Saudis achieved no goal in Yemen war: Commentator

Press TV has conducted an interview with Ibrahim Mousawi, political commentator in Beirut, to discuss the Saudi Arabia’s ongoing aggression against the Yemeni people.

The following is a rough transcription of the interview.

Press TV: First of all, Saudi Arabia has announced that five-day ceasefire plan even though we do not know when that would come into effect and also this part of the operations is about restoring hope as far as the Saudis have claimed. How much of that has restored hope or even work towards a ceasefire?

Mousawi: Well I cannot express more than the wording of the operation. When they call it “Restoring Hope,” when you talk about restoring hope, what is restoring hope? They are destroying every hope and they are demolishing and [destroying] every hope.

What did they do since they started or since they said that they have stopped this? They have started the “Restoration of Hope,” many schools have been destroyed, the fiercest of raid attacks have been launched by the Saudi war jets, many massacres have been mushrooming all over the territories in Yemen, so when they talk about this, this is a very pretty good example, crystal clear example, about the betrayal of the meaning of the word.

This is the betrayal of the hope more than any other thing. They have mounted their offensive and aggression against the Yemenis. I believe if you can make a kind of research or statistics about how many they killed during the “Decisive Storm”, as they call it, or “Restoration of Hope”, maybe they killed more ever since they did this - I mean when you talk about comparison and the days and the number of raids and the number of those wounded or killed during the operation. 

Press TV: So Mr. Mousawi, right now we are also seeing retaliatory rocket fire from the border areas in Yemen towards the Saudi city of Najran. It seems that the Yemenis are not going to just sit by and take this. How do you see Saudi Arabia responding?

We have already seen an escalation of the bombardment in the past few hours. There are expectations or rather fears that a ground invasion may also be launched? Do you think that this is the way things are headed?

Mousawi: Well this is not likely to happen. We know very well that the Saudi government and the Saudi military forces cannot in any way attack or go into a ground offensive.

They have been trying to ship armies from other countries. They have been trying to convince the Egyptians, to convince the Pakistanis and they were able to do something with the Senegal government to bring 2,100 troops.

I do not believe that the Saudi government is prepared to send the troops and we know very well the retaliatory attacks by the Yemenis is a kind of reprisal, it is a kind of symbolic response that they are not going to accept any subjugation anymore by the Saudi government, that they are still there on the ground and no matter how much they try, no matter how much they press in their attacks, in their air raids, this is not going to undermine the determination of the Yemenis to have their own real independence this time.

They have already sacrificed. They have already lost a lot of things when it comes to the infrastructure. They are armed with their will, with their determination, with their resolve to be an independent nation, to be an independent state. And I believe it is time for them to say enough for the Saudi government, enough for the meddling of the Saudis in the Yemeni affairs.

They have paid the price, it was a heavy price but the Saudis at the same time, they were not able in any way to achieve even one simple goal out of the agenda that they have set and they said they want to put it into implementation.

Did they get rid of the Ansarullah and the popular committees and the army? Were they able to reinstall or bring Abd Rabbuh Mansour Hadi back to Yemen? They have not been able to do anything and I believe they are trying to go from one branch into another in this high tree that they climbed. Maybe they need some time before they come back to their senses and very well realize that they are completely detached from the reality.This is not going to help them in any way. This is going to open far and far and deep the wound between the two countries because of these kinds of attacks and offensive that they are perpetrating against the Yemenis.

AHK/MKA 

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