For children’s sake, let there be peace in Yemen?

Neither Saudi Arabia nor the United States will start a war on Iran following last Saturday’s attack on two Saudi oil installations in Abqaiq and Khurais. The strikes, seen as the most devastating of a series of recent attacks, sent shockwaves across the world oil markets, as they knocked out more than fifty percent of the world’s top exporter’s crude output or five percent of the global oil supply. 

If the US and the Saudis could afford to start a war with Iran, they could have done it long ago.  If past tense situations were any indication of a behavioural pattern, there is enough reason to believe that this time, too, the developments, however grave they are, will not lead to a war against Iran.

Take for instance the tense situation in June this year. Despite strong predictions that the US would not allow Iran to go unpunished for downing a US spy drone, President Donald Trump chickened out at the last minute and abruptly called off preparations for an attack.  Then there were incidents involving oil tankers in recent months. Two tankers came under attack in the Gulf while one was seized by the Iranians weeks after a British warship seized an Iranian tanker.  Yet these highly inflammable incidents did not lead to a war with Iran.
The fear of the consequences or worries about their impact on the US interests in the region and the likelihood of world oil prices skyrocketing, bringing in its wake a global economic downturn at a time when US President Donald Trump is facing reelection, probably de-escalated the US war drive. 

It should also be recalled that during the US’ standoff with Iran over the Islamic republic’s nuclear power programme, Saudi Arabia and Israel kept prodding the US to launch an attack on Iran. But the US did not attack Iran. President George W Bush and even President Barack Obama would only say that all options were on the table.

In 2001, Iran, together with Iraq and North Korea, was one of the three countries of President Bush’s Axis of Evil.  Iraq was attacked and invaded, but not Iran. 

This is because, in US assessments, Iran is not like Iraq.  Iran has the ability to hit the US and its regional allies where it hurts, although it is only an average military power when compared to the US or even Saudi Arabia which spends US$ 65 billion a year on defence and has signed up to buy US$ 150 billion worth of arms from the US.  Iran has, throughout the decades of US and international sanctions, developed strategic weapons capable of dealing a devastating blow to the enemy. Besides, it has built up a powerful network of regional allies. In Iraq, Iran acts as a patron to Shiite paramilitary groups that joined the government’s war against the Islamic State terror group in 2018.  Numbering around 150,000 militias, these groups are a virtual arm of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps. 

In Syria, Iran has established a considerable military presence. In Lebanon, it has its proxy army – the Shiite militant group Hizbollah. In Yemen, it is the Houthis who are seen as Iran’s ally. Besides, in several Gulf states, Iran commands the support of the Shiite populations. In Saudi Arabia itself, the Shiites make up 10-15 percent of the population and they see the Sunni monarch as a persecutor and Iran as their likely liberator.

If war breaks out, Iran can mobilise these support bases to its advantage. Through diplomatic channels, Iran, while denying it carried out the attacks on the Saudi oil sites, has conveyed to the US that any military action against it will be met with an immediate response.

The US knows well the capabilities of Iran.  Some 30,000 US troops are stationed in the Gulf region, 5,000 in Iraq and another 14,000 in Afghanistan. They all sit within the striking distance of Iran’s military. 

This is why, even after Saudi Arabia displayed remnants of drones and missiles to back its claim that the attack was “unquestionably sponsored” by Iran, Trump said he was looking for options short of war.

On Wednesday, Trump tweeted he had ordered the US Treasury to “substantially increase sanctions” on Iran.

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, meanwhile, rushed to Saudi Arabia where he described the attacks as “an act of war” on the kingdom. 

Meanwhile, some analysts believe that Iran is being blamed because the US defence shield the Saudis have bought and installed had failed to detect and destroy the Houthi drones and missiles. So the arms suppliers to save their skin now say the missile came from the eastern direction indicating Iran or Iranian backed groups in Iraq -- and not from Yemen in the south.

However, Yemen’s Houthi rebels have claimed responsibility for the attack, which if taken positively sends a powerful peace message that it is time to start talks on ending the war. 
The international community needs to step in to make peace, instead of being a spectator in a bloody war that kills daily scores of children in Yemen, if not by Saudi bombs, but by starvation or diseases such as cholera.  According to a 2018 Save the Children report, an estimated 85,000 children under the age of five had starved to death in the first three years of Yemen’s civil war. 

For children’s sake, let there be peace in Yemen?

But the world community’s indifference is appalling, even after the United Nations has described the situation in Yemen as the worst humanitarian crisis since the Second World War. 

Instead of compelling the parties to the conflict to come to the negotiating table and defuse the worsening crisis, the US, Britain and France sold Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates weapons which were responsible for the deaths of thousands of Yemeni children. A recent UN report warned that these western powers might be complicit in war crimes. 

On Tuesday, Iran’s President Hassan Rouhani told the media in Ankara where he met Turkish President Recep Tayyib Erdogan and Russian leader Vladimir Putin: “The people of Yemen are forced to respond to all the violations and the flood of weapons from the US and Europe toward Saudi Arabia and the UAE.”

