A Yemeni drama in the trilogy of revolution, settlement, and coup

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SummaryIf the current title of battle is to end the non-state forces associated with Iran, then the endgame is a change in the Iranian regime or a change in its behavior. There is no room for Iranian influence in the Arab world, after Tehran boasted that it ruled four Arab capitals: Sanaa, Baghdad, Damascus, and Beirut.

There are many wars in Yemen, but the title is the same: a conflict without end, as if war were the DNA of the Yemenis. A fight over the type of rule and who holds it before the area of ​​land. A race for “the spoils” in a poor country. External powers competed for influence in an arena that was almost shrouded in the cruelty of geography and the deception of history, and open to the tribes’ need for capable allies.

This was the situation during the days of separation between the North and the South, then the days of unity between them, and the practices that led to the failed war of secession with the power of the North and the conflicts of the South. This is how it is today, as armies and militias share land and power, and the conflict between an Iranian front and an Arab front is intensifying before Operation “Yemen Dawn.”

The “Unity of the Squares” is nothing but a nickname for non-state forces, some of which founded and others sponsored the Iranian Revolutionary Guard to fight against its countries and regimes in defense of the Islamic Republic and its regional project: from “Hezbollah” in Lebanon and the Popular Mobilization Forces in Iraq and what was the National Guard in Syria, to the Houthis in Yemen and “Hamas” and “Islamic Jihad” in Gaza.

This is because Yemen, which the revolution in 1962 transferred from an imamate to a republic, is being worked on by the Houthis to return it from a republic to an imamate, the imamate of the Badr al-Din al-Houthi family instead of the imamate of the Hamid al-Din family. This project is in light of the broader Iranian game, whose least ambitions are to connect the Mediterranean Sea, the Strait of Hormuz in the Gulf, and Bab al-Mandab on the Red Sea in the fight for the Iranian regional project. In addition, the Houthis began to act as if they were a regional force fighting America and Israel and verbally linking their fate to the Palestinian issue.

The geopolitical and strategic game today is very different from what it was in the past. The radical socialist regime in South Yemen had limited ambitions in the immediate future, and it ended in a bloody conflict between the comrades of one party. It became clear that the attempt to implement Marxism in a tribal society was just an imaginative whimsy, as there was no chance for the success of “tribal Marxism.”

The Imamate of the Hamid al-Din family was very local, as any Arab delegate in the Arab League who spoke little became said to be like the always silent representative of Yemen. The battle between the Imamis and the Republicans and their respective allies after the establishment of the republic and President Gamal Abdel Nasser sending the Egyptian army to protect it ended with a settlement, but the battles between the rulers of the republic continued, at least with assassinations. Six inconclusive wars took place between President Ali Abdullah Saleh and the Houthis in Saada. Then the popular revolution, in which millions took to the streets in a climate of what was called the “Arab Spring” revolutions, went beyond.

It lasted for a period before Saleh was forced to resign as part of a settlement in which Saudi Arabia and Arab and international powers contributed. The content of the settlement was Saleh’s abandonment of the presidency in favor of his deputy, Abd Rabbuh Mansour Hadi, for a transitional phase in preparation for the required reforms and parliamentary and presidential elections. All parties had a place in the settlement: Saleh, the Houthis, the revolutionaries, the tribes, and almost everyone.

Here the drama began within the framework of the trilogy of revolution, settlement, and coup. The settlement turned the page on the revolution within a legal framework and local and external understanding. The coup overthrew the settlement by force. What coup? The coup that Ali Abdullah Saleh and the Houthis allied to carry out. Saleh wanted to return to power in which he had spent nearly 40 years, and he imagined that he could use the Houthis in the first stage and then turn against them. The Houthis wanted to obtain an important part of the army that Saleh had built, along with the advanced weapons that he had in his possession, and they bet on using Saleh’s passion for power to help them in the beginning, concealing what they did after the occupation of Sanaa, where they killed him openly to strike terror into the hearts of his supporters and their enemies.

The “Yemen Dawn” war is not a war to return to the revolution, but rather a war to overthrow the coup and return to settlement and legitimacy. It is not clear how the necessary settlement will come about. The sure game is to overthrow the rule of non-state militias that serve Iran and want to return from the republic to the imamate. But the people in Saada, as part of the Yemeni people, have a place in the settlement like everyone else. The bigger game is Yemen's position in and on the geopolitical and strategic conflict in the Middle East. Iran cannot control the Strait of Hormuz and the region. No regional or international power accepts any control over Bab al-Mandab and the Red Sea. If the current title of the battles is to end the non-state forces associated with Iran, then the end game is a change in the Iranian regime or a change in its behavior. There is no room for Iranian influence in the Arab world, after Tehran boasted that it ruled four Arab capitals: Sanaa, Baghdad, Damascus, and Beirut.

Quoted from "Independent Arabia"