The Saudi-led military operation against the Houthi rebels to restore Yemen's legitimate government ended last week with the Kingdom and its coalition realizing the goals it had set out to achieve. The most important aim of Decisive Storm was to destroy the ballistic missiles that threatened the security of Saudi Arabia and its neighboring countries. The operation further curbed the rebels from expanding toward the south and occupying Aden. It is regretful that Yemen's former president—who incidentally underwent medical treatment in Saudi Arabia following a bomb explosion a few years ago—stabbed the Kingdom in the back; he was the mastermind behind this entire fiasco. Decisive Storm was launched in response to Iran which has been meddling in Yemen through the Houthis. Iran will never get a foothold in Yemen. It falsely dreams that the Kingdom will allow it to install another Hezbollah in our backyard. Iran is only concerned about reviving the Persian Empire and will use any means necessary to achieve this. Why can Iran simply not be a good neighbor and mind its own business? It should focus on its internal problems instead of interfering in the affairs of other countries. Iran rejoices at what it has achieved in Iraq, which is completely under its hegemony. Iranian generals are able to freely walk in Baghdad and lead militias to kill innocent Iraqis. Iran is also meddling in Syria and we often hear of Iranian soldiers killed in Iraq and Syria or being caught on the field of battle. We also see how tension is increasing in Lebanon because of Hezbollah whose leader has pledged his allegiance to Iran and not to Lebanon. This is what Iran wishes to achieve in Yemen. Iran was quick to dub Decisive Storm as an act of aggression and as a sectarian attack. It mobilized its media in countries under its control to attack Saudi Arabia and spread false information. It has also been attempting to convince the worldwide audience that Decisive Storm was a failure. These desperate attempts indicate that Iran is politically disoriented and that, in spite of its claims to the contrary, the campaign has successfully destroyed its ambitions in Yemen. Iranian-run TV channels are also farcically depicting the Houthis as victorious and that the coalition had to withdraw after failing to achieve its goals. The Kingdom and its coalition simply responded to the calls of a legitimate government seeking help against a group of rebels funded and supported by hawks in Iran. If Iran was confident about its foreign policies, then it should have supported Yemen's legitimate government. I am not a politician and may not understand policy, but if I were to one day see a troublesome neighbor who has a history of destroying other people's homes parking his bulldozer in front of my house, then I would consider taking action to preempt a strike. What makes matters difficult is that this particular neighbor has a huge smile on his face and wants to reassure me that he means no harm. Should I trust him? This is Iran's modus operandi in the region and how its policies are executed. Some may question why I write about Iran more than Yemen. This is because Iran is on a mission to destabilize the region using proxies in order to achieve its goal of empire building. If the matter was left to the Yemenis, then they would resolve the matter themselves. However, Iran will—in order to get a foothold in Yemen—do whatever is in its power to destabilize the region, even to the extent of driving the country into a civil war, just like it did in Syria. Since when did Iran become a spokesman for freedom? Why is it crying over Yemen, while it fails to shed a single tear for the people of Syria who are being gassed by Assad's regime which it fully backs? Iran is only shedding crocodile tears over Yemen. Muhammad Al-Shibani, a prominent Saudi columnist, recently summarized the achievements of Decisive Storm. He said that the coalition was successful on the military level by destroying weapons that posed a threat to Saudi Arabia and its neighboring countries, on the political level by securing a UN decision on the campaign's legitimacy, on the regional level by exposing Iran's ugly face, and on the Arab level by awakening the Arabs to realize a common danger. The campaign has also won hearts and minds. Decisive Storm may have ended, but the Saudi finger is on the trigger and ready to strike again.
— The writer can be contacted at [email protected]. Twitter: @anajeddawi_eng
