Countering the Shiite control over Yemen

The Saudi Operation Storm of Resolve (“Al Hazm”, in Arabic) took the entire region into a new era, this week.

Through its political, financial and military weight, Riyadh managed to build a coalition of 10 Sunni Islamic states to fight the Shiite Houthis in Yemen, in a bid to stop their attempt to take control of this country that has the capacity to stop the flow of Arab oil through the Strait of Bab Al Mandeb.

The operation sends many signals to Arab capitals.

Saudi Arabia, with its new king, Salman Bin Abdulaziz, one of the leaders of the Sunni world, is determined to follow a more assertive policy vis-à-vis any threats to its strategic interests or religious Sunni values.

Feeling surrounded by the pro-Iranian Shiite presence in Damascus and Baghdad, Saudi leaders cannot overlook another pincer movement from the Yemeni south if it falls to the Houthis and their Iranian sponsors.

If the voice of wisdom is not listened to, the sectarian divide between Sunni and Shiite Arabs will deepen and escalate into a religious civil war, in Yemen now, and in the rest of the region at a later stage, which will make thousands of victims on both sides.

Iraq had witnessed such a sectarian war in 2006, which left thousands of victims and whose socio-psychological scars led to the establishment of Daesh.

Many Sunnis are satisfied that Saudi Arabia re-established its assertiveness to militarily confront the Shiite threat that devoured Syria, Iraq and Lebanon during the last decade. One of the messages inherent in Al Hazm operation is that Pakistan and Turkey will now support this Sunni cause, making amends for their earlier stances in 2003, when Iraqis were abandoned to the brutality and vindictiveness of Iranian ayatollahs.

The same applied in Syria, where Sunnis in Hama were neglected in 1982, when 30,000 were massacred by Shiite Alawis while the Muslim world showed indifference.

Tehran issued an ultimatum, saying that events in Yemen might be responsible for engulfing the entire region in a new war.

The Iranians were hoping that through their control of Yemen’s Houthis, they could establish their hegemony on both sides of the Arab Gulf, thus keeping in a stranglehold all oil tankers passing through the Strait of Bab Al Mandeb.

The above events explain why Jordan joined the Saudi-led coalition of Sunni states against Shiite Houthis in Yemen.

Jordan is a Sunni monarchy with its roots dating to the Prophet of Islam and his dynasty.