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Iran meddling in Yemen? 10, September 2009

Posted by thegulfblog.com in Middle East, Yemen.
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yemen

(Yemen was once variously known as Arabia Felix or Happy Yemen. The word being pushed off the cliff is Al Saaeed (Happy) by the other word Al Yemen. Al Hayat)

Michael Collins Dunn over at the indefatigable and ever-informative Middle East Institute Blog puts forward an intriguing case focusing on what he sees to be some level of distortion of coverage of the Yemani conflict. He discerns that there is something of an agenda of sorts being pushed by what appears to be much if not most of the Arabian Gulf’s media [I use the term pointedly, for a reason] to implicate Iran as fermenting, to various degrees, the trouble in Yemen.

This complex conflict between the Houthi rebels in the north against the south is being woefully simplified to the good, old fashioned binary Sunni/Shia conflict. Yet – needless to say – it if far more nuanced that this. Instead, Iran are ipso facto, so to speak, ‘supporting’ the Zaydis because they are quasi-Shi’ite and, ‘as usual’, – so the narrative goes – supporting terrorism of some description.

Dunn makes clear that there may well be sympathy from Tehran towards the Zaydis or even tacit (or otherwise) support. Yet there is little evidence of this. He further links this with the recent assassination attempts in Saudi (the bum bomb) and concludes that:

The result is that there seems to be an emerging narrative: the Yemeni Government is hand-in-glove with Al-Qa‘ida, or at least looks the other way, while their enemies the rebel Houthis are Iranian stalking horses. Or, if you want to combine the two, here (in Arabic) is a Saudi article in Al-Watan saying that the Houthis are actually supporting Al-Qa‘ida.

…

But the narrative is building. True, false, or in between, the charge is growing that Iran is fueling things in Yemen.

See this article in the Huffington Post for a Yemeni conflict primer.