I can’t believe Obama let Saudi Arabia invade Yemen. We are even helping SA with logistics. What is the real agenda here? Is Obama trying to blow SA up?
Decisions in SA are made in a very, very small circle. What do the rest of the elites think about this adventure? What do military officers especially think?
As usual, the US based media pays no attention to the military aspect of a war.
Yemen is ideal country(and culture) for guerilla warfare. Few want really Hadi in charge, the people supporting him now have their own agendas. The other side is the same way.
The Houthis work with America against al-Qaeda, but chant “Death to America.”
The more you know about this wacky country, the less appetizing intervention looks. That’s presumably why the media doesn’t cover this fascinating and highly entertaining war more deeply.
My guess is that our policy in Yemen is just reacting to what happened, and then muddling through without getting our hands dirty.
Iran exploited Yemeni divisions and destabilized Yemen. It has been a huge cost and diversion to Iran’s arch rival Saudi Arabia. The Saudis could not tolerate Yemen falling into Iran’s orbit.
It is definitely refreshing to see Saudis fighting their own battles, without American kids dying for them. I feel sorry for the civilian population, but I am super relieved that we are not sending our boys into that mess.
Some cynical analysts recommend instigating conflicts in the Middle East, to keep the bad actors weak and at each others’ throats, but I think that such a mastermind approach is beyond what this Administration could handle. Nevertheless, that is happening to some degree.
It is not new for the Arabs to squander their oil revenues on warfare - it has tended to happen more than not over the last few decades. As a strategy though, fostering conflicts can certainly blowback, if one side decisively wins, and and then looks abroad.
On the Saudi side, I think that the elites are in lockstep with the new King, and their new hardline Defense Minister. The Saudis and Egyptians have fought in Yemen before, during the lives of today’s elites. Yemen is their backyard, Iran is their mortal enemy, and Shiites are loathed by devout Wahabbis. In a police state like Saudi Arabia, no whiff of dissent would be tolerated, especially not at a time like this, with Iranians and armed Shia a days drive from Mecca.
The Mahdi is, well conflicted. On the one hand most of his exposure to Islam and those aiding him have been Sunni Orthodox Muzzies. The same for Brennan who appears even more likely than BHO to be a real crypto-Muslim. also the K Street interest are definitely fronting for the Kingdom. Henry Kissinger (or his amanuensis) are very sophisticated front men for this view as being congruent with US security interests. On the other hand Valerie Jarratt who is definite one of the people most responsible for the wire pulling that elevated the Man Without a Resume’ to the Presidency is almost certainly some sort of Iranian proxy or agent of influence and she knows where the bodies are buried figuratively and literally. Hence the give aways in the so-called Iran Nuclear deal. So BHO is splitting the difference here and doing things that will guarantee the maximum destruction and chaos and no real clear cut winner unless, irony or irony, Israel becomes the regional hegemon of the wreckage of the Middle East in a decade or so.