What is happening in Yemen and why?
In the post-Arab Spring Middle East, the rulers of Saudi
Arabia see no place for neutrality. Their default position has become that
declared by President Bush after 9/11: You are either with us or against us.
Even the winner of the 2011 Nobel Peace Prize, Tawakkol Karman, who is also a leading
figure in Yemen’s Islah party, flew to Riyadh to join Abd Rabuh Hadi and bless
the Saudi-led bombing campaign against Yemen, which killed thus far over 1000
people, including children and women. Indeed, neutrality is not an option when
it comes to loss of life, but those who are inviting a foreign country to bomb
their own people are siding with aggression.
Although the Saudi rulers started moving its military closer
to the border with Yemen, it reassured the world community that
the military buildup was for “protecting
our borders only.” Suddenly, the kingdom did attack
Yemen and without any provocation or threat to its territory. It did so under
the umbrella of a coalition consisting of ten Arab and Muslim countries. This coalition empowered a 34 year old Saudi prince, the youngest defense
minister in the world—and that is not a complement, to use all the military
hardware his kingdom has accumulated over the years to bomb the Houthis and
their allies to submission. The declared goals and justifications of this
brutal war are: restore the legitimate government in all of Yemen and disarm
the Houthis and their allies.
The said coalition is now shrinking forcing the rulers of
the Gulf States to resort to intimidation and threats. For instance, when
Pakistani lawmakers, reflecting the wish of the people who elected them, voted to
stay neutral,
Gulf States’ officials derogatorily branded Pakistan a “media ally.” After
providing Egypt with billions of dollars to support the regime that overthrew
Morsi, Saudi Arabia and UAE have pressured Sisi’s government to take a more
visible role in the bombing campaign against Yemen.
As for legitimacy, it might suffice to quote an Arabic
proverb that states: faqid al-shay’ la yu`tih [one cannot give that
which one does not have]. Countries led by rulers who lack legitimacy lack the
authority to bomb another country that is attempting to build its own
representative government. Despite the Saudi claim, Hadi, like his predecessor
and all other Arab rulers prior to the Arab Spring, does not represent a
legitimate government in Yemen. However, the same way the Gulf States had
supported Saleh, they are now supporting Hadi despite the fact that his term as
interim president had expired February 27, 2014.
The social uprisings that forced the Tunisian dictator to
escape disturbed the rulers of Saudi Arabia. They offered him a home even
though he was accused of killing hundreds of Tunisians. Saudi Arabia’s rulers
did not like the uprising that replaced Egypt’s Housni Mubarak with an elected
president either. They spent billions to undo the “damage” brought by the
revolution and were happy that a second “revolution” sent an elected president to prison
and reinstated a new authoritarian regime in Egypt. Saudi Arabia’s rulers
worked hard to contain the spreading wave of protest in Yemen and impose a
compromise meant to preserve its influence over its southern neighbor. However,
the Saudi and Qatari rulers used the same wave of protest to overthrow or
attempt to overthrow Arab governments that did not succumb to their influence
like the Libyan and the Syrian governments.
The so-called Arab Spring protest movements provided
influential rich Arab rulers with serious challenges and enticing opportunities.
The crisis in Yemen represents both challenges and opportunities, forcing to
the forefront a flawed logic and bringing together an alliance that is fraught
with contradictions.
First, the rulers of Qatar still consider Mohamed Morsi the
legitimate president and that country’s satellite television channel,
Aljazeera, continues to call anti-Sisi opposition “the supporters of
legitimacy.” The Turkish government, too, refuses to normalize relations with
Egypt unless Morsi and other Muslim Brotherhood members are released from
prison. Sisi’s government responded to these requests last week by issuing
death sentences against a number of Muslim Brotherhood leaders. This did not bother the
backbone of this alliance, Saudi Arabia, which, albeit under the leadership of
the previous king, branded the Muslim
Brotherhood a terrorist organization.
Second, in 2012, then under the sway of Qatar, the Arab
League suspended Syria’s membership and recognized the Syrian Coalition as the
“sole legitimate representative” of that country. This year, the Coalition was
not even invited to attend the yearly meeting that was held in Egypt.
Third, Saudi rulers reckon that a magnified fear of Shias
would minimize the conflict among Sunni countries and, at least temporarily,
unite them against the Iranian imagined threat. This strategy is more
dangerous than productive. It exposed the Saudi rulers’ disdain to minority social
groups and latent racism. It cannot be embraced by other Muslim countries, like
Pakistan and Turkey, who have significant minorities and whose leaders gain
power through the ballet, not the sword. With these contradictions aside, let’s
examine the Saudi claim that its war on Yemen is for the purpose of restoring
legitimacy.
After months of peaceful demonstrations, the Saudi rulers
convinced then Yemen’s president, Ali Abdullah Saleh, whom they supported for decades, to resign and transfer
his powers to his deputy, Abdrabuh Mansur Hadi, ahead of an early election and receive
immunity from prosecution in return. Hadi was expected to form a national unity
government and call for early presidential elections within 90 days, which he
did and easily won since his name was the only one on the ballot. This process in
itself was illegal since Yemen's constitution (article 107) requires a minimum
of two candidates competing for the presidency.
