Yet there's a spanner in the works; the possible Washington-Tehran rapprochement, assuming a nuclear deal is reached. For the self-described "Don't Do Stupid Stuff" Obama administration, the nuclear deal will be their only foreign policy success. Moreover, without Tehran there's no meaningful fight against ISIS/ISIL/Daesh in "Syraq."
None of this mollifies the cosmically paranoid Saudis, who assembled in a flash a Grand Armada Run Amok (GARA) -- 100 jet fighters, 150,000 soldiers -- respectfully described by US Think Tankland as a "coalition" of 10 countries. Without even blinking at UN norms, the Saudis instantly declared the whole of Yemen as a no-fly zone.
And along with routine bombing of residential complexes, the al-Mazraq camp for the internally displaced in Hajjah, a dairy factory near Hodeida, and other instances, came, what else, hardcore internal Saudi repression, via a crackdown with tanks and indiscriminate shooting in Awamiyah, in the eastern provinces; Shi'ites there can't even think of organizing protests against the bloodbath in Yemen.
In a nutshell, this is the immensely wealthy, corrupt, medieval Saudi regime busy at war against their own people. The usual hard-line Wahhabi imams are busy working up anti-Shi'ite and anti-Iranian fever everywhere; these are all "apostates" under the takfir doctrine, and Iranians are lowly "Safawis" -- a quite pejorative reference to the 16th century Safavid dynasty. It's crucial to remember that Islamic State treats Shi'tes and Iranians the exact same way. But forget about any of this being reported by Western corporate media.
The General and the SheikhThe House of Saud insists it wants to reinstall the government-in-exile of Yemeni President Abd Rabbuh Mansour Hadi. Or, as Saudi Ambassador to the US, Adel al-Jubeir glowingly put it, "protect the legitimate government of the country."
Royally paid Saudi lobby hagiographers are once again frantically spinning the Sunni versus Shi'ite sectarian narrative -- which totally ignores the mind-boggling tribal/class complexity of Yemeni society. In a nutshell, this laughable Saudi defense of democracy is paving the way for a ground war; a long, bloody and horribly expensive ground war.
And it gets, as expected, even more absurd. Gen. Martin Dempsey, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, was recently asked during a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing whether he knew of "any major Arab ally that embraces ISIL." His response: "I know major Arab allies who fund them."
Translation: the US government not only does not sanction or punish these "allies" (the real fun is to sanction Russia) but showers with logistical and "non-lethal" support the "coalition" that is arguably fighting the same Islamic State they are funding. No one is making this up; this is how the endless war on terra remains the gift that keeps on giving.
It gets even curioser and curioser when we have Dempsey on the same page of Hezbollah's Sheikh Nasrallah. In this crucial speech, Sheikh Nasrallah offers the most extensive and precise account of the origins and ideology of ISIS/ISIL/Daesh. And here he expands on Yemen, Saudi Arabia and Iran.
So what we have is the "Empire of Chaos" "leading from behind" in the war on Yemen and also de facto "leading from behind" in the fight against ISIS/ISIL/Daesh; the ones doing the heavy lifting are Iraqi militias supported by Tehran. The hidden agenda is always -- what else -- chaos; be it across "Syraq" or inside Yemen. With an extra bonus; while Washington is engaged on striking a nuclear deal with Tehran, it also turbo-charges an alliance against Tehran using the House of Saud.
Vietnam in the desertThe House of Saud badly wants Pakistan to take no prisoners, supplying bomber jets, ships and lots of ground troops for their war. Riyadh treats Islamabad as a vassal state. A joint session of the Pakistani Parliament will decide what to do.
It's quite revealing to learn what happened when Pakistan's most popular private TV channel assembled representatives of all major political parties to explain where they stand. Soon they reached a consensus; Pakistan should be neutral; act as mediator; and commit no troops, unless there was a "tangible threat" to the two holy mosques in Mecca and Medina, which is far from the case.
The House of Saud remains on overdrive, showering tons of cash over Salafi and Deobandi preachers to bullhorn their war; that includes a delegation of ulema visiting Riyadh. Support has already duly poured from Pakistan-based hardcore groups that trained with al-Qaeda and fought with the Taliban in Afghanistan; after all they are all funded by Wahhabi fanatics.
Meanwhile, in the front lines, a real game-changer may be ahead, with the Houthis already firing missiles across the border at Saudi oil installations. Then all bets are off -- and the possibility that long-range missiles have been pre-positioned becomes quite credible.
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