News / Interviews

Saudi Arabia just trying to 'save face' in 'unwinnable' Yemen war: Analyst

Thursday, 28 December 2017 8:02 AM [ Last Update: Thursday, 28 December 2017 8:02 AM ]

Yemeni men inspect the damage made by a Saudi airstrike on a bridge between the area of Abbas and Harad in the northern province of Hajjah, on December 25, 2017. (Photo by AFP)

There seems to be no end in sight to Saudi Arabia’s military aggression against Yemen as the kingdom's warplanes continue to pound the impoverished nation. Thousands of people have been killed since the onset of the Saudi-led campaign in March 2015. Much of the Arabian Peninsula country's infrastructure has been reduced to rubble and a deadly cholera epidemic has spread across Yemen. However, Saudi Arabia has failed to achieve its objectives after almost three years of war. Press TV has talked to Riaz Karim, director of Veritas Centre for Strategic Studies, as well as Nabil Mikhail, professor at George Washington University, to get their opinion on this issue.

Karim believes Saudi Arabia is seeking to “save face” rather than to win the war in Yemen, adding that it is well aware that this conflict is "unwinnable."

“I do not think Saudi Arabia has won a war against anyone and I do not think they are ever are going to. They have a two-fold agenda here. One is to disrupt the economy and spread their doctrine of Wahhabism wherever they go, which has been successful to a degree so far, but they are getting an incredible pushback from wherever they are going,” he said.

The analyst also criticized the international community's inaction on the ongoing catastrophe in Yemen, noting that it is just paying lip service to the issue.

He went on to say the United States and Britain are the ones “pulling the strings,” arguing that as long as Washington and London continue their arms sales to Saudi Arabia, the war in Yemen will not stop.

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Karim further maintained that the only way to end the war in Yemen is through a political solution, emphasizing that there needs to be an “unbiased party” to bring the warring sides to the negotiating table.

Meanwhile, Nabil Mikhail, the other panelist on the program, predicted that there will be an intensification of the war in early 2018, with the United States, Britain and Egypt getting more involved in the conflict.

He also opined that the reason why there is more room for war in Yemen rather than peace is that no framework has been built for such a process.

Saudi Arabia and its allies have been bombing Yemen in an attempt to restore a former regime that was friendly to Riyadh.

More than eight million Yemenis are on the verge of starvation, making the country the scene of, what the UN calls, the world’s worst humanitarian crisis.

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