UAE Troop Drawdown: Beginning of the End for Yemen War

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TEHRAN (FNA)- The United Arab Emirates has been forced to withdraw its occupying troops from Yemen in coordination with key ally Saudi Arabia. This should mark the beginning of the end for the failed US-backed, Saudi-led war on Yemen.

The UAE, a leading member of the Western-backed Arab coalition battling the Ansarullah movement, is reducing its military presence after almost five years of failed war on the poorest country in the Arab world. The Persian Gulf state has pulled many troops from areas including the Southern port of Aden and the Western coast, but claims it remains committed to the ousted government of president Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi.

The drawdown was not a last-minute decision and had been discussed extensively with Riyadh. It came after the failed attempt to defeat the resistance movement of Ansarullah amid international condemnations for the ongoing human rights violations and war crimes in the war-torn country by the Saudi-led coalition.

Indeed, behind the drawdown is a disastrous failure of decision-making that led to the war on Yemen in 2015; the signature initiative of the Crown Prince MBS. Thanks to his leadership, Saudi cities and infrastructure are now targets for a once-ragged army that has developed increasingly sophisticated drones and missiles. The war is the worst humanitarian catastrophe in the world.

The Trump administration’s decision to sell billions in arms to Riyadh without congressional approval has only encouraged the crown prince to continue the quagmire too. The Saudis are not more capable of winning the war with more munitions. The American support has singularly helped in five years to support the Saudis in bombing civilian targets or increasing the carnage of the war. Children are the most at risk and are paying a horrible cost.

On the other hand, the war on Yemen has exposed the tenuous nature of Saudi Arabia’s relationships with its principal Muslim allies. The most important of them, Pakistan, surprisingly refused to send its army to assist the regime. The Sisi government in Egypt also refused to send large numbers of ground troops to participate in the fighting. Instead, Cairo sent a small contingent of several hundred soldiers and three to four ships to assist Riyadh.

And in recent instances, even those countries that agreed to participate in the Saudi-led campaign developed conflicts of interest with Riyadh over the course of the fighting; for example, the Saudis and the Emiratis are backing forces that are at odds over the future of Yemen and this has created friction that has at times erupted into violence between local actors.

In the prevailing environment, expect the Saudi coalition fighting in Yemen to be forced more into a stalemate following the UAE’s decision. Riyadh and Abu Dhabi had promised a swift campaign in what has now become one of the fiercest battles in the devastating conflict. Their initially stated goal was a total defeat of Ansarullah in Yemen, but after a couple of years they changed their claim, and said their goal is to cut off the Ansarullah’s main supply line and force them back to the North. However, little progress has been made since the campaign was launched, as the country is heavily defended by land and sea.

Last but not the least, the Saudi coalition’s inability to win or even to advance in Yemen has a two-pronged diagnosis: The fact that the Ansarullah are well-situated to repel foreign fighting forces; and the fact that the Saudi military suffers from its own systemic ineffectiveness and divisions – for instance, the UAE’s failed efforts to bring its power to bear in the fight war and its recent decision to withdraw. 

Which is to say: The illegal war on Yemen has been a disaster for all involved parties, and so ending it is both the smart thing to do as well as the right thing to do under international law and UN Charter. And because American interference is most successful in regions that suffer from conflict or insecurity, ending the war has the added benefit of potentially weakening the War Party’s ability to meddle in regional affairs.

Trump’s Veto Behind Increased Yemen Suffering

TEHRAN (FNA)- President Donald Trump’s veto of a congressional resolution to end US military assistance for Saudi Arabia’s war in Yemen has only meant more suffering and death for millions of people in the war-torn country.

If Trump was truly concerned about civilian lives, he would ensure that the US-supported Saudi-led coalition stop breaking the laws of war and depriving millions of Yemenis of life-saving assistance. The US is deepening and prolonging the crisis and civilians are paying the price.

The Saudi-led coalition has been at war with Yemen’s Army and Ansarullah Movement since 2015. The conflict has killed tens of thousands of people, fueled a major cholera outbreak and driven the Arab world’s poorest country to the brink of famine.

Increased fighting and blockade in Northern Yemen in recent months is also causing new waves of displacement. The intensification of the fighting near the border with Saudi Arabia has caused a massive new wave of displacement. Since last year, many people have relocated to other parts of the region, joining many others who have fled earlier fighting.

It is difficult to trace them because there are no formal camps for internally displaced people. They are scattered across a very large area. Sometimes there are groups of refugees living under basic plastic sheets that they buy or that are donated to them. Other times they are mixed with local communities. In any case, they all live in very precarious conditions.

The majority do not have access to health services because, after several years of conflict, there are few health centers open in the country. Many health centers are no longer functional or are open for only a few hours a day with just a nurse or a small staff. Those working in the health centers have not received salaries for more than two years and work without adequate medical supplies. The health system can’t respond to the needs of displaced people.

At the same time, international aid groups are severely restricted in the assistance and can offer in the places that are absorbing newly displaced communities. In addition to this, in recent months the Yemeni currency, the rial, has lost a lot of value as inflation has risen, causing fuel and transportation costs to increase. This has made it unaffordable for many people to reach hospitals.

