Puppet Masters

A Trump-Salman alliance has all eyes on Yemen

Andrew Korybko
Sputnik
Sat, 27 May 2017 10:45 UTC

The recently rejuvenated military alliance between the US and Saudi Arabia could have enormous - and immediate - implications for the War on Yemen. The peninsular and impoverished country has been in a state of total warfare ever since the Saudis began a brutal campaign against them in spring 2015. The stated objective has always been to restore deposed former president Hadi to power, who fled to the Wahhabi Kingdom after the Houthi national liberation movement took control of the country, though the implicit motivation behind the war is commonly recognized by most analysts as being a proxy conflict to counter speculated Iranian influence.

The Western narrative is that the Houthis are nothing more than a stand-in for Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps because of their shared Shia faith, though that assertion has been clearly debunked by the fact that the group enjoys broad cross-sectarian support all throughout Yemen. Nevertheless, it's geopolitically convenient for the US to scare its Saudi ally with the boogeyman threat of "Iranian encirclement", which is what prompted the Kingdom's young Defense Minister Mohamed Bin Salman to initiate the war in the first place.

Trump made his anti-Iranian sentiment well known even before he entered into office, and his latest speech in Riyadh confirmed what many had already long believed - that the so-called "Arab NATO" which the US is trying to formalize in the region is really aimed against Iran. The Saudis already lead a 55-nation coalition that is ostensibly supposed to fight against terrorism, but which is now becoming the cornerstone of the US' proxy plans against the Islamic Republic.

Trump just agreed to the world's largest-ever arms deal with King Salman for $110 billion, with the potential to raise it up to $350 billion across the next decade, and the Saudis also said that their coalition allies agreed to contribute a total of 34,000 troops as a reserve force.

Considering the unlikelihood that the "Arab NATO" will be used against Iran directly, at least at this early stage of its formation, it's pertinent then to contemplate whether it'll be unleashed against Iran's perceived interest in the region, Yemen, in exacerbating the war in that country, though with the calamitous consequences of worsening the humanitarian crisis there and creating new opportunities for Daesh and Al Qaeda to expand their gains.

Comment: Be careful what you wish for, more careful what you do. Yemen is suffering beyond imagination for a faulty ideology at the hands of the Wahhabi Kingdom and the West, a byproduct in the contest for control and power in the ME.

Reader Comments

graeme15b · 2017-05-29T20:57:50Z

I don't see why other nations like Russia for example, or China even, don't step up here and deliver the much needed aid with, military protection of course.

Baybars · 2017-05-29T21:57:26Z

graeme15b That's just it; military protection. I have no doubt that Russia, at the very least are involved in helping Yemen against al Saud, Whitehall and the Whitehouse (aSWWipe), but they cannot come out and advertise it because there is far too much at stake. Syria is an example and Russia's involvement there has taken a heavy financial, physical and emotional toll on the Russians. Why do you think Russia has not gone into the Ukraine to stop the killing of ethnic Russians by the lunatics carrying nazi flags and making chocolate bon-bons?

This is a situation that aSWWipe know well and are using to hold the other world powers at bay, for now. If and when Russia and China step up to the plate, it will be the end of this chapter in history and the beginning of one I fear to read.

graeme15b · 2017-05-29T22:57:04Z

Baybars The Chinese could do more in Yemen as well.

The reason, or one of them anyway, i reckon why the Russians haven't gone into Ukraine is that was what the west wanted, a trap set to prove Russian aggression to the rest of the world, and isolate them. That didn't work. The LPR/DPR also seem to be holding their own. But perhaps more importantly, the people of Ukraine will get fed up with the nazis and the junta in Kiev. Then perhaps they will realize they have a friend across the border, and the true enemy lies west, not east. Without Russian interference in Ukraine, the mess there can't be blamed on Russia indefinitely, that won't hold water for too long. The Russians are thinking far ahead.

I reckon the Eastern nations here are bending over backwards to prevent an all out war with the west. But there will be a red line somewhere! The US and west will get a rude awakening should they push it too far. Anyway, the way the Eurasian powers are building their new world, and the methods they have been using are very effective so far. So they will continue much the same methinks, and more nations will want in.

Rowan Cocoan · 2017-05-30T04:27:38Z

It is amazingly selfish of the US to be 'at the forefront' of N.A.T.O.* when any war we manage to stir up certainly would hurt 'our' Eastern European 'Allies' in NATO, (which the US promised to never expand Eastward.)

Why don't you hear anything about that lie/false promise by the USA on the MSM? (Oh, yeah, you know why.)

Salman ought to start have his face turn red, his jaw start growing, and migrate somewhere up the river where he was spawned. That would be his final act, eh? (Picture comes to mind on that expressly up to now just bad joke re 'salman' vs. 'salmon'; but then I thought of all the pictures of all the Bears swatting them out as they head upstream to spawnl and die. But the bear might get ya first...

R.C.

* The reason for the existence of which just proves that bureaucracies all acquire a virus-like tenacious life. There's been no need for NATO since the fall of the Berlin Wall, the end of the Warsaw Pacts, except as a tool for warmongers in the 'West' when if we light a fire in Eastern Europe, (we damn sure seem to be trying to), the folks who are going to hurt the worst are Europeans (and, despite how the UK might fool itself, the English Channel/North Sea do not protect it nearly as much as the combination of the Atlantic and Arctic and Paciic Oceans protecting the US, which behaves like a spoiled "Little Asshole Rich Kid"* who happened to get into weapons, and still has (routinely) kindergarten playground level tantrums.

R.C.

Rowan Cocoan · 2017-05-30T04:29:15Z

"Little Asshole Rich Kid"*

= 'L.A.R.K."

R.C.

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A Trump-Salman alliance has all eyes on Yemen

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