The Tehran Foreign Policy Studies Quarterly
 

Abstracts

 

Abstracts
Exclusive Interview with Mohammad Abd al-Salam 
Part one 2
Hussein Safdari (editor in chief) 

Mohammad Abd al-Salam bin Ahmad bin Abdollah Fliteh was born in 1982 in Sa'dah in northern Yemen. He is currently the official speaker of the Islamic Movement of Ansar Allah, the chairman of the National Board and also the chairman of the managing board of the Al-Masirah satellite network. 
His father is Allameh Salah bin Ahmad Fliteh, one of the preeminent scholars of Zaidi school of thought. 
Mohammad Abd al-Salam learnt Quran, tajwid (correct pronunciation of Quran), language, jurisdiction and oration in his father's classes in Bani Ma'ath Mosque in Sa'dah, and was accepted to the university after he graduated from high school. However, he was banned from studying at the university like a thousand other young people of Sa'dah because of his participation in martyr Hussein Badr al-Din's project of Houthi insurgency against the Yemeni government. 
He then continued his political activism by giving khutbah (sermons) on congregation prayers on Fridays, religious holidays and other occasions in the local grand congregational mosque. He also tried to raise the level of knowledge and awareness among his countrymen by giving weekly, monthly and annual seminars all across the country. 
He –aided by a number of the media activists– was also instrumental in founding Ansar Allah's media activities in Yemen's fourth war (2006-2007). He started his media activities from Seyyed Abd al-Malik Badr al-Din Houthi's office and turned into a well-known figure in the global media by accepting the position of the official speaker for the Yemeni Houthis. On November 16, 2019, major general, Mansour al-Turki, the spokesman for the Saudi Interior Ministry, announced that Mohammad Abd al-Salam was killed along with three of his assistants during the bombing of the rural area of the castle in the Razih District (in Yemen's sixth war). 
A while later, Yemenis' officials announced in another statement that he had been killed along with twenty other media workers during the bombing of Saqayn District in Sa'adah. However, Mohammad bin Abd al-Salam immediately refuted the news concerning his death by appearing in satellite channels. 
After the end of Yemen's sixth civil war in February 2010 and in the beginning of 2011, Al-Masirah satellite channel was founded by Mohammad bin Abd al-Salam. The satellite channel gradually expanded to become an influential satellite network. The network covers a series of channels, newspapers, news websites and radio channels. 
Mohammad bin Abd al-Salam has done plenty of media research and delivered several political and cultural lectures; he has also taken part in many political, cultural and media activities as Ansar Allah's representative. He was also present in several negotiations run by the United States of America in Switzerland, Kuwait and Sweden and had group and individual visits in both regional and other foreign countries. 
He believes that the cruel invasion of Yemen by Saudi-led coalition forces has brought about disastrous consequences for the Yemenis. However, the Yemeni people have also had substantial achievements. Regarding the serious consequences of the ruthless invasions of Yemen, he says that, "This was has been all loss and no gain for both the Saudis and Americans; the war has only worked as a demonstration of Yemenis perseverance and increased their insistence on their goals." 
Mohammad bin Abd al-Salam claims that Yemenis' position against the US and Israel is unchangeable and places emphasis on the role of the Islamic Republic of Iran in fighting oppression: "We maintain that the Islamic Republic of Iran is at the point of the arrow heading towards the heart of the global plutocrats." 
During a friendly discussion with Mohammad bin Abd al-Salam, Tehran Foreign Policy Studies Quarterly asked questions on diverse subject matters such as Yemen's political situation and future transformations of the West Asia region. 
Current Political Coalitions in Yemen 


Yemen's Resistance and the Invaders' Failure; Why is the War Still Going On? 
Charles Abi Nader 
(Lebanese retired army general and an expert of military and strategic affairs)
On 25 March 2015, Saudi Arabia launched an attack on Yemen under the name "Operation Decisive Storm" with the aim, or more exactly, the excuse of restoring the rule of President Abd Rabbo Mansour Hadi and eliminating the Houthi movement. Saudi Arabia led a coalition of nine countries from West Asia and North Africa that had joined Saudi Arabia and had each a part in invading Yemen. At first, the majority of the military attacks of this coalition consisted of shelling some areas by the helicopters from Saudi Arabia and United Arab Emirates with the technical and operational support of the West (specially the United States of America and Britain). These military operations were accompanied with wide media and political pressures; however, what attracted more and more attention as it went on was the fact that Yemenis' resistance grew more conspicuous which had come about only as a result of an efficient defensive method and the forces' perseverance. In the first stage, the Yemeni forces strengthened their fronts and became more integrated and united. In the second stage, they took the initiative and increased pressure on the most of the Saudi coalition headquarters both inside Yemen and also along the northern frontiers. Lastly, we can see the achievements of the military units, public committees and Ansar Allah such as ballistic missiles, drones and all kinds of unmanned aerial vehicles. On the one hand, these achievements have had a major role in Yemeni forces' power to defend, stabilize and take the initiative in dealing with the Saudi coalition forces and their regional and international supporters. On the other hand, they have given the Yemeni forces an opportunity to stop all the field and military plans of the coalition forces by putting forth the deterrence equation and the strategy of maintaining the balance of terror. 

