Saudis to ultimately face humiliation in Yemen: Academic

Press TV has conducted and interview with Mohammad Marandi, professor at the University of Tehran, to share his thoughts on the invasion of Yemen by Saudi Arabia.

The following is a rough transcription of the interview.

Press TV: First of all, as far as this invasion goes of Yemen led by Saudi Arabia, what is the goal here? Does Saudi Arabia really think by destroying the Houthis, or so it claims, and putting Abd Rabbuh Mansur Hadi back in power, all the woes of Yemen will be resolved?

Marandi: Well the Saudis are miscalculating and it will have devastating consequences for them, just like the Americans did in Iraq. The Americans by using shock and odd tactics, they discredited themselves more than before. The Saudi regime is using tactics in Yemen to create fear among women and children and they are also killing innocent civilians.

Of course the Western media and the oil-rich regimes in the region that have media outlets are preventing the reality from coming out, but people are beginning to figure out what’s going on.

In addition, the Saudis like their Israeli regional allies, they are miscalculating when it comes to engaging [in] war with an air force. The Israel regime did the same thing in Lebanon and the Lebanese people, those much smaller country than Yemen, they were resilient and ultimately the Israeli regime was humiliated.

And in Gaza, on numerous occasions and most recently the 51 day war in Gaza, the Israeli regime slaughtered thousands of Palestinians - yet they were ultimately defeated.

The difference though is that Saudi Arabia is a much weaker regime than Israel because it is a family regime. A family rules the country like a private business, therefore people are not really royal to them. It does not have the sort of infrastructure that a normal country would have and they do not have the political support at home.

And Yemen is a far larger country with very sophisticated people and the people of Yemen have already defeated the Saudis in previous confrontations as well as other foreign aggressors.

So the Saudis, they can be manly for a couple of few days with their airstrikes where they can kill from the skies, but ultimately the Saudis are going to face the consequences of their actions when the Ansarullah movement as well as their allies in Yemen retaliate.

Press TV: Professor Marandi, this portrayal of this Saudi-led invasion of Yemen as being this proxy war, or a Sunni-Shia divide, or a Sunni-Shia battle, what do you make of that?

Marandi: Well I think that is what the Saudi regime and their allies would like people to believe, and many Western media outlets that are close to Western governments, they too promote the same narrative.

But the reality is that for example in Syria, if it was not for the support of the overwhelming majority of the people of Syria, President Assad would not have been able to survive. He was basically surrounded by the Turkish regime’s support for extremist, extremists being supported in the south by the Israeli regime and Jordan and through Jordan the Saudis, the Qataris and others have been funding al-Qaeda, and in the north, of course, the Turks are still supporting both ISIL and the al-Nusra Front which is al-Qaeda as well.

So the same is true in Yemen. The confrontation is not between the Houthis or Ansarullah and the Saudis. It is between the Yemeni people and the Saudis. That is why the Ansarullah movement and their allies were so quick in taking over the country from Mansur Hadi and his people because Mansur Hadi did not have popular support, he did not have legitimacy.

Remember Mansur Hadi, first of all, he resigned. Second of all, he was never elected in a real election. He was the only candidate and the Americans, the Saudis and the Arab oil-rich regimes in the Persian Gulf installed him into power along with, of course, EU support and he was only supposed to be a provisional president for two years - he stayed much longer - so he has no legitimacy.

And therefore the real confrontation here is between a Saudi regime and the advocate of Wahhabism ,and Wahhabism is of course the same extremist ideology that ISIL has, and al-Qaeda has.

So it is ironic that just like in Syria they were supporting the extremists. In Libya, where it is a Sunni country, they were supporting the extremists and in Iraq they were supporting the extremists. In Yemen, they are fighting along on the same side as al-Qaeda and ISIL, both are fighting Ansarullah and their allies.

So the Saudis are basically strengthening these extremist movements and there is intelligence from Iranian sources saying that the Saudis are actually funding elements within al-Qaeda, which is not strange. That is what they were doing and they continue to do in Syria and Iraq, and this is something that the US Vice President even admitted a few months ago.

Remember in Syria for years the Western media were saying that ISIL was created by the Syrian government, and then recently the US Vice President for whatever reason, mistakenly, or just came out of his mouth or I do not know the reason, but he admitted that this extremist organization was created by US allies. And the United States did nothing about it, and the United States continued to cooperate with its allies.

So the Saudi regime is becoming a global threat because of the rise of this extremism that it supports - we can see it in Boko Haram in Nigeria, we can see it in Afghanistan, in Pakistan, in China and even in India.

So the threat posed by Saudi Arabia is increasing, but I think that the major problem that the Saudi regime is facing is that it is a weak regime, inherently weak, and it is facing a group, Ansurallah and its allies, the majority of the Yemeni people,  which have a lot of determination and the support of the public.

Press TV: Professor Marandi, it is not really then about liberation or fighting against the Houthis, is it? It is about Yemen and putting in a government there that is complacent to the demands and interest of the Saudis and their allies?

Marandi: Of course. We have to keep in mind that all these regimes that are involved in the attacks on the Yemeni people and the airstrikes that are killing many civilians and spreading fear into the hearts of minors and women, these have been carried out by regimes that are dictatorships and they are family dictatorships.

The Saudi regime is a family-owned country, even the country is named after the family. The same is true with Qatar, the Emirates, Kuwait, and Bahrain. All of these regimes have no legitimacy, whatsoever. Western countries give them legitimacy because they’re allies of the West and as we have seen Western countries are the worst enemies of public participation and democracy.

But what is changing is that the rest of the world is much stronger today and the power is moving away from the West. Countries across the world are looking with fear at the rise of the extremism that is being exported from these very same oil rich countries. Countries like China see this as a threat to their national security. Even in Pakistan, increasingly people are becoming aware that this country, 35 years ago, was a religious conservative country but now it is a country that’s faced with a horrific extremism that is being exported there by the Saudis.

In Turkey, we see the danger, the extremism becoming a part of their national culture increasing as well because of the foolish alliance between the Turkish president and the Qatari regime and the Saudi regime.

So Turkey, which has a mild form of Islam, much more tolerant than the Saudis, is moving closer and closer to the most intolerant form of religion - if you can call it that- and that is Wahhabism.

The Saudis may be able to buy mercenaries from countries like Egypt and Pakistan, but ultimately they will not have the determination of the people in Yemen. And the Saudis are facing very low oil prices, they are facing trouble at home and the new King has divided even the ruling family by throwing out the previous king’s relations from senior positions of power.

So things inside Saudi Arabia are not going well and ultimately Yemen is much larger than Lebanon. It is much larger and much more powerful than Gaza and the Israeli regime which was much stronger than the Saudi regime failed utterly.

So therefore the Saudis, I think, there is no doubt that after committing enormous crimes in Yemen, they will ultimately face humiliation.

AHK/MKA

Press TV’s website can also be accessed at the following alternate addresses:

www.presstv.ir