Saudi Arabia

By Shruti Punia and Marc Finaud* The eight-year-old asymmetric war conducted by Saudi Arabia with its allies against the Iran-backed Houthi rebels in.

Henceforth, Saudi Arabia could now look in the direction of Oman as the only reliable mediator to find a lasting solution to the quagmire. The exit strategy for Saudi Arabia, in such a case, has seemed to evolve into some kind of Fabian tactics, avoiding pitched battles and frontal assaults in favour of wearing down an opponent through a war of attrition and indirection. However, Iran’s tenacity which has suffered an excruciating blow amidst the domestic protests and civil unrest following the death of Mahsa Amini, may offer the silver lining to the Saudi regime to possess its own leverage and use it rightly so. The overtures such as a truce announced by Riyadh in April 2022 have failed to work in Saudi Arabia’s favour and disagreements with UAE and Egypt over strategic interests have diminished its credibility even further. Although, one needs to note the official end of US support to Saudi “offensive” operations, it remains to be seen whether this pushes the Saudis to find a negotiated solution. Biden’s policy, beginning in February 2021, departed from the previous administrations’, bringing a halt to the support of the Saudi-led “offensive” operations. This is why the prospects of bilateral talks with Saudi Arabia on potential compensation for dropping Tehran’s support to the Houthis are so important. Since its beginning, the intractable civil war in Yemen has barely shown any signs of slowing down and Saudi Arabia’s armed intervention, conspicuously supported by the United States, has now seemed to reach a tipping point, with the heavy odds stacked against Riyadh’s status quo in the Arabian Peninsula. The eight-year-long conflict, which fundamentally set-out to achieve a quick victory, has chiefly driven home to a belligerent yet impuissant House of al-Saud that not all wars fought with might result in successes and triumphs. Iran, undoubtedly, having painstakingly become the flagbearer of regional factionalism and arch rival of many other Arab states, remains, to this day, the catalysing factor in the Yemen civil war. Indeed, the Zaydi Shia Houthis have exercised control of most of the country (the heavily populated west, the north except Marib Governorate, and the capital Sanaa) irrespective of the Saudis’ overwhelming military superiority and western advanced equipment. The eight-year-old asymmetric war conducted by Saudi Arabia with its allies against the Iran-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen cannot be won despite Riyadh’s enormous military superiority resulting from massive western arms sales.