{"id":640,"date":"2015-04-02T18:04:09","date_gmt":"2015-04-02T18:04:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/unitederitreamedia.com\/blog12\/?p=640"},"modified":"2015-04-02T18:04:09","modified_gmt":"2015-04-02T18:04:09","slug":"king-salman-goes-swiftly-to-war-but-will-find-it-hard-to-end-it","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/unitederitreamedia.com\/blog12\/2015\/04\/02\/king-salman-goes-swiftly-to-war-but-will-find-it-hard-to-end-it\/","title":{"rendered":"King Salman goes swiftly to war, but will find it hard to end it"},"content":{"rendered":"<hgroup class=\"typog-content-header main-content-header\">\n<h3 class=\"headline\"><\/h3>\n<h1 class=\"rubric\">http:\/\/www.economist.com\/news\/middle-east-<\/h1>\n<h1 class=\"rubric\"><\/h1>\n<\/hgroup>\n<div id=\"block-ec_components-share_inline_header\" class=\"block block-ec_components&lt;br \/&gt;\n\"><\/p>\n<div class=\"content clearfix\">\n<div class=\"share_inline_header\">\n<ul class=\"clearfix\">\n<li class=\"share-inline-header-twitter last omniture-tagged\" data-ec-omniture-frame=\"top_twitter\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" title=\"\" src=\"http:\/\/cdn.static-economist.com\/sites\/default\/files\/imagecache\/full-width\/images\/2015\/04\/articles\/main\/20150404_map004.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"595\" height=\"335\" \/><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"main-content\">\n<p>SAUDI ARABIA\u2019S recently enthroned King Salman pulled off a striking diplomatic coup last month when he gathered a ten-country coalition of Sunni states to bomb the upstart Shia rebels in Yemen known as Houthis. Even Qatar and the United Arab Emirates, rivals in regional politics, put aside their differences to confront a perceived Iranian proxy. Egypt sent planes and ships. Countries as far apart as Morocco and Pakistan pledged help, too.<\/p>\n<p>Saudi Arabia is usually shy about speaking loudly and taking part in military action. Its uncharacteristic assertiveness may be a sign of the influence of the new king\u2019s son and defence minister, Muhammad, who is in his 30s. Sunni states no doubt want to draw a line against further encroachment by Iran, which exerts strong influence in Iraq, Syria and Lebanon. But Saudi Arabia, which treats the Arabian peninsula as its backyard, is particularly sensitive about trouble in Yemen.<\/p>\n<aside class=\"main-content-container\">\n<div class=\"secondary-header grey-header size-compact\">In this section<\/div>\n<div class=\"secondary-header grey-header size-compact\"><\/div>\n<ul class=\"expanded-list white-palette typog-list-exp related-items\">\n<li class=\"0 first\">Politically nimble as King Salman\u2019s team may be, the real test will be the outcome of the military action and whether it can stabilise his poor, tumultuous southern neighbour. Saudi Arabia\u2019s oil wealth and custodianship of the two holiest sites in Islam, Mecca and Medina, give it a central place in the Sunni world. But the kingdom also has a reputation as a blunderer. Its attempt to unseat Syria\u2019s president, Bashar Assad, by supporting rebel groups has been stymied by the backing that Iran and its Lebanese ally, Hizbullah, gives him.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/aside>\n<p>Saudi Arabia has long relied on America for its own security. Its army has many weaknesses. \u201cThe military has some excellent niche capabilities, but it doesn\u2019t yet reflect the country\u2019s massive defence budget,\u201d says Emile Hokayem of the International Institute for Strategic Studies, a British-based think-tank. During its latest foray into Yemen, in 2009, the Saudi army achieved a draw at best against the Houthis, then confined to their northern stronghold. A leaked American cable called Saudi strikes \u201cimprecise\u201d.<\/p>\n<p>On March 30th an air strike hit a camp for displaced people in northern Yemen, killing at least 29. A day later, a bomb hit a dairy factory near Hodeida, killing 23. The Saudis have not admitted to any mistakes.