Wiencek: Yemen and the Shia Crescent
by Jacob Wiencek
For the third time in a week, the USS Mason was fired on while patrolling the Bab el-Mandeb Straits. The attack was most likely the work of the Houthi, a radical Shia rebel group, probably supported by Iran who have gained control of the northwest part of the country in the ongoing Yemeni Civil War which has rocked the country since 2015 when President Mansour al Hadi fled the capital, Sana’a.
But 2015 was hardly the start of instability or troubles in Yemen; the country has been rocked, like most of the Middle East, by the Arab Spring protests along with the troubles of reunification despite that occurring officially in 1990.
With U.S forces now in more direct danger from the situation in Yemen, it is prudent we understand what is going on there and the role the U.S can play to constructively end the repeating crisis in the country.
A Brief Yemeni History
Like most of the Middle East, Yemen has a long and varied history, coming under the thumb of different outside rulers, and since the end of World War II the country, like the rest, has been wracked by divisions along ethnic and religious lines while also managing north-south divides, and Nasserist based Arab nationalism.
The country we know as Yemen today only emerged in 1990 after decades of wrangling by the different governments of North and South Yemen. North Yemen emerged first as a Sunni theocratic Kingdom in 1918 and was later a close ally of its Sunni theocratic neighbor to the north, Saudi Arabia. However the Kingdom was not immune to the Arab nationalist revolutions that swept the Middle East in the 1950’s and 1960’s, and by 1970 the new Yemeni Arab Republic had been established.
South Yemen however had evolved under far different circumstances. In the latter part of the 19th century, the British needed a coaling station to get to India and they chose the strategically situated port of Aden (right near the Bab el-Mandeb Straits) to make their colony. From there the British did what the British do best, colonize, divide and subjugate the local rulers, and secure their overall position.
However by the 1960’s the British position had become untenable and their attempt to create various client states had failed, thus they withdrew in 1967 and handed over power to the socialist National Liberation Front, which in turn sided with the USSR and other communist regimes until reunification in 1990.
Unfortunately for the country, things hardly improved post-unification. Former North Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh became the new President of Yemen for the next 20 years and largely refused to address the south’s concerns regarding the direction of the country. A brief civil war occurred in 1994 in response to government inattentiveness but southern forces were swiftly defeated by Saleh despite some Saudi support for the south.
From there, Saleh consolidated his rule and deftly managed the various competitors in Yemeni politics ranging from the tribal leaders, to the southern secessionists, all the while suppressing the growing Houthi rebellion in the North and al-Qaeda throughout the country.
Yemeni Instability
President Saleh’s rule however couldn’t hold indefinitely. Saleh might have navigated balancing the tribal leaders well, but serious issues went unaddressed.
The country faces severe water shortages, a stagnant economy (pre-war mind you) as Yemen is one of the few countries in the Middle East without sizable petroleum reserves. Terrorism and radicalization were always around the corner along with ethnic and regional differences that couldn’t be meaningfully addressed as there is no meaningful political participation in Yemen beyond the rubber stamp legislature that merely ratifies decisions already made.
All of this was bubbling underneath the surface when the Arab Spring broke across the Middle East in 2011 sweeping dictators from Tunisia to Egypt out of power. Yemen was not immune and by March 2011 Saleh had dug in his heels despite growing protests and call for his removal. An assassination attempt severely wounded him later that June forcing him to medical treatment in Saudi Arabia for months. After months of treatment and recovery, Saleh finally, and so it seemed, bowed to greater forces and let his Vice President, Mansour Hadi take power in an arranged political transition.
From there the situation ebbed and flowed, but didn’t get much better. As part of the transition a National Dialogue was called to address the serious issues plaguing Yemen and its politics but the process, which started with ambitious goals, failed to deliver or address any serious issue regarding balanced political participation or grievances brought up by the southern part of the country.
A wave of terrorism also swept the country, with groups like al-Qaeda taking advantage of the government transition. In response to this, President Hadi continued former President Saleh’s close counterterrorism cooperation with the U.S which had helped to partly stabilize the country. This cooperation which endured until 2015 was largely successful in several key asepect including dealing with known American terrorist Anwar al-Awlaki, who provided the inspiration for the 2009 Fort Hood attack, and the failed 2010 Times Square bombing attempt. He was also directly related to the failed “Underwear Bomber” in Christmas 2009, providing direct instruction and operational support. Through close cooperation U.S forces were able to remove Awlaki from the battlefield as a major player in al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula’s leadership structure.
Houthi Coup
Despite some counterterrorism successes, the Hadi Government was still unable to manage all the competing issues in Yemen, and several of those events began to unfold in 2014 which leaves us directly where we are today.
First, the National Dialogue decisively failed to address the transitional political process despite months of debate and negotiation. Some promising declarations were made about equal representation in the national legislature by north and south, along with a call for a form of federalism. These attempts largely failed though as neither side could figure out how to implement them and the government of President Hadi most likely was weary of giving more ground to the secessionists, another battle he didn’t need to fight given the instability caused by al-Qaeda and the Houthi rebels.
