‘Decisive Storm’ — a major game changer

During the past few years, the political and security landscape of the Middle East underwent massive changes. Since the beginning of the so-called Arab Spring, the region is faced with a host of issues. In order to effectively tackle these apparently never-ending troubles, a fresh approach was very much required. The ongoing Saudi Arabia-led military campaign in Yemen heralds the beginning of that strategy to confront all the issues head-on.
If anything, the so-called Arab Spring had provided Iran with an unprecedented opportunity to boost its strategic presence in the Arab world. Indeed, Tehran has exploited every crisis in the Arab world to its advantage and to gain a foothold in the region. I will state the obvious and argue that Iran is a revisionist state.
Many Saudis as well as other Arabs believe that Iran’s bullying knows no bounds. Hence, many Arabs are looking up to Saudi Arabia to effectively confront Iran’s expansionist designs in the region. While Riyadh had been working along with other like-minded states in a peaceful way to prevent unnecessary escalation, the Iranian leaders erroneously thought that they could destabilize Yemen, change the balance of power in the Gulf region, and get away with it. In such a situation, it was necessary to formulate a new strategy conveying a strong message to Iran and its ilk that Saudi Arabia could always resort to using military means if and when necessary to prevent an imbalance in the regional balance of power.
The same strategy could be seen currently at work in Yemen. The failure of diplomacy to encourage the Iranian-backed Houthis to negotiate with good faith compelled Riyadh to adopt this approach.
In a short period of time, Riyadh put forward a formidable coalition with one objective: To reverse the gains of the Houthis and to hit them hard so that they understand that their actions will not be tolerated and that they have to negotiate a political settlement.
The running argument within and without Saudi Arabia is that short of taking strong and decisive action against Iran’s proxy, Iran will not change course.
To have a better understanding of this strategy, one has to examine the wider context. Observers in the region agree that United States President Barack Obama is desperate to leave his legacy in the Middle East. Time and again, Obama made it perfectly clear that a deal with Iran topped his priority list. The problem, and herein the crux of the matter, is that such a deal is most likely to give Iran an elated status. It is as if you get the genie out of the bottle. A deal with Iran is likely to strengthen a revisionist Iran, a scenario that will be too risky. Furthermore, the prevailing perception in this part of the world is that the American appeasement of Iran will only hurt the interests of the Arab world in the long run. President Obama is mistaken if he thinks that his appeasement of Iran will make Iran a status quo country. Most likely, Iran will continue its revisionist regional policies. This policy was tried before with Hitler and we all know the grave consequences of Chamberlin’s naïve calculus. Therefore, from a strategic perspective and from a cost-benefit calculation it is far cheaper for the Arab coalition to defeat Iran’s proxies now than later.
That being said, Saudi Arabia understands that the solution in Yemen is political. For some time, Riyadh tried to bring all warring sides to the negotiating table. However, Iran urged its clients in Yemen not to be forthcoming. Additionally, Iran instructed the Houthis to drive all of their Sunni opponents out of politics and to control Yemen. The Houthi militants need to understand that they are Yemenis in the first place. At the end, it is in their best interest to reach a political solution. But it seems that this is easier said than done. The Houthis have to lose and lose badly before they wake up.
To be sure, the Saudi-led coalition is defensive in nature. Neither Saudi Arabia nor its coalition partners have any territorial ambitions in Yemen. Therefore, the military campaign is to balance Iran’s relentless effort to change the balance of power in the Gulf region.