Pak Sahafat – As the eighth year of the Saudi military invasion of Yemen approaches, re-reading the historical and social roots of the Yemeni crisis and the beginning and escalation of the crisis could shed light on the nature of the war and prevent the enemies of the Islamic Republic of Iran from distorting the facts.
According to Pak Sahafat News agency, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the West’s intense reaction to the incident have once again drawn the attention of the media and international public opinion to the Yemeni crisis, which coincides with the final days of the seventh year of Saudi Arabia’s military aggression. Meanwhile, large-scale Saudi propaganda continues to accuse the Islamic Republic of Iran of interfering in the internal affairs of Yemen as a factor in the occurrence and escalation of the crisis in this country. The Saudi media and officials are constantly repeating false allegations about Tehran’s interference in Yemen’s internal affairs in order to distort the facts about the crisis.
Revolution 2011; an incompatible nature with Yemeni society
Despite the unparalleled success of Yemeni society in the peaceful life of different Islamic religions together throughout history; the religious identity of individuals and tribes plays a significant role in the political behavior of the social units of this country [1]. This issue even led to the overthrow of the Mutawakkil leadership regime in 1969, which did not remove the Yemeni Zaydi community from the power structure in the country, and during the Republican period, the Zaydi secular current took power in northern Yemen and then in a united Yemen with a glaze of nationalism.
This feature of the political culture of the Yemeni people shows that the victory of the 2011 revolution, which meant the domination of the Akhwan-ul-Muslimeen as the organizational representative of the Sunni identity current over the joints of power in Yemen, is an incompatible change in the characteristics and realities of Yemeni society.
The Yemeni Akhwan-ul-Muslimeen, which has been organized and operated by the Reform Party since the beginning of the North-South Alliance and the establishment of the Republic of Yemen, in addition to the difference in religious identity with a large and indelible part of the Yemeni political and social elite; There was also a heterogeneous patch in the social fabric of this country.
While the structure of Yemeni society is tribal and the political, religious and social characteristics of the tribes are the main determinants of the behavior of the country’s political and social actors [2]; The Akhwan-ul-Muslimeen, in an atmosphere completely influenced by the excitement of the victory of the revolution in Egypt and Tunisia, tried to implement the model of the Arab Spring revolutions in Yemen, which were mainly based on networks formed and won in the urban middle class.
This effort and modeling was incomplete while more than 70% of the Yemeni population lives in villages [3] and in Yemen today only the three cities of Sanaa, Taiz and Aden can be considered as modern cities whose middle class can The title of active body should be used to implement the classic patterns of Brotherhood civil disobedience.
This lack of social context led the Yemeni Akhwan-ul-Muslimeen to abandon the pattern of civil disobedience in the midst of the revolution in 2011 and to take a radical approach and take armed action to take control of various parts of Yemen, especially the main protest areas. The charge of bombing the Nahdin Grand Mosque in the Yemeni presidential complex in mid-2011 with the aim of assassinating Ali Abdullah Saleh and senior government officials is also being investigated.
External intervention to institutionalize the crisis
Saudi policy in Yemen has long pursued two pillars: restraint and maintaining the status quo. In fact, Riyadh has prevented the collapse of Yemen-based governments for decades by supporting them, but in various ways has instituted a controlled level of systemic inefficiency in the country. It is known that King Abdul Aziz, the founder of the third Saudi government, made a will on his deathbed: “Keep Yemen weak.
This policy was also pursued during the 2011 revolution with the aim of creating institutionalized inefficiencies through transformation engineering. The Akhwan-ul-Muslimeen and the Reform Party were the best option for creating a cycle of inefficiency and institutional weakness of the government in Yemen due to the inherent weaknesses of the Sunni identity current. This weakness prevented the 2011 Yemeni revolution, unlike the Tunisian and Egyptian revolutions, from quickly overthrowing the dictator.
The Akhwan-ul-Muslimeen, realizing its inherent inability to seize and consolidate the top of the power pyramid, reached out to foreigners, specifically Saudi Arabia and the United States. The Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) plan, designed to oust Saleh from power and stabilize the Akhwan-ul-Muslimeen in power in Yemen, was the Saudis’ biggest supporter of the Akhwan.
This support continued in the form of supporting the resolutions of the 2014 talks and supporting Hadi against the 2014 Ansarullah revolution, and finally the military invasion of Yemen in 2015.
The United States was another destination for the Yemeni Akhwan-ul-Muslimeen to gain international support for its revolution. The release of US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s emails in 2020 confirms the existence and depth of this connection, especially in 2011 and the height of the Yemeni revolution.
Cycle of instability
In November 2011, after much deliberation, Saleh signed the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) plan to step down in exchange for political immunity for himself and his family, and for his party, al-Mutmar al-Shabi, to remain in power. This plan practically provided the ground for long-term instability in Yemen. The guarantee of political immunity for Ali Abdullah Saleh and his family, the most important and powerful alternative to the fledgling revolutionary government, confirms the idea that the Saudis were seeking to create a long-term cycle of instability in Yemen.