The Houthis are willing to talk peace.  They did not start the war. The war, which is into its fourth year, was made in Saudi Arabia, the Saudis did not want to see on their southern border an Iran-friendly Houthi-dominated state.  The war is another human rights violation baggage Saudi Arabia’s crown prince, Muhammad bin Salman, carries in his person, in addition to the murder of dissident journalist Jamal Khashoggi. 

Saudi Arabia, it is learnt, has requested the Trump administration to facilitate talks with the Houthis.  The Yemen war does not have a popular backing in Saudi Arabia or in the Arab world. Peace offers an opportunity for the Saudi crown prince to re-enter the world stage. For the starving and ailing children’s sake, let there be peace in Yemen. 

With Iran, Diplomacy Is Only Option for Saudi Arabia, UAE

By: Madawi al-Rasheed*

 

The veneer of calm that has lain over the waters of the Persian Gulf since the days of the Iran-Iraq war and the first Persian Gulf War was unexpectedly shattered as Saudi and UAE oil tankers came under unspecified attack on 12 May.

Two days later, two Saudi pumping stations were hit by drones inside Saudi Arabia, causing limited physical damage but seriously hitting the reputation of a kingdom struggling to establish its credentials as the undisputed and unchallenged leader of the Arab region.

The attacks failed to disrupt the flow of oil through the Strait of Hormuz but they have also exposed the vulnerability of both Saudi Arabia and the UAE to such hazardous and sporadic disruptions.  

Both victims of the attack, Saudi Arabia and the UAE, remained subdued as they condemned the sudden and daring attacks in their territories.

So far, they say they are going to investigate the incident in the sea of Fujairah where the alleged attack on tankers took place, without rushing to openly blame Iran, with whom both countries have had tensions.

Saudi Arabia has been struggling for a long time to push the United States and Israel to fight its long-awaited war with Iran, but so far it has failed to convince the U.S. to launch direct serious attacks on its arch-enemy in the Persian Gulf.

Trump has never missed an opportunity to remind his U.S. and international audiences that the Saudis have money and they should pay. Paying for security comes with a high cost.

The Saudis and their UAE partners are a prime source of orders for the weapons factories in the U.S. and other Western countries, which reap colossal profit from the sale of military equipment, fighter jets, and training contracts. Saudi Arabia is number three in the world after the U.S. and China when it comes to military spending.

But such spending benefits the suppliers without creating the kind of security Saudi Arabia aspires to achieve. A small drone attack still threatens its survival and may disrupt the flow of oil from its wells.

Small, Insignificant Armies

The vulnerability of the Persian Gulf countries to small attacks such as the recent ones proves the futility of countries like the UAE or relatively large ones like Saudi Arabia building an arsenal of Western weapons that fail to protect them against sabotage and minor but disruptive attacks. 

In any direct military confrontation with Iran, both Saudi Arabia and the UAE will expose themselves to ridicule as their small and insignificant armies are incomparable to Iran's, not only in size, but also in experience, capabilities and creed.

These two countries may have the latest military aircraft, but their performance in Yemen points to how victory against the Houthis - who have no air force or advanced military equipment - is yet to be achieved. 

In the last five years, the Saudis have struggled to announce an outright victory over what they referred to as an insignificant militia.

It is clear that no mercenary military unit will be able to match the deadly creed of the Iranian military, albeit their appetite for war may be less urgent these days.

Egyptian, Sudanese, and even Senegalese imported troops cannot match the determination of Iranians to defend their interests in the Persian Gulf and save their regime and economy from collapse.

The Saudis must understand that imported mercenaries are no substitute for a strong army and it is doubtful that U.S. troops will be deployed again in the Persian Gulf, as they were in the 1990s. 

No Victory

The recent attacks are only going to increase Saudi vulnerability and fear that they will step up their cry for help from the U.S. This will cost them more money and drain their resources to the extent of bankrupting their economy.  

The luxury and prosperity that Saudi Crown Prince Muhammad bin Salman had promised may prove to be an illusion. On the other hand, Iran is used to austerity and dwindling resources; its population is not promised the same Saudi extravaganzas and entertainment.
It can take more austerity without precipitating a revolt, a situation the Saudi leadership cannot be sure of.

Together with its other Arab allies, like Egypt, Saudi Arabia will fail in any direct military confrontation with Iran.  

Neither the UAE nor Saudi Arabia will expect victory in a quick U.S.-led war on Iran. In fact, they better rule out the prospect of war and begin a serious rethinking of their relations with Iran.  

Other GCC countries such as Oman, Kuwait, and Qatar are definitely against military confrontation with Iran. And to think that Egypt or any other Arab ally can be drawn into a war in the Persian Gulf is certainly unrealistic.

U.S. and Israeli help may come - Netanyahu may well love the excuse and Israel has been more and more brazen in its attacks on Iranian-backed militias in Syria - but the turbulence that would come from such an assault would be unprecedented.

It may be, then, that diplomacy is the only realistic option for both Saudi Arabia and the UAE. An end to the rhetoric of confrontation and bravado is a first step to accept that peace between nations is better served by diplomacy than by guns.  

*Madawi al-Rasheed is visiting professor at the Middle East Institute of the London School of Economics.

-Courtesy: Middle East Eye with small omissions