in China, which is actively seeking to compete with America for world leadership, but from the gate of economy, and this is evident through the BRICS group that it currently leads and includes major countries  And heavy economies such as Russia, Brazil, India and South Africa.

China seeks to turn the group into an economic tool in the face of the West, specifically America, and to include emerging economic countries such as Saudi Arabia and Iran, which have submitted formal requests to join the group, which explains the scene of reconciliation in Beijing between the two countries, and the statement’s indication that it is “in response to an initiative by Chinese President Xi Jinping.”  ".

Reconciliation also serves Saudi Arabia and the trend led by Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman in strengthening Saudi Arabia’s regional position politically and economically in the Middle East region, which he said would be the “new Europe”, a goal that can only be achieved by closing the hotbeds of conflict in this region, and here comes the scene of reconciliation in  Beijing.