U.S. loses influence with the end of wars
Washington, according to the director of the CIA, is “stunned.” And all because it is losing influence in one of the key regions of the world – in the Middle East. And the latest symbol of what is happening was the reconciliation of Saudi Arabia and Yemen. Why was the military conflict between these two states extremely beneficial to the United States – and why, in the end, will we see a weakening of America’s positions?
The Middle East is getting out of American control. Step by step, the United States is losing the tools with which it maintained its military, economic, and political presence in the region. And now it is the turn of the Yemeni instrument.
The reason eludes
Yemen is one of the poorest and at the same time the most militarized countries in the Middle East. This is a country where a civil war has been going on since 2014. On the one hand, there are local rebels from the Ansar Allah movement (who are often referred to simply as the Houthis – after the founder of the movement, Hussein al-Houthi), supported by Iran, and on the other, the local government, backed by the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA).
Since 2015, Riyadh (which feared the appearance of pro-Iranian groups near its oil-producing provinces) officially entered the war and began military operations and large-scale bombing of Houthi-controlled cities. As a result, a real humanitarian catastrophe began in the country. More than a hundred thousand dead, the economy destroyed – and no chance of victory for either side.
The Saudi coalition (with all the soldiers, mercenaries, weapons) was unable to capture Houthi territory, or even completely cut it off from ports and other means of delivering weapons from Iran. In turn, the Houthis cannot kick Saudi troops out of Yemen.
USA rubbed their hands
The Americans were completely satisfied with this alignment.
Firstly, the very presence of several hundred thousand armed rebels on the border with Saudi Arabia created a direct threat to the security of the kingdom – and therefore made Riyadh dependent on American defense guarantees. Secondly, the largest oil fields of KSA were within the reach of missiles and combat drones, which the Iranian partners kindly supplied to the Houthis, and the Houthis regularly attacked these fields.
All this forced the kingdom to involve the United States in the organization of the air defense system, and also made the safety of Saudi oil production dependent on the Pentagon.
Finally, at any moment of aggravation of bilateral relations, Washington, through its “independent” press, could raise the issue of human rights violations in Yemen (see the bombing of cities, tens of thousands of deaths, and the state of the humanitarian catastrophe in the country).
However, to Washington’s regret, the Yemeni conflict has begun to be resolved. The situation in Yemen entered the negotiation channel immediately after Iran and Saudi Arabia first agreed in Beijing to normalize relations, and then on the spot began to resolve all their differences in conflicts on the periphery.
“The Saudis kept us informed about these negotiations,” said White House press secretary John Kirby, but in reality, this negotiating success came as a surprise to Washington. According to The Wall Street Journal, CIA chief William Burns, who arrived in Riyadh, expressed extreme dissatisfaction with his Saudi counterparts about the pace and scope of their negotiations with the Iranians – according to him, these paces “stunned” Washington.
For Riyadh, this was a way out of an extremely unprofitable impasse in all respects. “Currently, the KSA is well aware that its henchmen and partners will not be able to defeat their opponents. This means that there is no other way but to negotiate, Elena Suponina, an international political scientist and RIAC expert, explains to the VZGLYAD newspaper.
In three steps
In fact, it was a multi-stage process.
“First, we need to establish relations between the Houthis and the KSA. Then introduce a truce regime for the next six months, during which one could try to reach a compromise. To create a viable transitional body that would include the opposing sides and could control the situation on earth”, Leonid Isaev, deputy director of the HSE Center for the Study of Stability and Risks, explains to the VZGLYAD newspaper.
As part of the first stage, an event has already occurred that seemed unrealistic a year ago. On April 10, the Saudi Foreign Minister arrived in the Houthi capital Sana’a and shook hands with those on whose heads the KSA had recently offered millions of dollars, in particular one of the leaders of the Houthis, Mahdi al-Mashat. Now they were talking about the conditions for the introduction of a truce. The agreement should include the unblocking of all Yemeni communications, as well as the allocation of funds from the Yemeni budget for the payment of salaries to all government workers and fighters in the territory controlled by the Houthis.
As a sign of seriousness of intentions, an exchange of prisoners took place in parallel with the visit. Houthis freed about 180 people – Saudi and Sudanese soldiers (the latter are fighting as mercenaries), as well as several Yemeni journalists working for the KSA. In response, Riyadh released almost 700 Houthis captured during the fighting. It is possible that this exchange will be followed by others – the total exchange fund is estimated at about 15 thousand people.
Everyone has to take into account
True, the United States still has a chance to retain the Yemeni instrument. After all, it is not known whether the Saudis and the Houthis (as well as the Iranians behind them) will be able to complete the process.
“We are entering the stage of the negotiation process, and it is not clear how it will end. More than once or twice during the Yemeni crisis, transitional governments were created, truces were announced – and then everything collapsed”, recalls Leonid Isaev.
For example, it is not clear how the main partner of Saudi Arabia in this war, the United Arab Emirates, will behave. Like the KSA, the UAE has invested a lot of money in this war – but, unlike the Saudis who agreed with the Iranians, no one has yet discussed the benefits of the Emirates.
“So far, the interests of the UAE are not taken into account. Now the KSA does not make sense to lobby the interests of the UAE, and an attempt to negotiate with the Houthis will subsequently be a serious argument in strengthening the position of the KSA in Yemen. When negotiations begin on how the Houthi North and the more Emirates-oriented South will find common ground, then we will talk about taking into account the interests of the Emirates,” continues Leonid Isaev.
The South is a different story.
“Not all participants in this complex process consider their interests taken into account. So, the representatives of South Yemen are in some confusion, but they are already preparing to outline their demands,” Elena Suponina believes.
And these conditions are simple – no money from the southern regions to the north, no deductions from the southern oil fields to the northerners, and in general the southerners are in favor of dividing Yemen. And it’s not just that the southerners consider themselves richer and do not want to feed the northerners – it’s just that until 1990 there was no single Yemen. There has always been South and North Yemen (called differently in history), where different tribes lived in different climatic conditions and with different development trajectories. And the UAE (which at one time relied on the southern forces and through them influencing the processes in the country) actually supports the agenda of the southerners.
However, with all these complexities and uncertainties, the main thing is that the process has begun. It is already good that KSA and Iran have agreed. “Yes, these agreements will be reached through painful negotiations, but the energy of the conflict in Yemen is drying up,” said Elena Suponina. There is real hope that the agreements reached will become a foundation that can give a chance not only to end the civil war in Yemen, but also to end the pivotal Middle East conflict – the Iranian-Saudi conflict.
This will not only free up a number of resources of these states, will not only contribute to greater security for them and the region, but will also lead to a weakening of the position of the United States. Countries that have poured kerosene on Middle East conflicts for so long and with such zeal in order to later benefit from the role of a firefighter.
Gevorg Mirzayan, VIEW
Due to censorship and blocking of all media and alternative views, stay tuned to our Telegram channel