The depth of the sectarian war unleashed in Yemen shows itself in almost every Gulf Arab official statement and in the official press.
The Saudis take it as read that Iranian forces are actually present in Yemen to assist the Shia Houthis. There are Hezbollah fighters from Lebanon with the Houthis. Iran is itself behind the Houthi uprising. One Kuwaiti journalist calls the Houthi rebels “rats”. As usual in Arab wars, real evidence has gone out of the window.
Another journalist, the editor-in-chief of the Kuwaiti Arab Times, Ahmed al-Jarallah, concluded a political tribute to King Salman of Saudi Arabia with the observation that “leaders of the (Saudi) coalition for virtue and stability in Yemen and the region made their point through their offensive against the tunnel and vice of conspiracy where the rats of extremism, enmity and division incubate”.
“Rats” and “incubation” – that’s the kind of language sectarian wars also produce. No-one in the wealthy Gulf states has asked if Saudi Arabia is entering the Yemen war simply because it does not want another Shia state on its border – after the Americans “liberated” Iraq and installed a Shia government in Baghdad. Saudi generals talk of massive casualties among the Houthis – they still say they have not killed civilians, even though they use the tired phrase “collateral damage” in their denials. No-one challenges the boasts of its victory – or dares to mention that this extraordinary coalition is a Sunni force fighting Shia.
At a Syrian refugee conference in Kuwait this week, the Saudis were lauded for their generosity in pledging $60m for homeless and destitute Syrians out of a total of $3.8bn of promised aid world wide. No-one was ungenerous enough to mention that the Saudis bought $67bn worth of weapons from the US in 2011-12.
http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/yemen-crisis-what-will-saudi-arabia-do-when--not-if--things-go-wrong-in-their-war-with-the-shia-houthi-rebels-10153113.html
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