With the defeat of the main plan in Yemen, the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia seeks to implement an “alternative plan” or “Plan B“, the main goal at this stage is to sow discord between Iran and Ansarullah.
Mohammad Reza Moradi: On Friday, the Wall Street Journal claimed that there were differences between the Yemeni Ansarullah movement and Iran, and that because of these differences, the Iranian ambassador to Yemen intended to leave the country.
“Mohammad Abdul Salam,” the spokesman for the Yemeni Ansarullah movement, wrote in a Twitter message: An agreement was reached between Iran and Saudi Arabia through Baghdad regarding the transfer of the Iranian ambassador to Sanaa by an Iraqi plane, and this action was due to the health condition of the Iranian ambassador. He stressed that the news and speculations published in the media were false and untrue. The Saudi media also spread the news and sought to cast doubt on the relations between Iran and Ansarullah, but what is the purpose of Saudi Arabia and its supporters in this dispute?
The Yemeni Ansarullah movement took control of Sanaa and other parts of Yemen in 2015 with the resignation and escape of then-Yemeni President Mansour Hadi. Saudi Arabia called Ansarullah the second version of Lebanon’s Hezbollah and called for the movement to be defeated. Therefore, under the pretext of returning Mansour Hadi to power, he invaded Yemen in 2015, and Saudi Crown Prince Bin Salman promised victory in a few weeks. But the war in Yemen will enter its eighth year in a few months, and Saudi Arabia will not achieve its goals in this war and will have to implement other policies. In the following, we will take a look at Saudi Arabia’s step-by-step defeat in Yemen:
Acknowledging the legitimacy of Ansarullah
Saudi Arabia initially sought to portray Ansarullah as an insurgent and illegitimate group in the international community. But Ansarullah’s widespread victories forced not only Saudi Arabia but also the international community to recognize Ansarullah as a political group and not an insurgent group. Khalid bin Salman bin Abdulaziz, the son of the Saudi king, who is also the deputy defense minister, arrived in Muscat, the capital of Oman, on November 11, 1998, during an unannounced visit. Unofficial sources linked the Saudi Deputy Defense Minister’s visit to Muscat to Riyadh’s efforts to reach an agreement with the Yemeni Ansarullah movement. A Yemeni writer and journalist, Abbas al-Dhalee, wrote about why Khalid traveled to Muscat, where he met with Ansarullah’s delegation in Oman. He wrote: “Saudi Arabia has knelt before the Houthis and will meet all their conditions.” Ansarullah has already been able to assert his legitimacy in the international community by attending the Stockholm Summit in Sweden and the ceasefire agreement in Al-Hudaidah with other Yemeni groups. In fact, the delegitimization of Ansarullah was the first step of Saudi Arabia, which ultimately failed, and it was the first defeat of Saudi Arabia.
Passing the defensive to offensive stage
Since 2015, Saudi Arabia has destroyed Yemeni infrastructure in a series of attacks on Yemen, in addition to killing civilians. The whole purpose of such attacks by Saudi Arabia was to confront the Yemeni revolutionaries with scorched earth. In addition to these attacks, the comprehensive siege of Yemen and the prevention of the import of fuel, medicine and food to Yemen also imposed difficult conditions on the Yemeni people. The main goal was to spread dissatisfaction with Ansarullah’s performance in the northern regions of Yemen and eventually Ansarullah surrendered. But since 1998, the sheet has turned and the field equations have been reversed. Ansarullah decided in 1998 to launch a series of operations called the “Balance of Deterrence” against Saudi Arabia. These operations were able to completely change the equations of battle and put Al-Saud in a defensive position. Eight rounds of such operations have been carried out so far, and Ansarullah has repeatedly targeted rockets and drones at Aramco, Saudi military bases in Riyadh and other cities alongside military airports. The American Patriot systems are also incapable of countering such attacks, and Saudi Arabia is embroiled in a complex “security bottleneck.”
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In addition, the developments on the ground inside Yemen are progressing in a way that is leading Saudi Arabia to admit its final defeat. Clashes are now taking place in the strategic city of Ma’rib, and Ansarullah has been able to surround the city from three directions. The city of Ma’rib is the main gathering place for the Brotherhood elements. The party that forms the backbone of Mansour Hadi’s government’s infantry. According to military experts, the liberation of the city of Ma’rib could change all the equations of the Yemeni war. If the city is liberated, the resigned government will only control areas in Taiz province and part of Al-Mahra and Hadhramaut provinces. In fact, from a field perspective, the Saudi coalition has accepted defeat, and the statements of Saudi officials and even Westerners to stop the war in Ma’rib in this regard are being evaluated.
Implementation of Plan B.
With the defeat of the main plan in Yemen, the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia seeks to implement an “alternative plan” or “Plan B”. The main goal at this stage is to sow discord between Iran and Ansarullah. In the seven years since the Yemeni war, Saudi Arabia has always claimed that all Ansarullah missiles and drones are provided by Iran, and in fact Ansarullah’s power is due to Tehran’s support. At this stage, when Bin Salman has no choice but to move on the path of negotiations to end the Yemeni war, he has tried to get out of the Yemeni swamp at the lowest cost.
Bin Salman also knows that starting negotiations with Ansarullah means acknowledging the movement’s strong presence in Yemen’s political future. From Saudi Arabia’s point of view, this issue is a great threat, and that is the closeness between Ansarullah and Iran; Therefore, before entering into negotiations, these relations must be taken out of a friendly state and face challenges. It seems that Saudi Arabia will try to instill the idea among the Yemeni people that if Ansar al-Islam enters the talks, the siege will end and the economic situation of the Yemeni people will improve. But at the same time, he tries to present Ansarullah’s proximity to Iran as an obstacle in this direction. The Wall Street Journal reports on the expulsion of the Iranian ambassador from Yemen and the dispute between Tehran and Ansarullah and the Saudi media wave over this issue can be interpreted in this regard. In fact, this is the Saudi “Plan B” for the future of Yemen. Saudi Arabia, first of all, considers Yemen minus Ansarullah, and secondly, Yemen with Ansarullah minus Iran.
Although the news about the dispute between Iran and Ansarullah was strongly rejected by this movement and Tehran, we should not ignore the continuation of this alternative plan by the Saudi media.