BY DAVID MACILWAIN
*The spokesman of Yemen’s Ansarallah Movement and his entourage met with Ayatollah Khamenei, August 13, 2019
Reflecting on the declaration this week from Australia’s spy agency ASIO that foreign intelligence agencies were recruiting Australian journalists to spy on their behalf, seasoned Canberra observer and journalist Tony Wright had this observation:
“In Canberra, everyone is in pursuit of secrets – journalists, diplomats, politicians, lobbyists, international business types and, of course, actual spies.”
The current target of suspicion here for most of these political classes, think tanks and intelligence agencies is China and the “Chinese Communist Party” – which has long replaced the USSR as the menace du jour to our “national security”. Most of the suspicion is unfounded, and a result of our sycophantic intimacy with the US and Israel. As Tony Wright pointed out, the US embassy sits conveniently close to Parliament house, reflecting the US’ position as “the leading foreign actor in winning covert influence in Australia”.
That its activities have been effective was demonstrated recently by the reception given to Mike Pompeo and Mark Esper by media commentators as well as Opposition politicians. Only the suggestion that we might host a small base with some of America’s latest nuclear deterrent missiles raised murmurs of opposition, while the request to join “Operation Sentinel/war coalition against Iran” was given favorable consideration.
Perhaps a little irked by the current intimidation of journalists and whistle-blowers following police raids on the ABC and News Corp, Wright drew attention to one high-profile voice of strident opposition to the US, John Menadue, who has recently identified it as “the greatest threat to peace in the world”. I doubt that many readers of AHT would argue with that view, nor even feel the need to point it out, but in Australia, it is highly controversial. America’s self-portrayal as a force for peace and justice, supporter of democracies and fighter of terrorism, is officially accepted and constantly reinforced subliminally through the media, political and public space.
This is a little background to a “secret” mentioned in a previous article, as recently revealed by another genuine and determined ABC journalist Dylan Welch. The questions it posed reflect Wright’s observation that journalism is “the pursuit of secrets”. Or should be; the promotion and cultivation of “open-source journalism” by agents of influence like Eliot Higgins and James Harkin is keeping most journalists away from everything governments want to keep hidden, such as – in this case - what might be Australia’s role in the war on Yemen, and how this may play out in the confrontation with Iran. Indeed, it is this constant indoctrination into US culture and politics that is partially responsible for the blind prejudices of so many Australians towards America’s foes and those of her Middle Eastern proxy Israel. Despite the serious deterioration in relations with China over our alliance with the US and our trade relationship, Russia and Iran remain to two prime targets of disdain, disbelief and demonization. This public enmity is made worse by the absence of Russian or Iranian “agents of influence”, while Australia’s role as a refuge has given us plenty of their opponents, from former Soviet states and in Iran’s case, supporters of the MEK. As Menadue points out, US agents of influence are legion in all areas of Australian society.
There is no doubt that Australia IS involved in Yemen and complicit in the innumerable war crimes committed there since March 2015 by the so-called Saudi Coalition, even if only as a result of supplying weaponry or cooperating with the coalition members – the UAE, Israel, the US, UK and France. Australia also is clearly cooperating with the UAE through its presence at the Al Minhad base south of Dubai, the center of ADF operations in the region.
All of which means that the recent actions of the UAE in relation to Yemen and Iran have implications for Australia. Understanding them may shine some light on those secrets.
In mid-July, the UAE declared that it was pulling its forces out of Yemen. Not for the first time, as back in 2016 following serious losses of Emirati soldiers from a Houthi attack, the UAE withdrew its nationals and much of their military equipment, and restricted its involvement to the air-force. As happened then, when the defeat was presented as an achievement of victory, the latest “withdrawal” cannot be taken seriously, and most explanations and related stories taken with a pinch of salt.
One of those stories was that UAE officials were making overtures to Iran and seeking to distance themselves from the US coalition plans for provocative military patrols of the Persian Gulf. Noting that Iran was “prepared for confrontation and will implement its explicit menace, to hit any country from which the US carries out their attacks on Iran”. (the Global Hawk drone shot down by Iran was launched from the UAE). The UAE “would like to avoid seeing their country transformed into a battlefield between the US and Iran in case of war. We want to be out of all this”, an Emirates official told his Iranian counterpart in Tehran.
Tehran responded appropriately to this shame-faced appeal from a country that has been at the forefront of turning Yemen into a battlefield in order to further its own strategic interests. Iran promised to talk to the Yemeni officials “to avoid hitting targets in Dubai and Abu Dhabi as long as the UAE pulls out its forces from Yemen and stops this useless war.” Neither Iranian nor Yemeni leaders will be fooled by the sort of pretenses that pass for news in Western media, whose audience still believes that Yemen’s “Internationally recognized Government” should be helped to blast its way back into power by the Saudi-Emirati coalition using US, UK, French, - and Australian warplanes and munitions.
The UAE may have partially withdrawn forces from Yemen, but has worked hard for the last four years to establish an army of foreign mercenaries and local tribes that will continue to do its bidding, as has been demonstrated in the last month. Currently, the Southern Transitional Council, whose UAE backed militias recently took control of Aden from the relics of the Hadi government, is pushing for a return to partition as existed before 1990. Such a move would appear to be the UAE’s objective, given its possession of Socotra to the south, and expansion across the Bab al Mandeb straits in Djibouti. A useful historical perspective on this – seen as “embodying the UK’s divide and conquer legacy” – is provided by a Yemeni analyst here.
The UAE’s failure to withdraw its influence and cease destabilizing Yemen was surely reflected in Tehran this week, when a group of officials from the Sana’a Ansarullah government traveled there for discussion on the regional crisis, meeting first with Ayatollah Khamenei. Khamenei’s message to the Yemeni people – the “mujahid nation” of resistance to foreign oppressors, was to “stand strong against this conspiracy to divide Yemen”.
With typically perceptive and diplomatic language, Khamenei advised the “Houthi” leaders that “given the religious and ethnic diversity of Yemen, maintaining the integrity of the country requires Yemeni-Yemeni dialogues”. Khamenei’s stance “does not emerge from fanaticism. It is based on facts as well as the West’s and US officials’ actions, who commit the most heinous crimes, while faking a humane, civil, and ethical face and constantly preaching about human rights.”
One of those heinous crimes was the sabotaging of that Yemeni dialogue in March 2015, when the imminent declaration of a National Unity government negotiated by the UN special representative Jamal Benomar was prevented by the launching of the Saudi war. It remains one of those “secrets” that was never secret, but was hidden from Western eyes behind multiple layers of disinformation and distraction. Even the resignation of Benomar in disgust barely registered.
Following their meeting with the Ayatollah, Yemeni leaders are reportedly now in discussion with the foreign ministers of the UK, France, Germany and Italy, invited to Tehran by Mohammed Javad Zarif. The Yemenis have evidently been empowered by the open disagreement between the Saudis and Emiratis, and are not inclined to make compromises. Coinciding with this meeting in Tehran, Houthi forces launched a barrage of missiles towards the Shaybah Aramco oil refinery which lies only 10 kms south of the Emirati border. While targeting Saudi infrastructure in their fight against the rapidly weakening Saudi coalition, the Houthi leader re-iterated his warning to the UAE with this strike.
That warning was already delivered on August 1st when a Houthi missile targeted a parade of UAE forces near Aden. While there is little evidence – or possibility – that Iranian missiles are somehow being smuggled into Yemen, the Yemeni resistance’s ability to hit distant targets can no longer be ignored. Neither can its determination and resolve, and the solidarity of its closest ally Iran.
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