Iran has been present in the backdrop of the major governmental overthrows of the Gulf governments since the 1980s. Iran is credited with the firm establishment of Lebanese Hezbollah and Yemeni Hezbollah (82-86) which converted into the Houthi movement after it developed dependence on the al-Houthi family that launched the campaign to infiltrate and sabotage the government of Yemen. The al-Houthis were reported as direct allies of the Khameini revolution. 

Biden’s policy toward Yemen has a ripple effect 

The Biden administration’s policy toward Yemen shows the U.S. shift toward Iranian appeasement. Biden announced earlier this year that he would end U.S. support of the Saudi-led coalition in Yemen, citing “human rights abuses.” 

The Saudi-led coalition refers to the Saudi intervention launched by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman into Yemen in 2015. Intervention became necessary after the conflict was neglected by the Obama administration, where the U.S. did not heavily prioritize what was, initially, a low profile militia uprising. Al-Houthis, with the power of the IRGC behind them, mobilized into a high profile threat. 

Biden was following up on a measure introduced in 2017 by Rep. Ro Khanna, a Democrat from California, known as the Yemen War Powers resolution, a direct resolution of Congress to force the withdrawal of U.S. forces from assisting the conflict effort in Yemen. The resolution argued that the U.S. Armed Forces should not be involved in Yemen without the express approval of Congress. 

Democrats stated that the U.S. should not be involved in the conflict because Saudi forces had caused casualties via airstrikes. Trump argued that the resolution was unnecessary and an attack against his war powers because the U.S. had no forces directly engaged in commanding, participating in, or accompanying Saudi-led forces in Yemen. 

It was inferred by Rep. Khanna, and reported by partisan outlets such as CNN, that the Saudi-led coalition in the Yemen conflict, was the cause of the humanitarian crisis within Yemen. This was due to the effect that poor intelligence had upon Yemeni civilian communities as airstrikes led to casualties. The humanitarian crisis was created by the involvement of the IRGC that enabled the Houthi rebellion to grow, and provided it with a plethora of unconventional weapons, including the rampant use of landmines. 

Note on the Saudi-led coalition 

Saudi Arabia has a heavily vested interest in the Yemen al-Houthi conflict. Reasons include a shared border interest in national security. Preventing the Houthi incursion from entering Saudi Arabia protests the Kingdom from sharing the same fate as Yemen in becoming a destabilized region with an exhaustive accumulation of landmines. Saudi Arabia leads with the Masam Project in an effort to remove the millions of mines that now litter the landscape in Yemen. 

Saudi Arabia is the seat of the Two Holy Places of Islam, and is seen as the political figure head of the Arab world and Arab sects of Islam. The Yemen conflict is centered around a philosophical war of the Shiite militia forces, backed by the Shiist “persified”apartheid IRGC in Iran, that only the true descendants of the Prophet should be permitted to rule over Muslims. The Yemeni Shiist militias, claiming this direct lineage, moved to replace the Sunni government. Saudi Arabia is itself a Sunni majority state of the Hanbali school and the Salafi version of Islam. 

A note on the conflict between politicized sects of Islam 

Theologically, the difference between Sunni and Shia Islam are defined by the core doctrine of the Twelve Imams. Sunni Muslims believe that Muslims are able to choose who will have religious leadership over them, following the Prophet and the Twelve Imams. Whereas, the Shia believe that the Twelve Imams who served Islam with the prophet were divinely appointed by Allah, and that Allah dictates Imams and Muslims do not make this selection. Under these two base differences of Islamic belief, there have developed a variety of different schools of Islam, such as the mystic Sufism. The various sects of Islam likewise have their own additional holy books that serve as devotional material to the book that all sects share in common, the message of Allah to the Prophet, the Quran. 

A war for the right of leadership, between radicalized political factions of the sects, is a war for the soul of Islam. This politicization of Islamic teaching is referred to collectively as Islamism. Islamism is what fueled the behavior of the Ayatollah Khomeini during his hostile ethnic political motion to control Iran during the late 1970s, an era referred to as the “Islamic Revolution” in the West. The revolution was reported by eyewitnesses of it as being as much about the political control and ethnic dominance of the Persian groups as it was about a defining a state sect of Islam.  

A note on the tribal nature of Arab society 

Arab society is likewise a tribal society, with intertribal tensions exacerbated by the disagreement between religious sects and fundamentalist groups, such as the gangs that back Wahhabism or Khomeinism. These religious fundamentalist “gangs” are at direct odds with the Royal Family of Saudi Arabia adding stress to the stakes in Saudi Arabia’s fight for modern progress. This progress includes adapting tribal society to the progress of a properly adapted democracy, while fielding off the scourge of Shiism from Iran’s political apartheid of the ruling Persian class. Iran is ethnically composed of a split majority between Persians and Turkic descended Iranians, and has minorities located in specific regions, such as the Ahwazi Arabs who are local to Ahwaz, Iran. During the Khomeinist uprising, the Persian ethnic group dominated the ruling party and thus the status within Iran became an ethno-political and religious apartheid. See the reportage of Gunaz.tv to see coverage from the non-ruling political classes of Iran. 