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The Hadi government was initially elected as an interim government with the aim of holding national talks and drafting a new constitution for only two years. The Akhwan-ul-Muslimeen and the Reform Party, which were in power in the Hadi government, tried to manage the congressional resolutions in their favor during the national talks, the most important of which was the disregard for the demands of the people of the south and Saada in the national dialogue resolutions.
From the beginning of the unification of the two Yemenis and the establishment of the Republic of Yemen in 1990, the two southern regions and the province of Saada had the most social crises and dissatisfaction with the central government. During this period, the South experienced a full-blown civil war in 1994 and a major social movement and anti-government demonstration in 2009. Saada also fought six times from 2004 to 2010 with government forces, also backed by Saudi Arabia. However, the two regions’ request for practical assurances of security and a fair share of power and resources in the Special Dialogue Committees was rejected.
The rejection of the demands of the people of the south and Saada province in the mechanism designed and implemented by the Reform Party was already known due to the history of the totalitarian behavior of the Reform Party and the suppression of other political and religious currents. Ansarullah entered the mechanism as a representative of the people of Saada to show their goodwill. As it became clear that Ansarullah and the southern movement had not been consulted by the special committees of the two currents, they announced that they would withdraw from the talks and would not recognize the resolutions of this congress.
During Hadi’s interim government, the totalitarian approaches of the Reform Party left Ansarullah frustrated with securing his own interests and interests through dialogue, and took the path of securing interests by consolidating ground control. In several stages, Saada forces expelled their opponents, including the multinational Salafis based in Dar al-Hadith, Damaj, with the support of tribes in the northern provinces of Sanaa.
Bone in the throat?
The failure to completely eliminate Ali Abdullah Saleh and his faction during the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) plan posed a major threat to the reformist government. Finally, in May 2014, Ali Abdullah Saleh, who still had a strong network of loyalists in the Yemeni government and army, as well as the tribes of Sanaa and around the capital, claimed to have thwarted his assassination plan by the Reform Party.
The joint enmity of Ansarullah and Ali Abdullah Saleh with the Reform Party led to the formation of a coalition between the two currents, which took to the streets in September 2014, using public dissatisfaction with the inefficiency of the Akhwan government and after announcing the removal of fuel subsidies.
After the capture of Sanaa during the revolution of September 21, 2014; Ansarullah signed a memorandum of understanding with Hadi’s government and the Reform Party, according to which Hadi was tasked with appointing a neutral prime minister, selecting two advisers from Ansarullah and the southern movement to ensure the two groups’ interests in government decisions and reducing fuel prices. Eventually, however, Hadi did not live up to his commitments to Ansarullah, who had now become the representative of Hadi’s opponents, and fled to Aden in January 2015, complicating the situation to end the conflict.
It is natural that in a situation where there is a serious difference between the political groups of a country, the correct and principled behavior is to mediate to end the problems and prevent the crisis from deepening, but Saudi Arabia entered the conflict biased and the internal dispute deepened the crisis. Hadi’s escape to Riyadh and his request for military intervention from Saudi Arabia in a domestic political dispute proved that his government’s claim of coordination with the Saudis was not far-fetched.
War against the neighbor
With Saudi Arabia invading Yemen, the cycle of instability in the country, which was mainly exacerbated by foreign intervention, deepened again and took on a regional and trans-regional dimension. UN Security Council Resolution 2216 also ignores a large part of Yemeni society and accepts the Saudi biased and incorrect view of the roots of the crisis; Marked another stage of foreign intervention in Yemen, which played an important role in bringing Yemen further away from peace; and stabilization had its roots in unrest in the country.
Saudi Arabia’s military intervention in Yemen with Western military and intelligence assistance to the Saudis in the campaign and the repeated killing of large numbers of Yemenis have deepened the political and social rifts in Yemeni society and made the crisis far more inaccessible.
Saudi Arabia and the UAE are currently seeking to deepen the Yemeni crisis to the point of social and territorial collapse, using three legal means. These three instruments, known in the literature of the Arab League as the “Trinity Authorities” – the three authorities – include the draft of the Gulf Cooperation Council (2011), the resolutions of the National Dialogue Congress (2014) and Resolution 2216 (2015).
According to the above description, due to not considering the demands of a large part of the Yemeni society and supporting one of the parties to the dispute in a domestic political conflict, they have become the most important factors in deepening the crisis in Yemen. Therefore, it is necessary to pursue internationally, in addition to condemning the interference of Saudi Arabia and the UAE in the internal affairs of Yemen, killing innocent people and destroying the infrastructure of this country; Provide a platform for direct dialogue between Yemeni groups and an end to foreign intervention to reach a solution to end the cycle of instability and conflict in the country.