Iran to protect oppressed people in West Asia!
-Dr. Abdul Ruff
_______________
As
Saudi led coalition is waging a bloody war in
a weak Arab nation Yemen, already killing Arabs, Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali
Khamenei said recently that Iran will
help oppressed people in the region as much as it can, ratcheting up his
rhetoric against regional rival Saudi Arabia.
Khamenei said in an address to Iranian leaders and diplomats from the
Islamic world that Yemen, Bahrain and Palestine are oppressed, and we protect
oppressed people as much as we can.
True, Saudi Arabia does not want any other
Muslim nation to dictate terms to it, though it feels helpless and even vulnerable
to Western and Israeli threats and now is annoyed with their terms. Above all,
Saudi kingdom cannot tolerate a rising Iran in the region that would amount to
challenging its own position in the region and worldwide. That USA is not “doing enough” to contain Iran
and Syria is the major concern of
Riyadh.
Saudi Arabia, interestingly, considers Shi’a
nations a serious threat to Saudi supremacy - in fact more than that of Israel.
Saudi attack on Yemen is essentially to showcase its power and capabilities to
Iran, though it is presumed Riyadh is trying to signal to Washington its role
in the world as a rich superpower of Mideast. In doing so, Saudi king has
demonstrated that it can act on its own against “enemies” or Shi’ite threats on its own without active support
from USA.
Sunni
Saudi Arabia and Shiite Iran are longtime regional rivals. They back opposite
sides in Syria's civil war and are fiercely divided on a host of regional
issues. Tensions between Riyadh and Tehran have been rising steadily, not only
over Yemen but also the situation in Syria, Iraq, Lebanon and Shiite-majority
but Sunni-ruled Bahrain.
The
United Nations says at least 1,200 people have been killed in Yemen since March
19, and has repeatedly warned that the already impoverished Arabian Peninsula
state faces a major humanitarian crisis.
A Saudi-led alliance began bombing
Iranian-allied The Saudi-led coalition that has
been bombing a weak Yemen since 26 March, seeing a threat from Houthi
militia advances across the Arabian Peninsula state. Riyadh wants to restore
Yemen's president, forced into exile by the Houthis. Earlier this week, Saudi
Arabia said coalition jets destroyed the runway of Yemen's Sanaa airport to
prevent an Iranian cargo plane from landing there.
Iran,
the Shiite rival of Sunni-ruled Saudi Arabia, has strongly condemned the nearly
six-week-old coalition air strikes against Shiite Huthi rebels who have seized
large parts of Yemen including the capital. Iran has provided the Houthis with
political and humanitarian support but denies arming them. The Houthis seized
the capital, Sanaa, last year, and Yemen's internationally recognized president
has fled the country. Iranian leaders have repeatedly criticized the airstrikes
and said the Saudi-led campaign is doomed to fail.
The
head of Iran's navy said warships would remain in international waters near
Yemen as part of a 90-day assignment through July 10. Adm. Habibollah Sayyari
told state TV they will then be replaced by another fleet. Iran dispatched the
destroyer Alborz and logistics ship Bushehr to the waters off Yemen last month.
It says the ships are patrolling the strategic Bab al-Mandab strait on an
anti-piracy mission.
As
Saudi led Arab coalition is attacking Yemen, because that Arab nation is considered to be an Iran ally,
and now Iran openly expresses it solidarity with people of Yemen. Supreme
Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said recently that Iran will help oppressed people in the
region as much as it can, ratcheting up his rhetoric against regional rival
Saudi Arabia. "Security in the
Persian Gulf is in the interests of everyone... If it is insecure, it will be
insecure for all," Khamenei said and his comments are likely to be taken
by Gulf Arab leaders, who on May 14 met with US President Barack Obama to
address security issues, as evidence that Iran is trying to aggressively expand
its influence in the region.
Iran's
Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei went so far as to call the Saudi airstrikes
in Yemen "genocide." Khamenei
said the Americans shamelessly support the killing of
the Yemeni population, but they accuse Iran of interfering in that country and
of sending weapons when Iran only seeks to provide medical and food aid.
"The revolutionary people of Yemen do not need weapons because they
control all the country's military bases and centres," he added.
General
Mohammad Ali Jafari, commander of Shi'ite Muslim Iran's elite Revolutionary
Guards, said Sunni Saudi Arabia - Tehran's arch regional adversary - was
"shamelessly and disgracefully bombing and killing a nation" and
"Saudi Arabia is following in the Zionist (Israel) regime's footsteps in
the Islamic world," Jafari was quoted as saying by IRNA. The head of
Iran's Revolutionary Guard accused Saudi Arabia of treachery against the
Islamic world and compared the kingdom to Israel. Today, the treacherous Saudis are following
in Israel's footsteps, Saudi Arabia is shamelessly and disgracefully bombing
and mass killing a nation that is fighting against the arrogant system, or
world powers, he said. "Others will not be allowed to put our shared
security at risk with military adventures."