An unclear understanding of how the Arab social struggle shapes Western Gulf rhetoric 

Western opinion of Saudi Arabia has been shaped by the rhetoric of propaganda from the Islamist ruling gangs in the Arab World. These Islamists have also taken up political defense in the United States, a position that Arab political commentators such as Dalia Al-Aqidi, Senior Fellow at the Center for Security Policy, described as “the enemy within” America.  

The Western world believes that the Saudi people are at odds against the oppressive regime of King Salman and the Crown Prince, and that all Saudi people are at odds with their own government. This is echoed in the film The Dissident which praised the Islamist propagandist Jamal Khashogghi as a journalist and condemned the Kingdom for his highly politicized assassination. 

The  political commentator and Saudi society scholar Dr. Najat Al Saeed explained in a recent interview that the Islamists are actually the mouthpiece of gangs left behind from the days of the mujaheddin. He also explained that the Saudi people are reliant on the Royal Family in using the legal system to fight these oppressive social figures. She explained likewise that, due to the tribal and ancient cultural nature of society, a rapid adoption of the Western definition of democracy is not plausible, and that the imposition of this method led to power vacuums that had the opposite effect of Western intention. 

Biden speaks for the cameras but shows a lack of consistency in his policies 

Again, the Saudi-led coalition refers to the Saudi intervention launched by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman into Yemen in 2015. Intervention became necessary after the conflict was neglected by the Obama administration, where the U.S. did not heavily prioritize what was, initially, a low profile militia uprising. Al-Houthis, with the power of the IRGC behind them, mobilized into a high profile threat. 

Biden is likewise showing a lack of decisive execution in his administration. He verbally responded to the demands of the Yemen War Powers lobby, but, in April, the partisan outlet The Intercept reported that the Biden administration had not acted on these promises. 

Biden’s promises, in a February address, were worded in such a way that he would retract American support of the Saudi-led coalition but also protect Saudi from the threats from “Iranian supplied forces.” This political positioning was one that stresses the need to keep the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia dependent on U.S. diplomacy, noted American security analysts in a recent interview with Saudi Arabia’s Alekhbariya News. 

The outlet referred to his political position as a “public relations victory” in the American domestic political sense, particularly within the Democratic Party. Biden’s decisions and rhetoric toward Saudi Arabia, however, was not a press relations victory abroad, as Saudi was left with grave confusion for why the United States, a nation with which it has cooperated historically, suddenly took such a position against the Saudi effort in the war for Yemen.

The inconsistency of Biden’s policies in Yemen even led U.S. partisan outlets, such as CNBC, to question if his policies may have worsened the crisis. From the partisan perspective, Biden’s position will not help to “end the war in Yemen” because the U.S. will “no longer have concessions to offer the Houthis” wrote CNBC.The inconsistency of American policy toward the war in Yemen also highlights the complete lack of American understanding of the conflict.  

Diplomacy has failed to end the war in Yemen, a rebellion which has continued since the 1980s with the support of Iran (see documents obtained by Al-Masdar News). The rebellion is steeped in the promises of doctrinal politics which are rooted in the Khameinist uprising of 1979-era Iran, where Khomeini’s uprising sparked unequivocal devotion of the militias that followed it.  This is the reason why the Trump administration’s policy of sanctions toward Iran was more effective. This was addressed by former Defense Secretary deputy assistant Simone Ledeen in a recent broadcast by Republic Underground regarding the Iranian role in the humanitarian crisis of Marib. 

Sanctions on Iran and severance from the stream of resources, such as the Ansar Allah terrorist organization definition, serve to cut the Houthi off from the proxy supply network. 

With the exhaustion of resources, the Houthis may be forced to change their position toward Yemen. The heavily leftist Biden administration takes a policy highlighting a lack of understanding and a narrow view of American interests in the Middle East-Gulf region, rather than a solution that would pave the way to a greater chance of permanence. 

A note on the security risk of failing to engage the Saudis positively in Yemen 

Members of the Trump administration’s Defense Department noted that the U.S. had shared intelligence regarding the Houthis with Saudi Arabia as a means of eliminating casualties. The Saudi-led coalition efforts in Yemen have provided air support to the Yemen government, but current poor intelligence has led to casualties on the ground from the result of the airstrikes. 

This partisanship shows an attempt of the American government to sacrifice Yemen to Iran as a means of saving negotiations with the Iranian regime. The humanitarian crisis in Yemen was the direct cause of Iranian empowerment of the al-Houthi rebellion, which financed a planting of an astronomical amount of landmines, and other abuses, such as the Hezbollah model of attack on resources, as a means of destabilizing the nation. 

Biden’s Yemen policy and failure to support Saudi’s defense in Yemen, which is direct self-defense of the Saudi border as well as an interregional defense of Yemen, Oman, North Africa, and Israel, and even so far as they spread into Europe, could have a ripple effect on the United States. Iranian nationals, Yemeni nationals, and those groups with ties to Hezbollah have free access to the American borders through the liberal “humanitarian” policy of the Biden administration.