Two wars in one: guardianship of the jurist and imamate

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Summary The incomplete war in Iran and Yemen has only one of two options: either a complete war, or a broad and comprehensive settlement. There is nothing more difficult than war than settlement. What has happened to date in striking Iranian arms has not led to complete geopolitical and strategic change. What is happening is Tehran's rush to re-arm and finance the arms and push them to defend them.

The Yemen war is more dangerous than its military events. A long series whose end no one knows. It did not begin with the Houthis’ rush to Bab al-Mandab, nor with Operation “Dawn of Yemen,” nor with the coup of Ali Abdullah Saleh and his Houthi opponents against the “Riyadh Settlement,” which came after the peaceful popular revolution, nor with “Decisive Storm” in 2015, nor even with the war of the Republicans and the Imamis in 1962, or even before that in the 10th century. Today, it is two wars in one, the first of which is part of the war of Iran, which trains, arms and finances the Houthis, and the second is a continuation of the war of the Republic and the Imamate with the change in the positions of the intervening external powers. The slogan in both wars is the same, from Tehran to Saada and Sanaa: “Death to America, death to Israel.” In both cases, an incomplete war is waged with weapons and managed from time to time with calm and understanding without ending it through completion or settlements.

The intensification of the Houthi attacks with missiles and marches on Saudi Arabia is nothing but an attempt to change the nature of the two wars together. The bombing of airports and oil facilities in Saudi Arabia does not obscure the Iranian role and the use of attacks in the military and negotiating game between Washington and Tehran, nor does adding Bab al-Mandab on the Red Sea to the Strait of Hormuz in the Gulf as part of the pressure on the oil-exporting Gulf countries and the world’s importing countries by obstructing maritime navigation for the sake of a geopolitical and strategic project, covering the conflict. The Yemeni internal affairs and the Houthis’ willingness to pay high prices for a greater regional role than theirs at the region level.

This is because Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araqji’s offer to Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Faisal bin Farhan Al Saud to “mediate” between “Riyadh and Sana’a” is merely an open and rejected ploy to eliminate the role of the Yemeni government and its forces facing the Houthis, and a deceptive attempt to claim that Iran is a “mediator” and not the author of the war. Everyone is asking today about the role of the “Mecca Alliance” and what Pakistan and Turkey can do in defending the Saudi ally, which is being subjected to Houthi attacks. The question is, of course, and before that, about the role of the United States in protecting Riyadh, or at least the security of oil installations and civilian airports, as President Donald Trump seems hesitant about what he calls the fear of the impact of his defense of Riyadh on the American focus on the war and the deal with Iran. This is an argument: “Do not fry an omelet,” as the saying goes, because the two wars are the same.

Ambrose Bierce says in "The Devil's Dictionary" that "war is God's way of teaching Americans geography." It is assumed that Trump's national security team learned from the experience of those who preceded him in the Vietnam War, the Afghanistan and Iraq wars, and his own experience in the Iran war, not only the geography of the Middle East, but also the political geography of the region. What happened, even before the Iran war, is that “Israel’s war in Gaza and Lebanon and the fall of the Assad regime led to the breaking of Iran’s regional strategy,” according to Brookings Vice President Susan Maloney.

Quoted from "Independent Arabia"