For the past few weeks now, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia has been involved in waging an atrocious war against the Houthis in Yemen. The basically one-sided war has involved punitive airstrikes against targets in Yemen, particularly in and around the capital city of Sana'a. In the first week of the airstrikes, virtually all the air defense systems in the control of the Houthis were destroyed by the Saudi-led attacks, allowing free and unchallenged reign of the superior air power of the Saudi over Yemen.
What ordinarily began and ought to have been a domestic conflict between Yemenis, is now being transformed into a regional affair. What does Saudi Arabia think it can achieve by killing so many in Yemen via airstrikes?
From its airstrikes against the Houthis in Yemen, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia is proving, beyond reasonable doubts, that it has learnt nothing from the fiasco of the aerial bombardments deployed by the United States forces against the Government and peoples of Iraq in efforts to overthrow the Saddam Hussein regime – after the bombardment, the real war and agony starts! Winning the aerial bombardment has little or no bearing on how the crisis will eventually end - if indeed it will end.
Will the Kingdom be willing and able to sustain what it has started?
Considering the history and culture in the sub-region of keeping and sustaining grudges beyond generational limits, each Saudi missile that causes death and destruction in Yemen might have merely succeeded in stoking up a fire of bloody reprisals and revenge attacks that will not be bound or regulated by any known international instruments.
The situation is made more precarious for the Saudis in view of its being the location of two of the holiest shrines of the Islamic faith. In a very short while, it will be time for the annual pilgrimage to cities of Mecca and Medina for the Hajj. The Custodian of the is duty bound to open up the holy cities to brethren from all countries, and these will include Houthi brethren and others from Yemen. Will it be possible for the Kingdom to prevent Houthis who may have suffered losses of family members during these airstrikes, and thus bear an unquenchable desire for revenge, from coming in as pilgrims?
Why start what you can neither finish nor know what the end portends?
Picture: Aftermath of a Saudi bombardment in Yemen
No comments:
Post a Comment