© AFP 2016/Mohammed HuwaisYemen in ruins thanks to US, UK, House of Saud.
Days after
over 100,000 Yemenis rallied in Sanaa against Saudi Arabia for the latter's continued shelling campaign, US Secretary of State
John Kerry arrived in Riyadh to discuss the ongoing bloodbath. The founder of the UK-based Islamic Human Rights Commission, Massoud Shadjareh, spoke with Radio Sputnik about Western involvement and possible outcomes of the war.
Framing the violence in Yemen as a proxy war involving Iran is flat-out wrong, in the words of Shadjareh, who was interviewed by Brian Becker on Radio Sputnik's
Loud & Clear program.
Iran, accused by the Saudis of supporting the Houthi political opposition faction throughout the war, hasn't got any influence on conflict in Yemen, he said. "There's a total blockade of sea, and [Iranian] weapons cannot get through, personnel cannot get through. Iran has no air forces involved," Shadjareh noted, offering that the
real driving force of the hostilities in Yemen is Saudi Arabia that has been shelling the country since March 2015.
To justify its attempted invasion, the Saudis used the
pretext of spreading democracy, which is patently absurd, given that Saudi Arabia is a monarchy, and it practices executions and widely oppresses women, Shadjareh said. Riyadh "wants to be a regional power" and has instigated a number of conflicts, including those in Bahrain, Syria and Yemen, he said. "They want to strengthen themselves so as to ensure the continuation of the royal family's dictatorship." The Saudi's real goal in sending troops Yemen, he said, is
to place a puppet president in power who will obey Riyadh. "Here we've got one of the richest countries in the region, or in the world, attacking one of the poorest countries, destroying infrastructure and killing children," he said, speaking of the ongoing Saudi bombing campaign, known to be
using US-manufactured weapons.
Comment: From the red line to the flat line...someone is crying wolf one too many times. US policy: Back up a lie with the same lie, even if it has been exposed.