For Saudi Arabia, Yemen is a vital security interest. The Saudis have long claimed a dominant role in shaping Yemen’s domestic politics. Yemen’s desert border with Saudi Arabia is a source of anxiety for the Kingdom’s leaders. Yemenis are poor, Yemen’s large population is still growing, and the Yemeni state has not been able to manage its economy successfully. Saudis fear that Yemen will implode, and Yemen’s problems will spill across the border into the Kingdom.
Much as NAFTA was designed to improve the Mexican economy and lessen the incentive to cross into the United States, Saudi Arabia’s desire to control Yemen is rooted in the belief that Saudi Arabian influence and support will prevent Yemen’s poverty from spilling into the Kingdom. The Saudis also fear that Yemen’s inability to police its territory allows hostile groups to threaten the Kingdom; al Qaeda launched several attacks on officials in the Kingdom from Yemen, and Saudi intelligence plays a critical role in fighting al Qaeda in Yemen.
These fears lead Saudi Arabia to fiercely guard its preeminence in Yemeni politics. The Saudis are by far the most influential foreigners in Yemen, and their military campaign in Yemen seeks to keep the Saudis on top of Yemeni affairs. The war in Yemen is not so much a proxy war between Iran and Saudi Arabia as it is a war for Saudi dominance. The Iranians play relatively little role in Yemen, and the challenges to Saudi dominance are domestic Yemeni actors – former ruler Ali Abdallah Saleh and the Houthi movement – who are both opposed to the Saudi vision of Yemeni politics.
The Saudi sponsored Gulf Cooperation Council Agreement sidelined Saleh in 2011, and the Houthi movement was born in opposition to Saudi sponsored tribal and religious politics in north Yemen. Both Saleh and the Houthis have shown a willingness to allow and acknowledge Saudi dominance of Yemeni politics, but not yet on terms agreeable to the Saudis. Rather than an Iranian proxy in Yemen, the Houthi and Saleh are better seen as domestic Yemeni powers that use Iran as a card in negotiations with Saudi Arabia.
In 2011, a Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) Agreement, which created a transitional Yemeni government following the resignation of Ali Abdallah Saleh, reflects Saudi influence in the country and region. The transitional government, the national dialogue, and the writing of a new constitution stipulated in the GCC agreement were not new ideas, but placing the agreement under the auspice of the Gulf States helped persuade Yemeni leaders to agree to the process and guaranteed that the Gulf States played a strong role in shaping the outcome. Prior to the signing of the agreement, the rise of the Houthi movement challenged traditional Saudi allies in the far north of Yemen, and the Arab Spring split the Yemeni elite into warring factions. The possibility that Yemen could spin out of Saudi control was a real possibility, so Saudi Arabia and the Gulf States readily agreed to support Yemen’s transition.
The Saudis gave massive support to the transitional government led by Abd Rabbah Mansour Hadi. Saudi Arabia made a one-billion dollar deposit in the Central Bank of Yemen in 2013 to support the budget and sent one million barrels of oil to an Aden refinery to overcome shortages caused by the sabotage of the oil pipelines in Marib. There are reports that the Saudis are preparing to deposit another billion dollars in Yemen’s central bank to support the Yemeni Riyal.
In spite of such support, the transitional government was unable to maintain control of the country. The decline in the economy, the remoteness of the debates at the National Dialogue Conference from the lives of most Yemenis, and the infighting among Yemen’s political parties within the government bureaucracy alienated most of the country from the transitional process and government. There were also people deliberately sabotaging the transitional process.
Former Yemeni President Ali Abdallah Saleh considered the GCC agreement an extra constitutional usurpation of his power; mobs on the street circumvented the institutional process in Yemen. He signed the GCC agreement only because he had no alternative, and he clearly was motivated to overturn the agreement (and take revenge against those he felt had betrayed him). The Houthi movement also did not sign the GCC agreement; it was not invited to, though it did participate actively in the National Dialogue Conference.
When Houthi forces overran Sanaa with covert support by Saleh in 2013, the Hadi government and the Houthis signed the Peace and National Participation Agreement under UN auspices that modified the transitional government, giving it more technical capability and a mandate for real governance. This alarmed the Saudis, because they were losing control of the transitional government, but as long as the new parties were willing to acknowledge the dominant role of Saudi Arabia in the Yemen, the Saudis did not object too much. However, when the Houthis overthrew the same transitional government it had put into power and invited Iran to play a major role in Yemen, the Saudis objected strongly. For the Saudis, the sin of the Houthis was not so much allying with Iran but failing to allow Saudi Arabia to dominate. Iran simply exacerbated Saudi fears.
The Saudi’s Operation Resolute Storm intended to tip the military balance of power in favor of those loosely allied with Hadi. A strong show of force, the establishment of complete air superiority, and the imposition of a sea blockade would quickly bring the Houthi and Saleh to their senses, thought the Saudis. It did not. The Houthi and Saleh forces maintain control of all the populous mountainous highlands of western Yemen almost two years after the initiation of Resolute Storm.
When the Saudis and the Gulf States realized that an air campaign was insufficient, they began training Yemeni forces to fight in the eastern desert with the Islah allied tribes in al-Jawf and Marib. Emirati and some Saudi forces began directing the militias that sprang into existence in the south to fight the Houthi. Emirati forces took a heavy role in building new security forces in the south when the Hadi government, exiled in Riyadh, appeared incapable of governing the territories nominally in its control, now seriously threatened by al Qaeda and others who wished to exploit the disorder.
Still, after building armies, carrying out thousands of bombing raids, and blockading Yemen’s ports, the Saudi backed coalition has not made much progress. The recent offensive that took Mokha does not represent a substantial shift in the balance of military power. Even if the Saudi backed coalition does gain the upper hand and retake the capital, Sanaa, military power will not solve Yemen’s problems. The Saudi operation has hardened Yemen’s political divisions; in fact, Saleh and the Houthi benefit by rallying against Saudi military aggression. The solution to Yemen’s problems lies in a negotiated settlement that will be the inevitable end to the war. For the sake of common Yemenis suffering from the effects of the war, let’s hope the settlement comes sooner rather than later.
