Why Saudi Arabia is Hammering Yemen
11th April 2016
Part of the reason is that Yemen sits on Saudi Arabia’s back doorstep, and a hostile government there could put southern Saudi communities in danger. But the campaign in Yemen has actually worsened Saudi security, as Houthi militants retaliate by firing rockets at Saudi villages and staging border raids. And while Al Qaeda has menaced Saudi Arabia in the past, its presence in Yemen has never elicited a major military mobilization—that’s been left to the United States. So why intervene now?
To understand the war in Yemen, you have to assume the perspective of a Saudi elite and zoom the camera outwards. Once upon a time, the Shia-majority nations of the Middle East were ruled by monarchs and strongmen who were largely unsympathetic to the idea of Shia power—Iraq under the Sunni Saddam Hussein, Bahrain under the Saudi-backed Khalifa dynasty, and Iran under the Pahlavis. Islam was governed as it had been for centuries, with Sunnis wielding power and Shia awaiting the end times. America viewed the Middle East through the lens of regnant Sunnis, and collaborated with many of them, most notably the Saudi royal family.