Worsening enmity between rivals Saudi Arabia and Iran is jeopardising peace prospects in Yemen where a nine-month-old war has given militants a foothold in Riyadh’s backyard.
Yemen’s principal warring factions -- fighters loyal to the ousted Saudi-backed Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi who are battling the Iran-allied Houthi militia and loyalists of former president Ali Abdullah Saleh -- held talks last month in Switzerland to try to end a war that has killed some 6,000 people.
They were due to meet again on January 14 in a bid to seal a lasting peace. But the Riyadh government cut diplomatic ties with Iran in a row sparked by Saudi Arabia’s execution of Saudi Shia cleric Sheikh Nimr al-Nimr on January 2.
Shortly after the row in which the Saudi embassy in Tehran was stormed, the UN-brokered talks between the two opposing sides were postponed, with no clear date set to resume.
While Yemen’s government has long been mired in conflict with militants, secessionists and tribal fighters, its war coincides with unprecedented turmoil in the Middle East. Saudi Arabia’s campaign in Yemen marks the first time it has openly confronted what it sees as Iranian regional expansionism.
As long as the war rages in Yemen, there is more space for militants to gain territory as they exploit the security vacuum. Dae’sh and al-Qaeda have both emerged in Yemeni regions where they had not previously been present before Saudi Arabia entered the conflict and a Saudi-led coalition began bombing the Houthis in March 2015.
Existential necessity for Saudi
On the battlefield in Yemen the struggle is deadlocked.
Coinciding with Saudi Arabia’s cutting ties with Iran, the Saudi-led coalition intensified air strikes on Houthi positions. Days after the break-off, Tehran accused Saudi Arabia of bombing its embassy in Yemen’s capital of Sanaa, an accusation vigorously denied by Riyadh. Eyewitnesses and residents on the ground also said there was no damage to the embassy.
Pro-Saudi commentators suspected Iran aired the accusation to divert attention from the attack on Riyadh’s embassy in Tehran by protesters.
The clash showed just how quickly rhetoric from the marbled offices in Tehran and Riyadh plays out on the ground in Yemen, stiffening positions among proxies and halting progress in ending a war that has displaced tens of thousands.
Low priority for Iran
Iran’s strategic stake in Yemen is less than in Syria where it is President Bashar al-Assad’s only regional supporter and in Iraq, where it maintains close ideological ties to the Shia-led government.
Unlike the conflicts in Syria, where Iran has sent fighters from its elite Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), and in Iraq, where IRGC advisers work alongside Shia Iraqi militias fighting Dae’sh, the extent and robustness of Iran’s support to the Houthis is more murky.
Some speculate that the Yemen war may one day turn into a pawn to be traded in the region’s larger struggle for power.