It is important that the few medical organizations that are supporting the Ministry of Health on the ground gain more access to address the needs of vulnerable displaced communities. But they can’t because the Saudis and their proxy forces do not allow them to commute.

In areas where the security situation and the Saudi-led coalition forces allow, there is a network of community health workers who manage a referral system for the most severe cases. Currently they focus on areas with new settlements where the most basic services are missing.

The worsening blockade and fighting are undermining the capacity of NGOs on the ground to provide relief, water and sanitation services, food, and more. High inflation, linked to the rapid devaluation of the rial, import restrictions, blockade, can have an impact on the nutritional status of the population. Aid workers continue to receive many cases of easily preventable diseases, such as diphtheria. This shows that the impact of the war on the deteriorating health system is increasingly affecting vaccination coverage.

The Saudis have not suddenly woken up and realized that the illegal war is causing too much suffering without adequate prospect of strategic gain. Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman sees Yemen as a defining battleground for regional hegemony.

And if you want to understand how a US withdrawal of military support would affect the Saudi war effort, look no further than President Bashar Assad's Syria. The Saudi coalition has far more advanced weapons platforms than the Syrians, but it lacks the integrated command and control, intelligence, targeting, communications, and logistical skill to employ its military effectively. The US has been absolutely critical in filling in the gaps in these areas in Yemen.

And although the Saudis are still too capricious with their use of force, American guidance has helped them target civilians and Ansarullah formations in entire city blocks with a few forces somewhere inside those blocks. Again, motivated by their historic, cultural, and theological blood feud with Yemen, the Saudis would care little about killing thousands more civilians if they believed it might win the war. America claims it is the only check on them at this moment. However, as demonstrated by the rising number of civilian casualties in Hodeida and elsewhere, that check hasn’t held.

The simple reality of the Saudi-led war on Yemen is that it has become worse due to the US engagement and Trump’s veto. Trump exaggerates the degree to which Saudi Arabia is a constructive, stable partner for the US in the broader Middle East. Still, he is right on the fundamental issue: 

that the US needs a Saudi Arabia that can be “milked” indefinitely. His veto has only decorated Yemen with more civilian blood. He must be laughing all the way to the bank.

Peace Impossible in Yemen If Aggressors Not Denounced as War Criminals

By: Kayhan Int’l 

It is rather strange that peace talks between the legal government of Yemen represented by the popular Ansarallah Movement and the invaders’ backed faction of the fugitive from justice, the traitor Hadi Mansour, who has ganged up with Saudi Arabia and UAE, to destroy the country, were held abroad a UN-chartered ship off the coast of the besieged port city of Hodeidah in the Red Sea.

Red is the colour of blood, and as the invaders pounded towns and cities with bombs while talks for truce were in progress on the ship, indicated that death and destruction will continue to plague the poor people of Yemen.

However, stranger than the talks on board the ship for cessation of hostilities was the tweet of the UAE’s warmongering Minister of State for Foreign Affairs in response to Pope Francis’ disgust with the bloodshed in Yemen that 2019 would be the year of peace.

Anwar Qarqash, who has rejected all calls by world Muslim leaders, both political and spiritual, as well as Sunni and Shi’a, for ending the UAE’s role in the destruction of Yemen and the massacre of fellow Arabs, seems to have shed for a moment his innate wolfish image and tried to pose like a lamb while welcoming the apostolic visit to Abu Dhabi of the Leader of the Catholic sect of Christianity.

Strange developments indeed, but will they bring peace to Yemen as the war imposed by the US, Britain, and Israel, through Saudi Arabia and the UAE is about to complete its fourth year of bloodshed and enter the 5th without any prospects for peace!

Before leaving the Vatican for the Persian Gulf Sheikhdom Pope Francis said there are children who are hungry, thirsty, without medicine and on the verge of death, but this did not stop him from enjoying the luxurious hospitality extended by the UAE who besides entertaining him with the sumptuous foods and drinks will surely shower him with millions of dollars of gifts.

Wonder why he didn’t refuse the invitation for the three-day journey to the UAE in protest to the catastrophic situation in Yemen, when he knows without the least doubt that neither he will convert to Christianity the Emirati leaders who pay mere lip service to Islam, nor will his seemingly humanitarian appeals for peace will end the bloodshed in Yemen.

Now coming back to the peace talks aboard the ship on Sunday and Monday under the chairmanship of retired Dutch general Patrick Cammaert, as head of the UN mission in Yemen, no concrete result has emerged.

Although the meeting is seen as critical to building on the UN-brokered agreement reached in Stockholm last December, as long as the World Body avoids the denunciation of Saudi Arabia and the UAE as aggressors, no breakthrough is expected to emerge.

You cannot call the legal government as "Houthi rebels” or demand halt to any response in self-defence from them through missiles and drones to the unabated bloodshed, no peace is possible in Yemen. 

Over the past four years, the conflict has led to mass displacement, food shortages and outbreaks of cholera and diphtheria across the country, as well as damage to healthcare and education infrastructure.

