Local Editor
Geopolitical analyst Ulf Sandmark says Saudi Arabia is stuck in the war in Yemen without finding an honorable way to end it and instead continues to gamble by redoubling its input like gambling addicts.
Speaking in an exclusive interview with FNA, Ulf Sandmark said that the Saudis, who very much relied on their mercenaries and air power, underestimated the barefoot Yemeni fighters and are now stuck without an honorable way to end the war they started.
According to the analyst, the British, who are financially benefiting from the arms sales to Saudi Arabia, are geopolitically looking for destabilization of the South West Asia region with the aim to block the emerging Chinese New Silk Road (NSR) policy, which is a threat to the British geopolitical policy of Divide and Rule.
Ulf Sandmark is a Swedish economist and human rights activist as well as a longtime collaborator of American political figure Lyndon H. LaRouche. Sandmark is a board member of the Schiller Institute in Sweden and the Stockholm correspondent for the Executive Intelligence Review (EIR). He has delivered speeches at various international conferences, including a two-day conference held in London last year with his stated aim to “support the Yemeni people against the Anglo-American-Saudi imperial war.”
FNA has conducted an interview with Ulf Sandmark about the ongoing humanitarian catastrophe in Yemen and possible motives behind the war imposed on the country by Saudi Arabia and its western allies namely the US and the UK.
Below you will find the full text of the interview.
Q: What do you think about the ongoing humanitarian crisis in Yemen caused by the Saudi war and the blockade on the country? What are the Saudis’ objectives in their war on Yemen?
A: This worst ongoing humanitarian crisis in the world is constantly misreported. Mostly, it is just the plus 10,000 civilian deaths mentioned caused by direct war action. It is not including that a child dies every ten minutes from starvation, dehydration and disease. Even the figure 247,000 deaths mentioned in Sana’a August 28th, 2017, by Minister of Human Rights Alia Faysal Abdul Latif, is probably much too small, if all the deaths caused by the war from hunger, disease and lack of medical care are included.
Q: It seems that the Saudis expected an easy-to-win combat when they first stepped into the war. What do you see as the reasons for Riyadh’s continued failure in Yemen?
A: The Saudis underestimated the barefoot Yemeni fighters. The Saudis lack the citizen soldiers of a republic fighting for their cause. With just mercenaries and air power they cannot win the war. They did not succeed to use former president Saleh to split the Sana’a government. Now they are stuck without an honorable way to end the war, and instead gamble by redoubling their input, very much like addicted gamblers.
Q: Why do the US and the UK continue to supply Saudi Arabia with arms despite international criticism with regard to civilian casualties?
A: The endless standoff in the Yemen war suits perfectly the British objective to move the destabilizations to the Gulf region, when pushed out of Iraq, Syria, Lebanon and Turkey. Geopolitically the [Persian] Gulf is the most important area from where the British attempt to control China, Japan, India and Indonesia, who depend on the energy sources there. This is the stated policy of the modern form of British empire as described in April 2013 by Royal United Services Institute´s Briefing paper: “A Return to East of Suez?” As the US moves out of the [Persian] Gulf to concentrate on the Asian pivot against China, the British filled the vacuum.
Taking a leading Western role in the [Persian] Gulf benefitted the British arms sales, the briefing states, but does not mention the closer control of the Sovereign Wealth Funds to shore up the Western financial centers and the most dirty imperial operations. There is no mentioning of the huge secret slush fund created out of the Yamama weapons deals with the Saudis, and used for secret joint deployments of terrorists and insurrections around the globe.
The urgent motivation for destabilizations of the South West Asia region has been to block the emerging Chinese New Silk Road (NSR) policy, which is a threat to the British geopolitical policy of Divide and Rule. NSR could transform the whole region (and the world) by integrating it economically and peacefully with Asia, Africa and Europe, as has been shown by the cooperation between Russia, Iran and China in the Syrian war.
Q: Why have the international organizations, particularly the UN, remained passive in the face of the ongoing Saudi atrocities?
A: They are actually raising their voices a lot about the humanitarian suffering, but the war decisions remains with governments, not NGOs.
Q: The Saudi-led coalition has recently increased its airstrikes on Yemen. These airstrikes have mostly killed Yemeni civilians, including thousands of women and children. What do you see as the reason for the airstrikes targeting civilians?
A: In failing to defeat the Yemeni military forces, the Saudis have intensified the policy to force the Yemenis to capitulate by starving the civilian population. The intent of starvation is proven by the Saudi answer, to the international outcry demanding ending of the siege on the harbor Hodeida, by renewed attacks right there.
Q: Why is the regime continuing its attacks on the country despite its failures and cash-strapped economy? What do you think about the future of the war?
A: The Saudis and the [Persian] Gulf states are not on their own in this. They are haunted by the British imperial needs to keep the tension. Eventually their war on Yemen, or other destabilizations of even themselves, could be used to bring the US president into a self destruction by attacking Iran. President Trump would not politically survive an attack against Iran, like he could after the cruise missiles attack against the Syrian air force base. He is not elected to follow the advices from the US neoconservative war hawks, but to end the geopolitical wars in Asia. In this way the constant cooking (reshuffling) of the region suits the higher British purpose of regime change in the US, when that is not achieved by the Mueller investigation or all the other British scandal mongering against the US president. However, this instability cannot go on for long. It will go either way. If the US is brought further into peaceful cooperation with the BRICS nation to build the New Silk Road, then the war in Yemen could stop very soon. Otherwise…
Source: FNA, Edited by Website Team
