Many “enemies” – who are in a simplified definition (friends by the actions of enemies) – raise controversial questions, such as: Did the Saudis win in Yemen? Was legitimacy defeated?..etc, as if the Saudis went to Yemen in order to achieve a military victory, or to launch a war for the sake of war.
The goal, of course, is to stir up controversy, shuffle the cards, and confuse the great political and diplomatic work led by Saudi Arabia to build a peace map that includes the entire region, and directly affects Yemen and the lives of a people exhausted by wars, internal strife, and sectarian division.
Of course, these “enemies” believe that their “continuation” depends on attempts to thwart Saudi Arabia and keep it in circles of disputes and war fields, and that their reconstruction will only lead to the destruction of Saudi Arabia.
The Saudis respect their direct and clear enemies, and they can deal with them frankly and rigorously, but the enemies hidden in dark corners, under the cloak of the Brotherhood at times, or under the cloak of allies or partners at other times, are another story, but they are abundantly present in this Saudi era, and most importantly, they are clearly exposed. You know them with treachery and betrayal, and they seek to implicate you and push you into a quagmire that has no decision.
The previous questions fall within a vicious circle in which many enemies of the Kingdom and those who claim to be friends or ally with it reside, a circle full of skepticism, disparagement, incitement, divulging poisons, throwing canned charges, and finally jealousy and envy, which is a new method in relations between states, right?
Saudi Arabia was never at war with the Yemenis, and it did not aim to eradicate a Yemeni component at the expense of another. Rather, Yemen was a victim of the state of liquidity and disunity that followed the so-called “Arab Spring”, which swept its cities and streets and produced a division between the components and a bloody civil war, and therefore the international intervention was And not only the Saudis are important to preserving the lives and blood of Yemenis.
Saudi Arabia and the coalition that was formed in 2015 was based on Security Council Resolution No. 2216 issued in the same year, which legitimized and called for intervention to preserve the security and stability of Yemen and prevent the introduction of more weapons to the fighting components. Just as a reminder, the resolution states:
All countries must take measures to prevent the direct or indirect supply, sale or transfer of arms to sanctioned entities and individuals from their territory or by their nationals or using ships or aircraft flying their flag.
The countries, especially those neighboring Yemen, shall undertake the inspection of all goods destined for and coming from Yemen if there is information to believe that the goods carry items whose import is prohibited. These countries are authorized when items that are prohibited to be disposed of are detected by destroying, storing or transferring them to other countries for disposal. (The text quoted from the resolution has ended).
Wars in modern times do not end with raising the white flag over castles and forts, nor on the battlefields, and those who imagine that are “modern politics” and those who still live on old ideas that have been outdated by history.
Real victories happen by achieving the largest amount of your goals, and this is what happened on the ground, and let's review those goals and whether they were achieved.
First: Preserving Yemeni legitimacy and recognizing it internationally, regionally and in the Arab world, and that legitimacy is still the true representative of the Yemeni people in international forums and seats, and it is around which the Yemeni components and parties coalesce to reach a consensual political formula.
Second: The Yemeni components accept dialogue and reconciliation for the sake of a unified and stable future in which Yemenis decide on the map of their political future, renouncing violence and being convinced of peace as a basic option.
Third: Preserving Yemen's territorial integrity and preventing its division and transformation into a failed state. A return to Yemen's fragmentation will lead to a state that does not have the capacities and capabilities to serve the broad Yemeni people.
Fourth: Stopping arms smuggling and controlling the stockpile of weapons that are widely spread, in the hands of a central state that governs Yemen from a unified capital.
Fifth: Expelling any non-Yemeni component from Yemen and the Red Sea, and ending the military or security bases that were scattered on the Yemeni islands and used to smuggle weapons and drugs, due to the weakness of the central state.
Sixth: Preserving the Arab identity of Yemen, the main member of the Arab Action System and the Arab League, and not disintegrating it into non-Arab nationalities or extensions that turn it into an alienated entity.
Yemen was never a backyard for the Saudis to fight, nor was it coveted as some try to portray it. Riyadh has always remained the wall, the great heart, and the source of safety on which Yemen relied in all its crises.
Today, the Yemeni components stand at a great historical turning point, and they must inevitably, before God and history, benefit from the peace project that was launched two years ago and is pushing today with the strength of the Saudi political movement. diligent, it is all an equation that if invested instead of investing in fighting and rivalry, it will transfer Yemen from decades of political and economic wandering to a future that Yemenis have always dreamed of.
Muhammad Al-Saed