Yet another Arab nation faces a humanitarian crisis following military conflict, as the localised war between various forces
in Yemen has taken on a regional dimension. After the besieged Yemeni
government requested help, the Gulf Cooperation Council, led by Saudi
Arabia, launched air attacks
against Houthi rebel positions in Yemen on March 26. The Saudis have
deployed a large force with help from Arab countries such as Egypt and
Jordan and others such as Pakistan and Sudan. This military action —
without UN sanction — has also involved logistical help from the United
States. The ostensible reason for the Saudi intervention is to temper
the rising Iranian influence in its immediate neighbourhood. The U.S.
involvement — which seems to have bipartisan support in the U.S. polity —
is more of a reflexive reaction to register support for its Saudi
allies and for the besieged transitional government in Yemen. Saudi
Arabia and its allies who have joined the effort allege that the Houthis
are being funded and armed by Iran.
The Houthis are a Zaidi Shia group that had participated in uprisings
against former Yemeni President and long-time ruler Abdullah Saleh and
who had felt left out from the transitional government that followed
Saleh’s rule. It is the failure of the transitional government — which
was set up with help from the Gulf Cooperation Council in 2012 — to
accommodate the Houthis’ interests that fuelled the insurgency. The
Houthis have a large degree of control over many areas of northwestern
Yemen, including over the capital, Sana'a. The Houthi-led insurgency is
not the only military conflict raging in Yemen. The al-Qaeda in the
Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) leads another insurgency in the southeast along
with the Ansar al-Sharia; this one is a Sunni Islamist rebellion. The
regional intervention against the Houthis is bound to strengthen the
AQAP. The inability of the ineffectual transitional government to
effectively govern a nation that has steadily been divided on sectarian
lines, and the weakening of the economy, have helped the various
insurgent forces strengthen themselves. The Houthi forces’ consolidation
in the south could have presented an opportunity for a new, more
inclusive and legitimate government following a ceasefire, but that
option is now ruled out as the conflict has been effectively
regionalised with the Saudi intervention. Yemen increasingly appears to
be heading towards Syria’s fate — a nation torn asunder into enclaves
controlled by sectarian and fundamentalist groups and constantly at war
among one another. What started as yet another promising chapter of the
Arab Spring has now taken a turn that follows events elsewhere in the
region — regression into a harsh Arab Winter.
The Hindu Editorial
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