Saudi Arabia has become PR nightmare for US: Commentator

Press TV has conducted an interview with Steven Kelley, a security and political commentator, to discuss a new report showing that the US military has withdrawn from Saudi Arabia its troops who were helping the Kingdom with its aggression against Yemen.

Here is a rough transcription of the interview:

Press TV: We are not surprised to hear that the US has been involved in supporting Saudi aggression on Yemen. What do you think are the possible factors behind this sudden decision to withdraw its personnel out of the Saudi soil?

Kelley: Well first of all I think the fact that the United States and other governments have been very much involved in this war beyond providing cluster munitions and illegal weapons and this sort of thing, the United States just authorized the sale of, I think, a billion and half dollars worth of M1 tanks, 150 units of the M1 Abrams tank, so this is a significant transfer of military hardware that you cannot exactly hide and certainly they would have to suggest that that would mean a direct involvement of the United States within this particular campaign in Yemen.  

Press TV: So do you believe Washington’s claim that the pullout of its military personnel out of Saudi Arabia has got nothing to do with mounting international concerns about rising civilian casualties in Yemen?

Kelley: Well certainly it has a lot to do with that. Obviously Saudi Arabia has become a PR nightmare not just for the United States but in so many areas. I think that they would like to continue with the military sales so that they need to placate the public in other areas. I think that perhaps by withdrawing the personnel they may be signaling, giving the Saudis the green light, per se, to engage in even more savage warfare.

I suspect there is a distinct possibility that they are concerned that they will lose personnel in a large way such as it has been done right now with the very effective use of missiles by the Yemeni side against the Saudi military installations. This is why there is so much significant loss.

I think that this entire war points to a change in military strategy overall. We are seeing a relatively poor, backwards country overwhelming a much more wealthier, sophisticated military with missiles, per se. So this is very significant. I think also the American involvement with Saudi Arabia certainly needs to be withdrawn a little bit because of the disclosure that one of the AWACS involved in shooting down the Russian jet in Syria by Turkey was coordinated with the AWACS throughout of Saudi Arabia. This and the fact that Saudi Arabia is now being used as the head of the Human Rights Commission, there is so many ..., I think that this is a political maneuver and if we look at the WikiLeaks and we look at Hillary Clinton and we look at the political landscape as a whole, this could signal the thieves starting to stab each other in the back, if you will.     

Press TV: And you agree that this by no means signals that the US might be withdrawing its support for the Saudi government because they have said that the US might decide to deploy military personnel as Saudi air raids intensify?

Kelley: Well certainly what that means is that they need to come up with countermeasures for these missiles so that would indicate some sort of a Patriot system or an Iron Dome type system and that would require American military personnel to maintain these systems.

So apparently the threat is becoming very, very real and very significant and if the Yemenis are able to bring even more powerful missiles into the theatre, then I think that probably has the monarchy over there extremely concerned. So the United States will do what it can, I believe, to prop it up obviously because Saudi Arabia is the Wahhabi state which is technically part of Israel. They will obviously do what they can to protect those people but at the same time I do see a political shift where they will try to detach themselves at least publicly and with the disclosure of 9/11 and with Donald Trump possibly becoming president and the entire barrel of rotten apples being turned upside down, I think that they are all trying to save themselves at this point.  

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