As a person who spent a month under the bombing of the Saudi coalition in Yemen, I have the right to write about Trump's swan song internationally.
The day before he resigns, he intends to declare the Houthis and their Ansarullah movement terrorists.
The Middle East have been waiting for this pod for a long time, the rest ignored the news.
Yes, Yemen is far away, incomprehensible and not interesting to many.
But the geostrategic significance of the Bab el-Mandeb Strait and the main sea trade route from Asia to Europe does not diminish from this.
For almost six years now, on this piece of the Arabian Peninsula with direct access to the Indian Ocean, the leading powers of the region have been fighting, which has turned Yemen into the most terrible place on the planet from a humanitarian point of view, where 80% of the population suffers from bombing, hunger, lack of medicines and economic blockade.
Equating the Houthis with terrorists is a grenade thrown onto the UN-sponsored ceasefire negotiating table.
This is a way to deprive Houthi-controlled territories of the opportunity to receive humanitarian aid.
This is a blow to one of the main heavyweights of the region - Iran.
For a start, who are the Houthis?
These are not “Shiite rebels,” as all media call them without exception (they are zeidis, according to dogma, they are even closer to Sunnis).
They are not terrorists, as Saudi Arabia tries to present them.
I would call the Houthis a Yemeni national-patriotic movement that emerged in the north of the country as a counterweight to the Saudis back in the late 1980s.
They are tolerant of recognized schools of Islam, as long as they do not begin to impose other people's values.
Al-Qaeda * and ISIS ** are hateful.
They are opponents of the Muslim Brotherhood ***.
During the 2011 Arab Spring, the Houthis also fought with them for the role of leaders of the protest youth who overthrew President Ali Abdullah Saleh.
Then everyone fought like spiders in a bank for power.
The Houthis eventually united with Saleh, the losing forces fled the country and called for help from outside players.
Then the military invasion of Yemen began.
In 2015, a whole coalition of Sunni countries was formed for this case, in which today only two are actually fighting - Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.
Moreover, they are already at war not only with the Houthis, but also often among themselves for zones of influence.
This led to the complete disintegration of the south of the country.
The UAE has basically achieved its goals - they control the entire southern coast of Yemen and are now butting for the strategic island of Socotra.
But for the Saudis on all fronts - a complete failure, which is very expensive for the treasury.
Houthi leaders are educated people and members of the ancient religious elites of the descendants of the Prophet Muhammad.
Their warriors are highlanders who can run barefoot with a Kalashnikov on the rocks and successfully resist a well-manned Saudi army.
Aviation is powerless against them, mercenaries are powerless against them.
Al-Qaeda was set against them - it's useless.
The Houthis were able to clean up radical Islamists in many parts of the country and are now developing an offensive against the main command post of the Arab coalition in the province of Marib.
They have been controlling the most densely populated provinces of the country for several years now, supported by 22 million people who rallied against external aggression.
They are officially recognized by Syria and Iran.
Good contacts with Oman and Russia.
(Note that our diplomats have managed to establish and maintain close relations with all parties to this conflict.)
The coalition fails to defeat the Houthis by military means.
Saudi Arabia attributes its failures to the fact that it is opposed by Tehran: as if it were he in Yemen waging a proxy war, sending missiles, drones, instructors to the Houthis.
There is no evidence - the country is under sea and air blockade.
But there is the United States, which from the first day of the war willingly supports this myth.
"To contain Iranian aggression" they sell billions of dollars worth of weapons to the Gulf countries, and they started it even by the Democrats under Barack Obama.
Trump continued.
And although Congress tried to block the decision, it went around it and signed contracts for another $ 8.1 billion. Tehran was called the sponsor of the Ansarullah movement from the very beginning of the military invasion of Yemen.
What then gives the decision to add the Houthis to the list of terrorist groups?
1. This potentially reinforces the myth that Shiite Iran is the sponsor of terrorism and the main threat in the region, against which the Arab countries should unite around Israel with a single Sunni belt.
By the way, some of them have already signed agreements with him on the normalization of relations.
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2. This makes it possible to destroy the Houthi leaders under the guise of fighting international terrorism.
Such interference could theoretically affect the overall balance of power in favor of the Saudi coalition.
There is a precedent: at the beginning of the invasion, an American PMC operated in Yemen, which, on the instructions of the UAE, killed objectionable persons from the Muslim Brotherhood movement, whom the Emirates consider terrorists (we, by the way, too, but Turkey, Qatar, Europe and the United States - no) ...
3. It sabotages the colossal efforts of the UN to end the war.
At the negotiating table with terrorists?
And the Houthis themselves may refuse to talk on such terms, especially since the situation at the front is in their favor.
4. Perhaps most importantly, this will force all organizations that supply food and medicine to scale back their programs, otherwise they will fall under the article.
From a humanitarian point of view, the country is worse than a catastrophe: famine, cholera epidemic, bombed-out infrastructure, lack of absolutely everything.
Cutting off the last threads through which at least some kind of aid gets inside the country, to the territories controlled by the Houthis, is fraught with dire consequences for ordinary people.
Even thinking is scary.
Of course, Europe will never support such a decision by Trump, although it does not hesitate to cash in on the Yemeni war by supplying weapons to the Gulf countries.
But at the same time, he advocates the return of relations with Iran to normal.
President-elect Biden vows to follow the same path.
We'll see if Trump has time to throw another mine on him in order to complicate the situation in the region as much as possible, or if he himself is more likely to be impeached.
*
"Al-Qaeda" - the organization was recognized as terrorist by the decision of the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation dated 02.14.2003.
**
"Islamic State" (IS, ISIS) - the organization was recognized as terrorist by the decision of the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation of December 29, 2014.
*** "Muslim Brotherhood" - the organization was recognized as terrorist by the decision of the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation of February 14, 2003.
The author's point of view may not coincide with the position of the editorial board.