Saudi Arabia seeks to destroy Yemen: Pundit

Press TV has conducted an interview with Lawrence Davidson, a professor at West Chester University, to discuss Saudi Arabia’s ongoing military aggression against Yemen.

Here is a rough transcription of the interview:

Press TV: Why do you think at this time the Saudis are intensifying their attacks on Yemen?

Davidson: I think the Saudis have one or two alternatives as they see it. One is to essentially just withdraw and stop their attacks. The other is to essentially destroy the country and keep destroying the country indefinitely. This is the alternative they seem to be following. They cannot win, definitively win this war and they refuse to essentially withdraw and stop it so they have chosen the alternative to simply destroy the country indefinitely. 

Press TV: It is interesting then, isn’t it, because this is quite a risky strategy? We just had recently a Wahhabi cleric in the kingdom begging essentially Saudis to put money forth to support troops in the battle against Yemen. So I am wondering that is certainly a sign, isn’t it, because there are austerity measures being brought in the kingdom, this is all costing a lot?

Davidson: It is costing them an enormous amount of treasure but they seem not to know what else to do. I mean if they mount an invasion that is going to even cost more, that is certainly the case. They seem not to know what to do. They are driven by a sort of, I guess a religious bias against certain segments of the Yemeni population or maybe they fear some sort of Shia government there but even if the worst happens, the Saudis, what would they do? In other words, say hypothetically, a Shia government to go over in Yemen. So what? Yemenis are not going to invade Saudi Arabia.

So ultimately I am not sure what the point of all of this is except in the expression of prejudice and the willingness to kill a lot of people based on that because I am not sure what the strategic aim is here for the Saudis in Yemen.

Press TV: I am wondering the US and the UK are heavily involved obviously through their arms sales and through intelligence and Special Forces, etc. if the Saudis are playing such a risky game, why is the West going along with it?

Davidson: Well I think the West has its own interests, at least they see it as that. I think the United States is very concerned to reassure the Saudis that they have not been abandoned by the nuclear agreement with Iran and so in order to kind of reassure the Saudis, because they are traditional allies allegedly, so what they take with one hand i.e. the Iran agreement, they give with the other hand arms to fight in Yemen.

So I do not think the United States or the UK or the West in general really cares very much about this slaughter. They are very short-term in their thinking and they want to just keep the Saudis from pulling their treasure out of New York or something. So they sort of just help the Saudis in Yemen. I do not think it goes much beyond this sort of simplistic thinking.

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