The Arab Spring

Oooh, nice! Link?

India has enough problems with population. And under the current government, Yemenis would be suspected of being AQAP. Pakistan has the same issue.

here you go, it was filmed prior to the Houthi assault on Aden, and the Saudi intervention. It goes for a more personal touch than their peace on ISIS.

Crossposting in the South Asia thread:

The Indian military has successfully managed to evacuate over 4,000 Indian civilians from Yemen

Twenty-three other countries, including Germany, France, Ireland and the United States, have requested assistance in evacuating their own citizens

At least people are getting out of there.

Nice!

It seems Pakistan has been giving surprising dilligence to the idea of committing troops on Riyadh's behalf, something that has never happened before.

What I wonder though, is the price Islamabad will have to pay for so obviously slighting the new King so early in his reign, especially when its their money that keeps the Pakistani wheels turning.

Of course, its only been three days since deliberations began. For all that, the vote might still be to back Riyadh. But even pretending at debate could be seen as a slight...

Who wants to bet that this is going to turn into another Iraq/Afghanistan-style quagmire? I sort of hope for it - I don't see any good reason for this little adventure and little sympathy for the "coalition".

Thats a sucker's bet. One just has to look at Egypt and Saudi Arabia's involvement on opposite sides of the North Yemen Civil War back in the 60s to know that was the Arab Vietnam.

This is Part Deux.

While just up the coast there was the Dhofar Rebellion; the Middle East's Malayan Emergency, as it were.

I don't really want it to turn into a quagmire, but introducing the armies of a bunch of vampiric royal clans is hardly going to help matters. It's not going to advance any attempts at a peaceful solution or division of the country, that's for sure. Not exactly excited about the prospect of Vietnam-style social strains in any of the participating nations either.

I suppose it shows that anything the West can fuck up, the locals can fuck up much better.

edited 8th Apr '15 1:58:26 PM by Achaemenid

Quite.

A terrible quagmire would be the main thing to allow liberalization to occur in Saudi Arabia.

Or chaos. One must walk a fine line when sharing the neighborhood with AQAP and Da'esh across the borders.

Iran is deploying a destroyer and a supply ship to the Gulf of Aden. Ostensibly for anti-piracy operations....

edited 8th Apr '15 4:51:28 PM by FFShinra

Well I suppose if you consider the Suadi and Egyptian navies to be pirates....

Edit: Kerry Warns Iran against backing the Houthies He said the US would support any state in the Middle East that felt threatened by Iran, and would not "stand by" if Iran destabilised the region.

Pakistan unanimously votes to maintain neutrality in Yemem

edited 10th Apr '15 5:43:06 AM by JackOLantern1337

Hadi has a NY Times Op-ed

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/13/opinion/the-west-must-help-save-yemen

If you look past the anti-Iran rhetoric, he does say that a negotiated solution is needed, so he's not calling for the total subjugation of the Zaidis. I suspected as much.

The trouble is, do his patrons feel the same way?

There was a Reuters article published earlier today that basically said the US is concerned that the Saudis are gonna attempt to use the air campaign to chase the Houthis all the way back to Saada....something the CIA says would take at least a year of continuous bombing.

In other words, no.

But here's the thing though. With Pakistan and Turkey saying no and the other Muslim nations outside of the Arab world being pretty mum about the whole affair, Saudia's coalition is looking mighty narrow. In addition to the Reuters article already mentioned, there is also some concern (even said to be a possible reason for Pakistan's nay vote) that the new King and his son are being seen as too hotheaded to handle things, something Abdullah was not in his many years as King and as Regent before that.

It doesn't help that the UAE is now in a VERY public spat with Islamabad on the nay vote, with the Pakistani Interior Minister publically rebuking them for it. That's kind of a big deal, since in Pakistan, Dubai is seen as the goal for just about everything. Saudi Arabia has been good enough to simply say that it is an internal matter for Pakistan, but having an ally do it still hurts relations going forward....and the coalition.

Back more to the topic, these continuous air strikes are turning more Yemenis against Saudi Arabia with each hit. Hadi is already losing support in otherwise anti-Houthi areas, for being a coward, a useless president, and a puppet of the nation now bombing EVERYTHING to kingdom come.

Speaking of everything, what little the state was able to do before the crisis? All gone now, including the formal military. according to aid agencies. Mind, 60% of the population was in need of assistance BEFORE this war. That should give a baseline of just how utterly screwed things are there right now.

Do the Saudis care whether the Yemenis support them? (Or, in other words, are the Saudis willing and able to simply burn all opposition to the ground and dictate terms to the wind and the ashes?)

edited 14th Apr '15 12:39:18 AM by Ramidel

Willing? Maybe. Able? Hahahafuckno.

The Yemen war's set to be Afghanistan all over again, except this time the invaders don't have the training to match their technology.

The Saudi forces don't use conscription, do they?

What's that got to do with the quality of soldiering?

Conscripts usually make worse soldiers. It's a quantity over quality approach.

I was trying to factor in the domestic backlash an extended conflict could cause.

My point was that you can turn volunteers into less-than-adequate bags of cement mix if you try hard enough.

Rational's got the more salient point, i think. If conscripted, a quagmire war could cause a general revolt amongst the populace.

I don't think they conscript, though.

No, we don't have conscription. The rank and file may as well be conscripts, though, given that a large plurality if not majority of recruits only join the military because their academic performance sucks too much for them to get accepted by any self-respecting university/college (including the public ones, which don't charge you any tuition fees and, for non-elite ones like Jeddah's King Abdulaziz University, generally have more relaxed standards of acceptance in terms of grade scores), and can't/won't join the police force for whatever reason.

edited 14th Apr '15 12:45:09 PM by MarqFJA