Nonetheless, this transition agreement which was engineered
by Saudi Arabia and its GCC allies in 2011, set a two-year time limit on Hadi's
presidency starting from the date of his inauguration, which took place on 27
February 2012. This agreement, which was later endorsed by the UN, also stipulated
that a new president be elected under a new constitution. Such constitution
never saw the light of the day allowing Hadi to remain in power despite the
expiry of his term.
Frustrated by delays, Houthis and their political and tribal
allies, including former president Ali Abdullah Saleh, pushed for establishing
a presidential council to replace Hadi and form a unity government to oversee
the transition. Although Saleh was barred by the terms of the agreement from
returning to power, he continued to exert influence and was hopeful that his
son, Ahmed Ali Saleh, will be the next president. When the Houthis and their
allies overran Sana`a in September 2014, Hadi reigned. After escaping to the southern
city of Aden, then to Riyadh, he withdrew his resignation, providing a
political, but not necessarily a legal, cover for Saudi Arabia to start its
military campaign.
If it were not for their greed and disdain for the poor, the
rulers of the Gulf States could have provided themselves with an actual legal
basis for intervention in Yemen had they made that country part of the GCC.
However, Yemen was excluded from the club of rich Arab nations despite the 1,100
miles of shared borders. After the Arab Spring, shamelessly, Saudi Arabia
reached out to Morocco, which is thousands of miles away, and Jordan and invited
(invitation was later revoked) them to join the GCC--but not Yemen. Yet, after allowing
that country to fall into abject poverty, they now claim that the stability and
welfare of Yemen are important enough to wage a destructive war on this
impoverished yet proud country.
The Saudi intervention in Yemen is dangerous for the region
and for the world and it is unprecedented. It is dangerous because the Saudi
bombardment is creating the kind of environment (failed states) in which groups
like al-Qaeda
thrive. Curiously,
after two weeks of intense bombardment, not a single bomb has fallen on
al-Qaeda fighters who used this opportunity to solidify their control over Shibwa and expand their control over
Yemen’s largest province, Hadramawt.
Hadi’s legitimacy aside, no country shall intervene
militarily in another sovereign country without legal authority. Had Yemen been
invaded by a foreign country, theoretically, Hadi could have asked for outside
help. However, that is not the case here: Even the Saudi rulers admit that the
Houthis are part of the Yemeni society --making the conflict an
internal one. The Saudi rulers began their attack on Yemen and then asked the
Arab League and the UNSC for legal authority
The so-called alliance is falling apart as the number of civilian
casualties rises and the cost of destruction increases. The old adage, you break
you own it, will apply here. Pakistan and Sudan cannot afford to be weighed
down by the cost of war in and rebuilding of another country when their own peoples are struggling
with poverty. Pakistan has already made its decision to stay out of this
conflict. More
countries will peel off as the human and financial costs of the war continue to climb, reducing the anti-Houthi coalition to Gulf States minus
Oman and several other countries with debt owed to the rich Arab club of
nations.
At home, the Gulf States are marketing their military
campaign as a firm stance against the aggressive Shia neighbor, Iran, accusing it
of supplying Houthis
with weapons. The Saudi Grand Mufti issued a call for mandatory draft to train
and arm Saudis to protect “religion and nation.” This rhetoric is consistent
with the internal Saudi discourse, which is sectarian in nature. Instead of
facing their own internal problems and dealing with their chronic failure to
embrace representative governance, the rulers of the Gulf States continue to
blame foreign countries and inflame sectarian tensions.
There is another reason why Saudi Arabia launched its war on
Yemen when it did: the Iranian-P5+1 preliminary nuclear agreement will
transform the geopolitics of the Middle East. With Iran freed from being blamed
for all the Middle Eastern problems, the politics of fear will be replaced with
contesting ideas and expressing desire for open governance, which would expose
the Gulf States’ retrograde ideology, political repression, and hateful
sectarianism.
The post-Arab Spring Middle East is not the same as the
pre-Arab Spring Middle East. The Saudi rulers want to preserve the old order
and continue to privilege genocidal rhetoric. That is a failed strategy. As
President Obama suggested in a recent interview, Saudi Arabia’s rulers fear not a
Houthis’ takeover of Yemen on behalf of Iran, they fear most a new paradigm: an
independent and democratic Yemen where leaders are elected by the people, not
appointed by the head of the clan.
____________
* Prof. SOUAIAIA teaches at the University of Iowa. His
most recent book, Anatomy of Dissent in Islamic Societies, provides a historical and theoretical
treatment of rebellious movements and ideas since the rise of Islam. Opinions
are the author’s, speaking on matters of public interest; not speaking for the
university or any other organization with which he is affiliated.
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