 

 

How Did Yemen's Enemies fail? 

Anas Abd al-Kafi Amin al-Qazi 
(Bachelor's degree in Law from Taiz University; researcher in Yemen's Center of Political and Strategic Studies; director of the press research group in Saba News Agency in Yemen. Anas.q.y2016@gmail.com) 

When we discuss the failure of Saudi coalition forces in Yemen war (whether the forces directly involved in the war –such as Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates- or the international forces supporting them –such as the US, Israel, Britain and France) we mean their failure in realizing the goals for which they started the war against Yemen in the first place.  The House of Saud coalition's most important goal was to first bring the Yemeni national and revolutionary forces to their knees and deprive them of strategic ammunitions, and then assert dominance over the coasts of the Red Sea and Arabian Sea. However, none of the plans went as they had been devised by the House of Saud. Therefore, we can safely claim that the invading forces of the coalition failed against Yemen. Of course, it doesn't mean to ignore the Saudi coalition's partial victories such as, 
Occupying a part of south Yemen 
Occupying a few ports 
Forming some military and political forces that can endanger Yemen's future 
Deploying the ISIS forces in Yemen and destroying the infrastructures of this country. 
Thus, though the Saudi coalition was successful in realizing the above goals, they categorically failed in accomplishing their macro goals, which, in our opinion, will afford the Yemenis an opportunity to make the enemy's partial achievements face with failure. 
It is worth mentioning that the failure to achieve the aforementioned goals has placed the Saudi coalition in a dialectic position. The series of failure have got the coalition into complicated crises which, in the end, will ruin the point of the arrow that consists of the Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates because these two countries are now finding themselves in a dead-end they can't easily escape. On the other hand, the Yemeni nation and the national forces are finally seeing brighter futures in the horizon and that's because their power of action, initiative and deterrence forces have gradually grown and is still growing. 

Examining the United States of America's Responsibility in Cooperating with the Saudi Arabia against Yemen 
Mostafa Fazayeli 
It has now been four years that Yemen has been distraught by a brutal civil war between the central government and the Islamic movement of Ansar Allah or Houthi Movement and there is still no sign of peace. Thousands of civilians have lost their lives during these conflicts, millions of them were forced to abandon their homes and many are still struggling with famine. A coalition of countries led by Saudi Arabia was formed to vastly support the resigned president, Mansour Hadi, which resulted in ongoing military missions against the Houthis. During these military conflicts, the Saudi Arabia-led coalition was accused of breaching the international human rights by killing hundreds of the civilians with aerial raids and also through the siege of Yemen. 
Though not a part of the Saudi coalition, the US has vastly supported this coalition by selling arms, aerial refueling of the coalition's aircrafts, logistic support and providing necessary trainings. This kind of support can raise serious questions regarding the probable legal responsibility of the United States of America under both the internal and international laws. The present article both examines and analyzes the role of the US in Yemen and its responsibility, especially regarding the selling of the arms to the coalition. 
The article is divided into two parts. The first part is generally answering this question that whether the US can be held internationally responsible for its actions and cooperation with the Saudi-led coalition or not. The second part is specifically examining the US responsibility for selling arms. 
Experts Panel 
Resistance in Yemen 
Achievements, opportunities and challenges 
From the point of view of the political geography, Yemen is of a perfect regional situation geo-politically, geo-economically and geo-strategically. The contemporary history of the country is fraught with transformations regarding these exceptional features. 
After the Islamic enlightenment in 2011 and all the transformations the Arab countries went through, Muslim Yemenis who were frustrated with their inefficient government of three decades constantly betraying their trust, poured to the streets and announced their political demands by taking oppositional approaches. In November 2011, after months of negotiations and at the culmination of military conflicts, the political parties and movements settled for decided to meet each other halfway and agreed on a deal based on which the political power was supposed to transfer to other parties during a two-year time span in a peaceful way. Therefore, Ali Abdullah Salih, the president, moved into a non-active role pending the presidential election in return for immunity from prosecution and his Vice President, Abdrabbuh Mansur Hadi became the acting president. 
Because of the flawed approaches during the national negotiations after the formation of the national unity government, political attempts faced constant impediments which cancelled the fruition of people's revolution and it all led to the civil war in this country. Ansar Allah, which enjoyed the public support in this country, could emerge as the superior united internal power in Yemen and occupy a vast portion of this land. 
Since the regime in Saudi Arabia didn't deem the current changes in its southern neighbor in its best interest, it started the first of a series of military offensives against Yemen on 26 March, 2015 with the support and encouragement from the United States government and formed a military coalition with the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, Sudan, Egypt and Jordan in order to force a resistant nation under the oppression of selfish policies of the bigger powers to yield.
Tehran Foreign Policy Studies Quarterly admires the independent-seeking fights of this great nation that has defended its religious and national goals through these dire years with great sacrifices and has left memorable and impressive heroic stories. This quarterly aims at discovering some hidden aspects of this important historical period of Yemeni fights by holding an expert panel with Iranian and Yemeni scholars to study and analyze the political and security incidents in this country. 
We did our best to scrutinize all the transformations of the past decade –after the Islamic enlightenment- in order to be able to evaluate the prospects and future of these changes with a strategic view. 
The list of the experts participating in the discussions is as follows: 
Ibrahim al-Deylami, Yemen's special ambassador in Iran; Dr. Abd al-Salam Rajih, Yemeni political commentator and media activist; Mohammad Ali-Bak, former chief of the Yemen Office in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs; Hasan Abedin, former charge d'affaires of the Islamic Republic of Iran in Yemen; Dr. Mahdi Shariatmadar, the deputy editor of the quarterly, and Meghdad Nili –the mediator of the panel- editor of the Persian Gulf section of the magazine. 
We sincerely thank the efforts of all the respectful scholars and hope that the readers enjoy reading about the 2ed part of the proceedings in this panel. 