Obviously,
USA and Europe use Sunni nations against Shi’ite nations and they are eager to
see the divide is intact. Iran's supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei accused
the United States of supporting "immense crimes" in Yemen by Saudi
Arabia, which is leading an air war against Tehran-backed rebels. "The
Saudi government is killing innocent people, women and children in Yemen ...
and Americans support these immense crimes," Khamenei said in a speech to
students quoted on his official website.
The
United States and Saudi Arabia have accused Iran of arming the Shi'ite Houthis.
The Islamic Republic says it gives only political and humanitarian support to
the Houthis. Iran's deputy foreign minister said Tehran will not let regional
powers jeopardize its security interests in Yemen in the strongest
acknowledgement yet of Iranian involvement in the Arabian Peninsula.
Iran
has denied accusations from Western and Arab states that it is arming Shi'ite
Muslim Houthi rebels in Yemen. Tehran has regularly condemned a Saudi-led air
campaign against the insurgents.
Iran
does not recognize Hadi and has portrayed the air strikes as an intervention in
Yemen's internal affairs.
US
Secretary of State John Kerry said that several countries, including Iran,
backed a negotiated political process to resolve the conflict in Yemen. The UN
Panel of Experts, which monitors compliance with the Security Council’s Iran
sanctions regime, noted in its latest annual report that Tehran shipped arms to
a number of recipients in the Middle East- Syria, Yemen, Iraq and Lebanon,
including the Houthis, Hamas and Hezbollah. According to the panel’s analysis
of the 2013 seizure of a Yemen-bound ship, media reports and information
received from the Yemeni government, Iranian arms shipments to the Houthis date
back to at least 2009. The panel's report said that apart from the 2013
incident no alleged arms shipments by Iran to the Houthis were officially
reported to the panel or to the UN Security Council’s Iran sanctions committee.
Saudi Arabia says Shiite
fighters in the country have broken a day-old ceasefire. The Saud-led campaign was launched to reinstate
the rule of Hadi after the Huthis, backed by army units loyal to ex-president
Ali Abdullah Saleh, overran much of Yemen.
The United Nations appealed to all sides in the
Yemen conflict to respect a fragile five-day truce in the country in a bid to
boost the delivery of sorely-needed aid. The plea made by the UN envoy to
Yemen, Ismail Ould Sheikh Ahmed, came as Saudi-led forces accused Shiite rebels
of violating the truce, two days after it took effect. But the Saudi-led
coalition said it would abide by the ceasefire, and stick to its decision to
temporarily halt weeks of air strikes on Iran-backed Huthi rebels.
Houthi fighters withdrew almost completely from
the border area between Saudi Arabia and Yemen on Friday morning, as their
fighters engaged in fierce fighting in the south of the country. The Houthi
withdrawal, first reported by Sky News Arabia, came after a ceasefire announced
by Saudi Arabia that has held since May 12 despite reports of violations by both
sides .
Saudi Arabia, which sees itself as the guardian
of Sunni Islam, has long vied for influence with Iran, the region's main
Shi'ite Muslim power.
UN chief Ban Ki-moon urged a humanitarian pause
in the conflict as embattled aid agencies say they desperately need supplies,
including fuel to run infrastructure such as hospitals. His comments came after
the UN Security Council failed Friday to back a Russian appeal for an immediate
ceasefire or humanitarian pauses in war-torn Yemen. Russia requested an urgent
meeting of the 15-member council as the air strikes entered a sixth week,
crippling deliveries of fuel, food and medicine.
White
House said it was working to find a solution for Yemen's crisis as the UN urged
a truce, warning the country was on the verge of collapse. More than six weeks
of Saudi-led air strikes targeting Shiite rebels in Yemen and ground fighting
has killed hundreds of people and forced hundreds of thousands to flee the
impoverished country.
Kerry
said the United States was working "very hard" to help negotiate a
solution to the crisis in war-torn Yemen through the United Nations. Speaking
to reporters in Sri Lanka, Kerry said it was not inevitable that Yemen, the
scene of Saudi-led air strikes on Huthi rebels, would become a failed state.
Sunni-Shiite
divide is artificial because Islam does not provide for a war or any serious
conflict between the branches. An increasingly tense standoff between Iran and
Saudi Arabia has added a sectarian dimension to regional conflicts,
particularly in Yemen where a Saudi-led coalition of Sunni Arab states is
carrying out air strikes against Shi'ite Houthi rebels allied to Iran. The
standoff has also raised concerns for shipping in the Gulf, a major oil
transport route. In the past month, Iranian forces have twice tried to seize
commercial ships to settle legal disputes.
In
fact, after an initial confusion plus hesitation, USA has welcomed Saudi war in
Yemen and President Obama sent his secretary of state John Kerry to Riyadh in a
way as to assure US support for its war – illegal or otherwise. Washington
has given intelligence and logistical support to the coalition.
5/19/2015
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