Even Human Rights Watch (HRW) cited the UAE’s role in the Saudi-led alliance, saying the aggressors have indiscriminately bombed homes, markets, and schools, impeded the delivery of humanitarian aid, and used widely banned cluster munitions.

In view of these undeniable facts, unless the UN recognizes these war crimes, any expectation of peace is a mere conjecture. 

Continued US Occupation of the Middle East Does Not Suppress Terrorism, It Causes It

A U.S. soldier sits in an armored vehicle on a road leading to
Manbij, north Syria, April 4, 2018. Hussein Malla | AP

The secret to ending the strength of ISIS in Syria is not the continued presence of American troops. It is for America’s ever closer allies in Saudi Arabia and the Gulf to cut off the major artery of money and arms, which we should never forget in origin and for a long time had a strong US component.

By Craig Murray

Even the neo-con warmongers’ house journal The Guardian, furious at Trump’s attempts to pull US troops out of Syria, in producing a map to illustrate its point, could only produce one single, uncertain, very short pen stroke to describe the minute strip of territory it claims ISIS still controls on the Iraqi border.

Of course, The Guardian produces the argument that continued US military presence is necessary to ensure that ISIS does not spring back to life in Syria. The fallacy of that argument can be easily demonstrated. In Afghanistan, the USA has managed to drag out the long process of humiliating defeat in war even further than it did in Vietnam. It is plain as a pikestaff that the presence of US occupation troops is itself the best recruiting sergeant for resistance. In Sikunder Burnes I trace how the battle lines of tribal alliances there today are precisely the same ones the British faced in 1841. We just attach labels like Taliban to hide the fact that invaders face national resistance.

The secret to ending the strength of ISIS in Syria is not the continued presence of American troops. It is for America’s ever closer allies in Saudi Arabia and the Gulf to cut off the major artery of money and arms, which we should never forget in origin and for a long time had a strong US component. The US/Saudi/Israeli alliance against Iran is the most important geopolitical factor in the region today. It is high time this alliance stopped both funding ISIS and pretending to fight it; schizophrenia is not a foreign policy stance.

There has been no significant Shia Islamic terrorist or other threat against the West in recent years. 9/11 was carried out by Saudi Sunni militants. Al Qaida, ISIS, Al Nusra, Boko Haram, these are all Sunni groups, and all Saudi sponsored. It is a matter of lunacy that the West has adopted the posture that it is Iran – which has sponsored not one attack on the West in recent memory – which is the threat in the Middle East.

The origin of this stance appears to lie in the fact that the Shia group Hezbollah proved to have the only military force among Israel’s neighbors capable of halting an Israeli invasion. After the disastrous invasion of Iraq resulted in an Iran friendly regime in Baghdad, the US decided for balance of power reasons to back Saudi regional power plays, only for Saudi Arabia to fall into the hands of the psychopathic warmonger Mohammed Bin Salman who escalated an already flawed policy to the breaking point.

The chaos of this incoherent and counterproductive strategy is, peculiarly enough, what the neocons actually want. Perpetual war and destabilization in the Middle East is their goal. One of the findings I had not expected to discover in writing Sikunder Burnes was that the British had been deliberately exploiting and exacerbating the Shia/Sunni divide as early as 1836 to the Imperial purpose. Today, by keeping Arab populations poor and politically divided, the neo-cons believe that they enhance the security of Israel, and they certainly do facilitate the access of western companies to the oil and gas of the region, as we see in destabilized Iraq and Libya.

The Clintons and Blair were the apotheoses of the capture of the mainstream “left” political parties by this neo-con Imperialist agenda in the Middle East. Sanders, Trump, and Corbyn were the first politicians with any chance of power for many decades who did not pay lip-service to the neo-con agenda. Trump’s lack of enthusiasm for Cold War politics has been neutralized from any possible action on his part by the ludicrous lie that Russia hacked his election. Furthermore, his greed has led to deals with Saudi Arabia which have largely undercut his declared preference for non-interventionism. And now in Syria, the very hint that Trump may not be fully committed to the pursuit of perpetual war has the entire neo-con establishment, political media and NGO, screaming in unison, both sides of the Atlantic.

I have written before that Trump may be a rotten President for Americans, but at least he has not initiated a major war, and I am quite sure Hillary would have done by now. For a non-American, the choice between Hillary and Trump ended up in balancing on one side of the scale the evil of millions more killed and maimed in the Middle East and the launching of a full-on, unreserved new Cold War, against on the other side of the scale poorer Americans having very bad healthcare and social provision and America adopting racist immigration policies. I do hope that the neo-con barrage today arguing for more American troops in the Middle East, will help people remember just how very unattractive also is the Hillary side of the equation.

It is also very helpful in revealing the startling unanimity of our bought and paid for political, media and NGO class here in the UK.

Craig Murray is an author, broadcaster and human rights activist. He was British Ambassador to Uzbekistan from August 2002 to October 2004 and Rector of the University of Dundee from 2007 to 2010.