Media War against Yemen and the Conflict of the Values and Willpowers 
Abdollah Ali Sabri 
(Political writer and researcher; MA in political sciences; the chairman of the Yemeni Media Experts Union)

Yemen war is entering its sixth year while the Saudi-led coalition is facing total failure and the world is struggling with the coronavirus covid-19 pandemic and political and economic crises. Notwithstanding all these problems, the Yemeni army is gaining more victories each day and increasing its deterrence force through ballistic missiles and new drones. We can even safely assume that we would be hearing from Saudi Arabia and its allies' utter defeat very soon.
If we compare Yemen of the 26 March 2015 (when the war started) with today (in the middle of 2020), we will soon realize how delusional were those in favor of invading this country and how confused and terrified they are now that they have failed in their nasty media war and tasted their own bitter medicine. Now, the ugly truth has appeared from under the covers and all the aims and greedy plans of the House of Saud have been divulged to the world. Today, no one believes that flimsy excuse of the legitimacy of the government which was once the basis for the war against Yemen. 
This articles aims at investigating the actions of those media which supported the invasion of Yemen and tried to –through collusion with those Western media falsely known as the free media- distort the war daily news and hide the crimes of the House of Saud from the public eyes in the world. 
In the end, the article will examine the role of the national media in Yemen in response to the media attacks of the invading forces and in defending Yemen and its oppressed nation. 

 


The Role of the Islamic Republic of Iran in supporting Yemeni People 

Omid Voghofi 
(Ph.D. in Future Studies; a member of the scientific board of Imam Hussein University; voghofi@gmail.com) 

Yemen has always been strategically important in West Asia. Helping and protecting the oppressed nations has always been a priority for Iran since the Islamic Revolution, and Yemen has now been under Saudi-US coalition's invasions for years. Yemen crisis goes to show the fact that the Islamic Republic of Iran must finds its strategic role in the region in order to support the resistance front in Yemen; Iran must try to both understand the current status in order not to be surprised and take initiatives to build the future. The present article aims at answering this question: what is the Islamic Republic of Iran's role in helping and supporting Yemenis? This research is a descriptive-analytical study using library means, interviews and expert panels. First, the documents were reviewed and experts were interviewed and a list of the roles of the Islamic Republic of Iran in supporting Yemenis was made. Next, an expert panel was held with eight of the important scholars. Then, the role of the Islamic Republic of Iran in supporting the Yemenis was put in the following categories: political, humanitarian, media, scientific-cultural, legal, cultural-religious and economic. In the end, the challenges and proposals are put forward. 

Key words: resistance front, Yemen, the Islamic Republic of Iran, cultural, Ansar Allah

 


The Failure of Political Consultations in Yemen 
Abdolmalek Ajari 
(A member of Ansar Allah political office and a member of the national board of Yemeni negotiators)

Six years after the first invasion of Yemen by the Saudi-led coalition, now we can hear the cries asking to put an end to this brutal war and siege against the Yemenis more than before. This illegitimate and inhumane invasion has led to killing of hundreds of Yemeni civilians who were mostly women and children –all the women and kids who are daily sacrificed for the Emirati and Saudi invaders' ambitions in the houses, bazaars or streets. 
In addition to the abovementioned catastrophes, hundreds of Yemenis have died as a result of illness, malnutrition, the dysfunctional medical services and prohibition of transferring the sick to other countries; the ominous Saudi-Emirati coalition is responsible for all these problems. 


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