By Anthony Mathew Jacob
Saudi Arabia is an absolute monarchy where no parliamentary elections are held and any demands for democracy or freedom are met with imprisonment, torture or death. It is a country where women can’t leave house without being accompanied by a male member or even open a bank account without their husband’s permission. It is a place where women can’t drive or even enter cemeteries. However, this country is elected as chair of a panel of independent experts on the UN Human Rights Council.
This same country wants to restore democracy in Yemen.
A Saudi-led coalition against Yemen includes the UAE, Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, Sudan, Egypt and logistical and intelligence support provided by the U.S.
The ongoing aggression in Yemen is to ostensibly bring back Yemen’s former fugitive president back to power but in reality its hatred for democracy and free speech.
What prompted the Saudi aggression in Yemen?
The ruling elite in Riyadh has time and again resorted to fear mongering and propaganda against Iran among other Persian Gulf Arab nations and drummed up support for all their misadventures in the Middle East. Not just Yemen but the ongoing conflicts in Syria and Iraq are also linked to Saudi propaganda and anti-Iran policies. At the beginning of the conflict, the assumption was that it would crush the popular uprising within weeks of airstrikes and force the Houthi Ansarullah movement into hiding and finally restore the corrupt Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi. With just a few weeks or rather few months in mind, the Saudi monarchs hired foreign pilots to bomb vital infrastructures like government offices, hospitals, power plants, docks, airports, dams, universities, schools and civilian homes. Targets were deliberately and carefully chosen to cripple the already impoverished nation and push them into further poverty.
Saudi destruction in Yemen
In the ongoing aggression, the kingdom has successfully destroyed Yemen and continue to do so on an almost daily basis, thanks to the support of the coalition backed by the five gulf states, along with Jordan, Morocco, and Sudan. Equally important in this aggression is the weapons, logistics, intelligence and target precision provided by their Western puppet masters. According to a report released by Yemen’s Human Rights Centre in February, more than 800 schools, 240 medical centers, hundreds of fuel depots and power plants have been completely destroyed. The report also stated that airports, docks, harbors, bridges and hundreds of roads across the nation have been razed to the ground. The kingdom’s airstrikes have killed more than 8,400 people including 2,236 children and have left more than 16,000 injured.
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Not only has Saudi Arabia failed to achieve its targets but has ended up in a jigsaw puzzle unable to find a way out. The Saudi rulers find themselves in the worst quagmire of the decade; they have miserably failed in their attempts towards a regime change in Syria, despite the millions of dollars they have poured in over the last five years. And now they are fighting an inconclusive war in Yemen with no victory at sight. Moreover the dip in oil prices has severely battered the oil-based economy. With low oil revenues, rising costs and the need to sustain an unwinnable war in Yemen coupled with millions of dollars of aid to terrorist groups in Syria, the kingdom is walking right into a bleak future both economically and politically.
Apart from their economic predicament, Saudi has faced major losses in its misadventures in Yemen. The Ansarulllah movement has inflicted heavy losses on the Saudi regime. According to reports around 2000 Saudis have lost their lives in the war and around 4,850 have sustained injuries. As per estimates around $53 billion has been spent so far in the campaign against Yemen. Around 450 tanks, armored vehicles, four Apache jets and an F-15 aircraft have so far been destroyed or disabled by the Ansarulllah and their allies. Even the recent prisoner swap between Riyadh and Sana’a has exposed the kingdom’s desperation and vulnerability; Riyadh agreed to exchange 9 of its soldiers for 109 Yemeni soldiers and members of Ansarullah group. Moreover, the war that Riyadh took to Sana’a has now come to haunt them within their own territory. Apart from chasing the Saudi soldiers out of Yemen, the Yemeni Army backed by popular mobilization forces and the Ansarulllah movement have established full control over the Saudi border town of Al-Raboah, in the southwestern Asir province and forced the Saudi soldiers to take to their heels.
Today, Saudis and their allies are looking for a dignified way out of this unwinnable war. Neither can they acknowledge that they have lost badly in Yemen, nor can they turn the tables in their favor for all their attempts have only met with failure so far.
The Saudi rulers are walking towards an oasis in search of water. The sooner they realize this, the better it will be, not just for the innocent Yemenis but for themselves too.
Source: Tehran Times, Edited by Website Team