Second, the Houthi rebels launched a swift offensive from the north in September of 2014 that resulted in the capital city, Sana’a being effectively occupied by the armed opposition. Despite a “unity government” being “agreed” to, the Houthi rebels quickly rendered it meaningless and used the time between September and March to ingrain their position both militarily in the capital, and in the government institutions. Thus, a slow motion coup was in the making against Hadi. However, the Houthi were not the only players in this coup and were aided immensely by former President Saleh, who had been ousted 2 years earlier. Capitalizing on tensions with the new government, along with his deep and long standing connections to crucial military commanders, Saleh formed an alliance with his former enemies, the Houthi and when their militias began marching on Sana’a, Saleh made sure the army stayed in its barracks.
With the security forces pacified by Saleh, and Houthi militants virtually occupying Sana’a, along with co-opting the government institutions, President Hadi was left in an increasingly perilous position. These long standing tensions finally came to a head in March 2016 when Hadi resigned as President, fled Sana’a and then renounced his resignation and called for international assistance to restore his presidency and government.
Saudi Intervention
The international community came to the assistance of Hadi with even the United Nations Security Council voting to condemn the Houthi occupation. However his biggest backer thus far has been the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, which soon mobilized its own forces in unprecedented fashion and organized an international coalition to stabilize Yemen and restore order. To understand these actions we need to adjust our lens and see how the conflict went from a domestic issue regarding political legitimacy and morphed into the broader geopolitical conflict between Saudi Arabia and Iran.
Saudi Arabian and Iranian tensions date back to 1979 when two pivotal events occurred that shaped Saudi perceptions of Iran. Earlier in the year, Iran underwent its revolution that toppled the monarchy in Iran and created a Shia theocratic state. Later in the year, a perhaps even more significant event occurred when radical Islamic rebels seized the Grand Mosque of Mecca and directly threatened the core legitimacy of the Saudi regime.
Briefly, the Saudi Kingdom has as one of its central pillars of legitimacy the agreement with the religious establishment that so long as the House of Saud can rule, the reactionary religious establishment can preach its version of Islam with state backing. The siege in Mecca undermined this and while it was resolved in Saudi favor quickly, Iran wasted no time in trying to use the mosque seizure as a call for general Islamic revolution across the Middle East.
The crisis in Yemen then provided the next outlet for that conflict to be undertaken between the two countries. Despite taking the lead in trying to broker a peace deal through the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC), Saudi efforts in Yemen have been frustrated by the Iranian backed Houthi.
And make no mistake, the Houthi have been extensively backed by Iran for some time now, with Iran providing everything from small arms to missiles. It is no secret that Iran seeks to undermine U.S interests not only in the Middle East but worldwide as well, and Iranian moves in the region also lead to intense Saudi fears of being encircled. With the war raging in Syria, Iran is pushing hard for a northern portion of its “Shia crescent” to be linked with Iraq (where Iranian backed Shia militias are already leading the against the ISIL fight) and their Hezbollah client in Lebanon (which together with Hamas, their Palestinian client, benefits from Iranian support).
Any country would be alarmed by these types of events, including the Saudi’s, and now the Kingdom has to contend with other Iranian proxies being used to destabilize Yemen and possibly create a southern front.
The Path Forward
This leaves the U.S in a particularly sensitive spot on multiple fronts, with greater urgency than ever to act after this week’s repeated attacks against the Navy.
We have responded in serious ways to these attacks but the underlying danger remains that an unstable Yemen represents a serious national security concern to the U.S. Iranian involvement in Yemen has already had an impact on U.S counterterrorism operations in the country and a further deterioration of the situation leaves room for ISIL and al-Qaeda to grow and lay down roots as the only entities capable of imposing some sort of order on the chaotic country.
Nor can Saudi concerns be dismissed either. The country faces real fears about encirclement and Iran has never downplayed the idea that they seek to lead an Islamic revolution across the Middle East and perhaps further abroad.
The solutions we have at our disposal are limited to say the least. A direct intervention is decidedly off the table in this regards, especially after the U.S experience in Iraq. Any accommodation of Iran could be seen in the light of the nuclear deal we established with them last year, but Iran and the U.S are still geopolitical competitors and any toleration of expansion could be a sign of further U.S tolerance on other issues down the road.
Ultimately the U.S is left standing with our Middle East ally — Saudi Arabia. Rolling back Iran in Yemen through defeating their proxies would signal that the U.S will not take such actions without response and it could lead the way to leveraging restraint on Iran in Iraq and Syria where they continue to fund Shia militias in the former and the Assad regime in the latter. Additionally, a strong stance with Saudi Arabia would allow the U.S to assuage Saudi fears of encirclement while providing a tool to restrain Saudi actions as we carefully navigate relations with Iran in the post-nuclear deal era.
Perhaps the greatest benefit would be for the Yemeni people. By rolling back the Iranian supported rebels, we can more quickly return the legitimate government to power which would then have the chance to restore order to the chaotic country. Not only is the human suffering on display, but so too are counterterrorism concerns. ISIL is already being pressed hard in Iraq and most recently, in Libya, but allowing ISIL, and al-Qaeda a new haven in Yemen amidst the instability would be a deeply counterproductive move.
The situation in Yemen having been brought to the forefront of our national debate, we need to take constructive and decisive actions to ensure our own national security.
Jacob Wiencek is a Petty Officer Third Class in the United States Navy and current resident of Virginia. The views expressed above are his own and are not endorsed by nor reflect the official views and of the United States Navy, Department of the Navy, Department of Defense, or any other body of the United States Government.
