Signs are ominous! On Thursday, October 13, US Tomahawk cruise
missiles destroyed pro-Iranian/anti-Saudi Houthi rebels' radar sites in
Yemen, “retaliating after failed missile attacks this week on a U.S.
Navy destroyer”, US officials claimed. Washington has again complained
about Houthi missile attacks on a US naval ship on Saturday, October 15.
Meanwhile, Iran has deployed two warships off Yemen threatening to
further escalate tensions after the US missile attacks. It's most likely
– if not inevitable – that the US military machine may get directly
involved in Yemen.
One believes the allegation against the Houthi rebels is a part of
the US design to stage another Gulf of Tonkin type false flag operation
to justify another US-sponsored long-drawn out war in the region a`la
Vietnam and Iraq. We know the North Vietnamese “attack” on a US naval
ship on August 4, 1964 in the Gulf of Tonkin – that never happened – was
an American fabrication to justify a full-fledged invasion of North
Vietnam, in the name of protecting Southeast Asia from “communist
aggression”. It was very similar to Saddam Hussein's non-existing
Weapons of Mass Destruction that prompted the illegal US invasion of
Iraq in 2003.
While Americans are engrossed in Donald Trump's vulgar and offensive
comments on women, and allegations about his sexual misconduct with
multiple women in the past, seemingly the US Administration is busy
teaching the pro-Iranian Houthi rebels a lesson, with a view to
intimidating and eventually getting directly involved with Iran! It's
least likely that Houthi rebels, who have been simultaneously fighting
the pro-Saudi Yemeni regime and Saudi Arabia itself, would open another
front against America, which has the most powerful and reckless military
in the world.
Now, what is the Houthi insurgency or rebellion all about? This
sectarian and class rebellion against the autocratic Yemeni government
began in 2004. By 2015, the Zaidi Shiite Houthis captured around half of
the country, including the capital, Sana'a. Shiite Houthis in southern
Saudi Arabia also joined the rebellion. What was originally a class
movement of Houthis (slightly less than half of the Yemeni population)
turned into a civil war, and the Saudi and Iranian interventions in
Yemen turned the rebellion into a proxy war between Sunni Saudi Arabia
and Shiite Iran. The US is solidly behind the Saudi monarchy. Some Sunni
Muslims have also joined the Houthis in their struggle to overthrow the
autocratic President Mansour al-Hadi. By now around 7,000 people have
been killed and around 40,000 injured.
Seemingly, it's almost inevitable that the US is going to turn its
proxy war against the Houthis through Saudi Arabia into a direct
US-Houthi confrontation, as a prelude to direct intervention in Syria
and Iran. Since Iran is a common enemy of some of Washington's
staunchest allies in the region, especially Israel and Saudi Arabia, it
can't stomach a Saudi reversal at the hands of Houthi fighters, or any
pro-Iranian forces, at all. The US' direct involvement in Yemen and
Syria is likely to happen while Obama is the lame duck President after
November 8, or soon after Hillary Clinton enters the White House in
January. All polls indicate she's going to trounce Donald Trump. Then
again, as President Eisenhower implied in a speech, there are lobbies
more powerful than the President to drag the country into unnecessary
wars.
In his televised farewell speech from the White House on January 17,
1961, Eisenhower singled out the Military-Industrial Lobby – an informal
alliance between US military and the defence industry, seen together as
a vested interest which influences public policy – as the mastermind
behind all post-WWII conflicts in the world. Interestingly, the unedited
version of his speech also included “Congressional Lobby” as the third
most important contributory factor behind US-sponsored wars. His warning
against the Military-Industrial Lobby was particularly significant.
Arundhati Roy has also raised two very interesting questions in this
regard: “Do we need weapons to fight wars? Or do we need wars to create
markets for weapons?” In 2007, General (ret.) Wesley Clark spelled this
out in the most unambiguous terms that the US would get directly
involved in several countries in the Middle East at the dictates of the
powerful Military-Industrial Lobby. He exposed Pentagon's hidden agenda
of allegedly 'invading' “seven countries in five years” – all
Muslim-majority in Africa and Middle East, including Iran – just for the
sake of it (for the rich dividends or “profits” of war). So, there's no
room for any imagination about what's on the cards.
So, one may surmise with a little bit of scepticism and tonnes of
worry and anxiety about the suffering of innocent civilians in Yemen and
Syria, both at the hands of Saudi troops, and members of the US armed
forces. It's not that relevant here if Iran would disintegrate like
post-Saddam Iraq, or would become a resolute adversary, or even become a
winner against America like Vietnam. It would be too trite an
assumption that Russia would remain a casual observer of the joint
US-Saudi (and possibly Israeli) involvement in Iran. As Eric Zuesse,
investigative historian and author of books on the Holocaust and the
Iraq War believes, if elected, Hillary Clinton would “do this again”,
get directly involved in Syria as she did in Libya. He is also positive
about Russia taking an active role on behalf of the victims of any such
eventuality in the near future.
Last but not least, let's hope the new leadership in the US would
take lessons from the past: America hasn't won a single war since Korea,
but its illegitimate armed interventions in scores of countries in the
East and West during the last seven decades were directly responsible
for millions of deaths of unarmed civilians in Asia, Africa, and Latin
America. Let's hope peaceniks like Bernie Sanders would prevent the
hawks in the next Administration from getting embroiled in direct
hostility with any country, including Iran, Syria, and Yemen. What
former Defense Secretary Robert Gates told fellow Americans at the
Eisenhower Library last year is very pertinent to this discussion:
Does the number of warships we have, and are building, really put
America at risk, when the US battle fleet is larger than the next 13
navies combined — 11 of which are our partners and allies? Is it a dire
threat that by 2020, the United States will have only 20 times more
advanced stealth fighters than China? These are the kinds of questions
Eisenhower asked as commander-in-chief. They are the kinds of questions I
believe he would ask today.”
The writer teaches security studies at Austin Peay State
University. He is the author of several books, including his latest,
Global Jihad and America: The Hundred-Year War Beyond Iraq and
Afghanistan (Sage, 2014). Email: tajhashmi@gmail.com
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