Dr Zafer Mohammed Al Ajmi
Tehran got to know the Arab-Gulf alliance led by Saudi Arabia when Operation Decisive Storm began, which is called in Iranian media “Saudi aggression” to reduce its quality of being an alliance and dared to call the Houthis the “Yemeni army.”
The Houthi leader Mohammed Al Bukhaiti called it an “aggression on Yemen,” and described it as an “unjust war.” The deposed Ali Saleh supported Al Bukhaiti by saying that the air strikes are “flagrant aggression.”
Operation Decisive Storm has re-defined itself and is blowing again under “Operation Restore Hope,” which is an extension of the military time to the crisis imposed by the stubbornness of the Houthis and Saleh despite the atrophy of comradeship between them. Although it draws our attention how the official pretext of Iran collapsed by not militarily interfering in Yemeni affairs.
Iranian pilot Behzad Sedaghatnia insisted on looping over Yemen on the afternoon of April 28, 2015 to deliver Tehran’s message of solidarity to the Houthis, but Gulf fighters interfered and destroyed the runway where he was going to land, which made him flee back to his country. This was not the first attempt since the Arab coalition fighters have prevented two Iranian warplanes before. It implies two facts. The first, Iran is officially engaged in the Yemeni crisis even though it claims otherwise, and the second is military operations must continue so that the return of Yemeni legitimacy becomes the lowest negotiating factor.
The real Iranian reaction to Decisive Storm has just begun and Iran will try to take advantage of the Yemeni war to dismantle regional alliances and re-establish new ones in its favour more than it desires to stop the bloodshed of Yemenis.
We may anticipate some Iranian moves that will storm the Yemeni scene in the coming days. Tehran will continue in creating instability in the region. Hijacking the American ship under the pretext that it entered territorial waters is part of the tactical disposition that Iran wishes to fuel by attempting to embark its ships in the Arabian Sea, the Gulf of Aden, and even Bab al-Mandab, and allowing its civil aircraft to break the air security imposed by the coalition.
The way Iran is involving itself makes it internationally known that it has its hands in Yemen, and will not need help from Russia and China to facilitate this role. In April 27, 2014, Washington has requested Iran to make the warring parties involved in talks for political settlement, but Tehran rejected this invitation by trying to internationalise the crisis outside the umbrella of Section VII.
In my estimation, Tehran would return to tracking narrow trails as usual to get closer to the crises, and Qasem Soleimani will open his factional map that he carries in order to move primitive loyalties associated with them such as provoking minorities, dissidents and narrow-minded prospects among their rogue groups.
Tehran will try to raise the cost of the coalition countries by destroying those who support the legitimacy in Yemen or anything that symbolises it. If the Houthis and Saleh’s forces are unable to face the coalition then they can wipe those who support the legitimacy by destroying their homes and property, and harassing activists to induce them to despair, leave or portray the Arab coalition countries as being incapable of supporting them on the ground.
Finally, because Iran has a clear security theory and interrelated principles that form an integral whole, it becomes hard to imagine Tehran’s withdrawal from Yemen, believing in the need to sustain the plea, and the conviction that moving away from the Gulf rivals is more dangerous than being distant from the Houthi friend.
Therefore, Iran will not stop dreaming in penetrating Yemen from Hajr Valley in the south to the mountains of Saada in the north. How many dreamers achieve their dreams, while others are not even worthy of their dreams?!
The writer is a CEO of Gulf Monitoring Group
