Yemen — war as an opportunity?

To suggest that the United States policies in Yemen was a “failure” is an understatement. It implies that the US had at least attempted to succeed. But succeed at what?

The US drone war had no other objective aside from celebrating the elimination of whoever the US hit list designates as terrorist.

But now that a civil and a regional war broke out, the degree of US influence in Yemen has been exposed as limited, and its war on Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula — in the larger context of political, tribal and regional rivalry — as insignificant.

The failure, if we are to utilise the term, is of course, not just America’s, but involves most US allies, who have ignored Yemen’s protracted misery — poverty, corruption, violence and the lack of any political horizon, until the country finally imploded.

Only when the Houthis took over Sanaa last September, a foolish act by any account, did the situation in Yemen became urgent enough for intervention.

For a long time, the US seemed invulnerable to what even Yemen analysts admit is a intricate subject to understand, let alone attempt to explain in a straightforward manner.

The US drones buzzed overhead independent from all of this. They “took out” whoever they suspected was Al Qaeda affiliate.

It was even revealed that President Barack Obama had approved a “secret kill list” and agreed to consider counting casualties in such a way that “essentially designates all military-aged males in a strike zone as military combatants”.

In fact, a timeline of events that befell poverty-stricken Yemen shows a strange phenomenon: US involvement in that country operates in parallel to but separate from all other horrific events, violence, suffering and politicking.

Sure, US shadowy war augmented the suffering, demoralised the nation and undermined whatever political process was under way, especially after the Yemeni version of the Arab Spring early in 2011.

However, the US paid little heed to Yemen’s fragile alliances and the fact that the country was on a fast track towards civil war or worse, a regional war, direct or by proxy.

That responsibility of mending broken Yemen was left to the United Nations. But with regional rivalry between Iran and Gulf countries at its peak, UN envoys had little margin for meaningful negotiations.

Despite repeated assurances that the “national dialogue” was on its way to repair Yemen’s body politic, it all failed.

But the US continued with its war unabated, arming whoever it deemed an ally, exploiting regional differences and promoting the power of Al Qaeda in ways that far exceeded its presence on the ground.

It saw Yemen as a convenient “war on terror”, enough to give Obama the tough persona that American voters love about their presidents without the high risk of military quagmires like the ones his predecessor, George W. Bush, created in Iraq and Afghanistan.

It was hardly that simple.

Even a “clean” drone war activated from faraway places is rarely enough to guarantee results.

Aside the moral responsibility of torturing an already wounded nation, the US seemed to lack understanding of how its actions frustrate and contribute to regional conflicts.

Its aggravation of Iraq’s sectarian fault lines following the 2003 invasion, leading to a massive civil war few years later, was a lesson unlearnt.

That “divide and conquer” policy backfired badly.

Empowered and brutal US-supported Shiite government that took revenge on Sunni tribes and communities across Iraq following the war met their match with the rise of the brutal Daesh in more recent years, turning Iraq, and of course, Syria, into a savage battleground.

Gone are the days when US policies alone dictated the course of history in the Middle East.

The Iraq war was catastrophic at so many levels, lead amongst which relegating direct military intervention as a way to achieve strategic and political ends.

The Obama doctrine was an attempt at combining use of US military influence (while scaling down on direct military intervention with regional and international allies to sustain US ascendant in the region as much as possible.

What seemed like a relative success in Libya with the ousting of Muammar Qadhafi was too difficult to duplicate in Syria. The stakes there were simply too high.

Regional rivals like Iran and international rivals like Russia were too resistant to any open attempt at overthrowing the Assad regime.

And with the rise of Daesh, Assad was suddenly recast into a different role, becoming a buffer, although still designated as an enemy.

US Secretary of State John Kerry’s statement about willingness to engage Assad signalled a massive turnabout in US policies vis-à-vis Syria.

Now, with a preliminary nuclear deal agreed upon by Iran, and the US and its allies, there is little chance that Obama will enact any major shift in his regional policies, although Washington will continue its sabre rattling (as Iran will surely do as well).

To the contrary, his administration is likely to retreat, further hide behind its allies to achieve whatever muddled objectives it may have at this chaotic moment.

For Iran, and to a lesser degree the US, Yemen is maybe a suitable ground for a token war.

In “Why it may suit Iran to let the Saudis win in Yemen”, which appeared on Al Jazeera America, Daniel Levy and Julien Barness-Decey argue that the current rivalry in Yemen has at its heart the nuclear talks between Iran and the West.

Iran never “won” Yemen to lose it anyway, and supporting the Houthis can only push Iran’s Arab enemies into a protracted conflict from which there is no easy escape.

Yet while indirect military involvement is consistent with the Obama war doctrine, the US could still stand to lose.

Sure, Obama can counter his Republican critics — stalwart supporters of Israel, thus strongly opposing any Iran deal — by military engaging Iran from a distance in a useless Yemen war.

That said, if the US allies fail to achieve a quick victory, which is unlikely anyway, the US would have one of two options: disown its allies (who are already infuriated by the US double speak on Iran) or get pulled into an unwinnable war that cannot be lost.

A loss for the Houthis would certainly bloody Iran’s nose, but not much more than that.

It is the Arabs and their regional allies that risk a major loss due to their direct involvement.

And since defeat “is not an option”, the Yemen quagmire is likely to prove lengthy and lethal.

In the first two weeks of war, over 500 Yemenis were reportedly killed. This is just the beginning.

Of course, there is a way out.

Iran and its Arab rivals must understand that political scenarios that cancel each other out are impossible to achieve. Syria is a paramount tragic example. They must also keep in mind that the US, which is playing the two parties against each other, is only interested in the region for economic and strategic reasons.

Regardless of the hyped sectarian divides, Shiite, Sunnis and numerous other groups crisscrossed, overlapped and co-existed in the Middle East for centuries.

No war, no matter how destructive, and no alliance, no matter how large, can possibly change that historical inevitability.

The writer, www.ramzybaroud.net, is an internationally syndicated columnist, a media consultant, author of several books and the founder of PalestineChronicle.com. His latest book is “My Father Was a Freedom Fighter: Gaza’s Untold Story” (Pluto Press, London). He contributed this article to The Jordan Times.