<\/p>\n<p>Saudi Arabia and its allies have bombed airfields, arms dumps and missile launchers in the hands of the remnant of the Yemeni army loyal to the former president, Ali Abdullah Saleh, who has allied himself with the Houthis (see <a href=\"http:\/\/www.economist.com\/news\/middle-east-and-africa\/21647674-former-president-ali-abdullah-saleh-may-have-overreached-last-old-man\" target=\"_blank\">article<\/a>). Ships are blockading Yemeni ports to stop arms deliveries. But the Houthis still appear to be advancing. \u201cBombing from the air is unlikely to do much more than inflict pinprick damage,\u201d says Kristian Coates Ulrichsen of Rice University in Texas.<\/p>\n<p>A land intervention is a different matter. The Houthis are renowned as fearsome fighters. And any ground force might also have to contend with al-Qaeda and other jihadist groups that have expanded amid Yemen\u2019s chaos. Who else would offer ground forces? Egypt, which has a large army, still remembers Yemen as its \u201cVietnam\u201d from the days it fought there in the 1960s. Pakistan is reluctant to be drawn into a war when it is fighting its own militants, the Taliban; it also fears exacerbating its own Shia-Sunni troubles.<\/p>\n<p>Ultimately Yemen will have to be pacified by a political agreement. King Salman seems bent on reinstalling Abd Rabbo Mansour Hadi, the internationally backed president and, it is said, on excluding the Houthis. Saudi imams are said to be under orders to denounce them as \u201cenemies of Islam\u201d. The trouble is that Yemen\u2019s Zaydis represent only about 40% of its population, so the Houthis will be hard to exclude. Mr Hadi, moreover, is discredited among many Yemenis, and has fled the country. As America has discovered in recent years, ending a war is harder than starting it. Saudi Arabia\u2019s enemies would not be sorry to see it bogged down: Iranian comments on social media already talk of Yemen being the \u201cSaudis\u2019 Afghanistan\u201d.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>http:\/\/www.economist.com\/news\/middle-east- SAUDI ARABIA\u2019S recently enthroned King Salman pulled off a striking diplomatic coup last month when he gathered a ten-country coalition of Sunni states to bomb the upstart Shia rebels in Yemen known as Houthis. Even Qatar and the United Arab Emirates, rivals in regional politics, put aside their differences to confront a perceived Iranian [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"image","meta":{"_ml_titleColor":"#000000","_ml_titleFont":"Roboto","_ml_titleFontSize":1.1359999999999998987476601541857235133647918701171875,"_ml_titleFontWeight":"400","_ml_titleLineHeight":1.3000000000000000444089209850062616169452667236328125,"_ml_metaColor":"#708090","_ml_metaFont":"Montserrat","_ml_metaFontSize":0.67849999999999999200639422269887290894985198974609375,"_ml_metaFontWeight":"400","_ml_metaLineHeight":0.92000000000000003996802888650563545525074005126953125,"_ml_bodyColor":"#a9a9a9","_ml_bodyFont":"Open Sans","_ml_bodyFontSize":0.84999999999999997779553950749686919152736663818359375,"_ml_bodyFontWeight":"400","_ml_bodyLineHeight":1.1999999999999999555910790149937383830547332763671875,"_ml_wooPriceColor":"#666","_ml_wooPriceFont":"Open Sans","_ml_wooPriceFontSize":0.90000000000000002220446049250313080847263336181640625,"_ml_wooPriceFontWeight":"400","_ml_wooPriceLineHeight":1.270000000000000017763568394002504646778106689453125,"_ml_headingColor":"#000","_ml_headingFont":"Merriweather","_ml_headingFontSize":2.020000000000000017763568394002504646778106689453125,"_ml_headingFontWeight":"700","_ml_headingLineHeight":1.4699999999999999733546474089962430298328399658203125,"_mlglobal_userfontcolors":{"headingColorUser":[],"titleColorUser":[],"metaColorUser":[],"bodyColorUser":[],"wooPriceColorUser":[]},"_s2mail":"yes","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v20.10 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>King Salman goes swiftly to war, but will find it hard to end it - UNITED ERITREA MEDIA<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"noindex, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"King Salman goes swiftly to war, but will find it hard to end it - UNITED ERITREA MEDIA\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"http:\/\/www.economist.com\/news\/middle-east- SAUDI ARABIA\u2019S recently enthroned King Salman pulled off a striking diplomatic coup last month when he gathered a ten-country coalition of Sunni states to bomb the upstart Shia rebels in Yemen known as Houthis. 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