Wednesday, March 25, 2015

The Proxy War has Heated up in Yemen

I'm not sure how many people will be closely following what's going on in Yemen right now, but it's exactly the sort of tangle that should remind us of why dealing with foreign states, even if the US tries to keep it under the umbrella of "the war on terror" (whether we call it that anymore or not) is fraught with the potential for blowback.

So, imagine we're just doing our war on terror thing, trying to knock out AQAP in Yemen because this a failed state where training is happening--and it's almost like regional powers have an interest in where this is going. We now have some kind of obvious proxy-war looking thing going on, with the Shia militias (Houthi) who have basically taken over the major cities including Sanaa are likely backed by Iran (and as a consequence, any connection we had with the vacated government in Yemen can be considered totally shared with Iran, now). And now the very concerned Sunni Arab states led by Saudi Arabia are striking the area.

I don't think any of this has much to do with US interests. My gut says that this is exactly where the US should call "We're out!" and let them slug it out and snuff any little old extremist groups in the way while they are at it. My head thinks my gut has a point. And I think this general feeling is applicable elsewhere in the region.

2 comments:

mikey said...

They're not just militias. Most of the army went over to the Houthi side. President Hadi is mostly supported by al-Queda - even the US has pulled out its forces - and now the Saudis. Fortunately, Iran has no direct land route like the Saudis do - they mostly got involved because it's right on their border - but it will be interesting to see what they'll do if Iran starts bringing heavy stuff in by sea. THAT could get messy fast...

Big Bad Bald Bastard said...

Let the Sunnis and Shiites duke it out like the Catholics and Protestants did back in 17th Century Europe. Hopefully, they can get the sectarian "hot war" out of their system.

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