Yemen Crisis Spells Trouble in Saudi Arabia’s Backyard - The Washington Institute for Near East Policy
▻http://www.washingtoninstitute.org/policy-analysis/view/yemen-crisis-spells-trouble-in-saudi-arabias-backyard
Washington’s Gulf partners in the coalition against ISIS are increasingly distracted by the takeover of the Yemeni capital by pro-Iranian Houthi tribesmen.
On October 1, the interior ministers of Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, and Oman, joined by the head of Saudi intelligence, held an “emergency” meeting in the Saudi Red Sea port city of Jeddah to discuss the rapidly deteriorating situation in Yemen, where the government of President Abdu Rabu Mansour Hadi has lost control of the capital, Sana. The Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) states have been guiding an “initiative” to smooth political reform since the 2012 collapse of the regime of President Ali Abdullah Saleh. An official statement afterward, apart from platitudes like the “necessity to restore all official headquarters and institutions,” included the ominous phrase that the GCC states will not idly tolerate “foreign interference,” an obvious reference to Iran.
