Ayad Qassem

With the escalation of fighting around the center of Marib Governorate in North Yemen, between the Iranian-backed Houthi militia and the local forces loyal to President Hadi, several scenarios emerge that determine the fate of the political status quo if the city falls to the Shiite group.

Of a total of 14 districts in Marib, seven of its directorates, according to local media, are under the control of the Houthis. According to Agence France-Presse, the confrontations are more than 10 kilometers from Marib on the western side, and have left dozens dead and wounded on both sides.

Despite the fierce resistance shown by the local forces to the "Murad" tribes, which are supported by air cover by the Saudi-led coalition, the renewed recent fighting, after a lull that lasted for nearly three months, indicates regional and perhaps international trends to create new balances on the political and field levels.

The new military operation in Marib comes at a time when the administration of US President Joe Biden is moving in the direction of turning the US strategy on Yemen upside down, after it announced the withdrawal of US support to Saudi Arabia, Washington's ally, and withdrawing the Houthi designation as a terrorist organization.

A map showing the field situation and the areas of Houthi and government control in the Marib Governorate, until last September. (Tribes of Yemen)

Air attacks

At the same time, the Houthi group continues to intensify its missile and drone attacks on civilian sites and strategic installations within the territory of Saudi Arabia.

The most severe of these attacks coincided with the arrival of the US special envoy to Yemen, Tom Lenderking, in Saudi Arabia and his meeting with several Saudi and Yemeni officials. Last Wednesday, four drones targeted Abha International Airport. A Saudi civilian plane sustained major damage. The Houthi movement claimed responsibility for the attack, and claimed that it attacked military targets.

The Houthi attack was widely condemned, as it showed the Houthis' readiness to repeat the incident at Aden International Airport, on December 30, when three guided missiles bombed the airport terminal and runway during the arrival of the new parity government, killing and wounding more than 120 people, including journalists, aid workers and women.

The Houthi attack on Marib, in Yemen and on Saudi territory, came after a short visit by the United Nations envoy to Yemen, Martin Griffiths, to Tehran for the first time. During this period, he met with Iranian officials, with the aim of what Griffiths announced, "to reach a political solution to the conflict in Yemen through negotiation."

A Saudi civilian plane was damaged in an explosive drone attack launched by the Houthis on Abha International Airport in Saudi Arabia, February 10, 2021 (Al-Arabiya Channel)

Iran's nuclear file

What is happening in Yemen cannot be separated from the Iranian nuclear file crisis since the agreement was signed in June 2015, from which the administration of former US President Donald Trump later withdrew. The signing of the agreement at that time coincided with the expulsion of the Houthi militia from the governorates of South Yemen, and the purification of the city of Anbar in Iraq of terrorist cells of ISIS, according to observers.

Badr Mohammad, a researcher at South24 Center for News and Studies, points out that "America and Iran are returning from the point they finished on, on the Iranian and Yemeni levels, and perhaps Iraqi as well."

Mohammad believes that “the Houthis’s going to strike Saudi Arabia today in a hysterical and insane manner. It is explained by two things: Either the process of overthrowing Marib was difficult and the Houthis became in a difficult situation, lest the inability to bring it down would revert to the threat of Sana'a.” Or "it is an attempt to give an international dimension to the battle of Ma'rib."

"In all cases, all hypotheses prove that Iran is using the Houthis as a tool to obstruct the negotiations of the nuclear file, as well as to test the new US administration's seriousness and to what extent Washington may go in using the long-term policy," adds The researcher on Yemeni political affairs.

However, Iran is not only escalating through its proxies in Yemen. It hastened to achieve advanced steps in enriching uranium, amid international warnings of its near possession of a nuclear bomb.

A report by the International Atomic Energy Agency said, Wednesday, that "Iran has started producing uranium metal to feed a nuclear research reactor in Tehran," in a new violation of its obligations under the agreement on Iran's nuclear program concluded in 2015.

IAEA inspectors confirmed the presence of 3.6 grams of uranium in a facility in Isfahan last week.

Iran does not hide its intention to acquire a nuclear bomb. First, it insists that US sanctions be lifted before returning to the nuclear agreement.

Earlier this week, the Iranian Minister of Security and Intelligence, Mahmoud Alawi, said that "if Tehran is pushed to build a nuclear weapon, it will not be its fault, but the fault of those who pushed it to do so."

There is still no American reaction to the new escalation of Iran and its proxies in Yemen, although the US State Department indicated to keep the Houthi leaders on the list of terrorism.

Pawn of the American game

Biden’s recent steps toward the crisis in Yemen have angered the American expert, Danielle Pletka, head of policy and defense at the American Enterprise Institute, accusing the new president of pursuing a "Kabuki foreign policy." She meant one of the styles of ancient Japanese theater.

Pletka indicated that Biden’s steps has "no intention of addressing the underlying problem of Yemenis dying. Rather, it represents yet another manipulation of the small Red Sea nation as a pawn in the American tactical game in the Middle East."

"Biden's new team at the State Department was forced to condemn four armed Houthi drone attacks on civilians within hours of the decision to remove them from the terrorism list," adds the American expert.

While Pletka enumerated foreign interference in the Yemeni file, she attributed the messy conflict in Yemen to what it called the "a messy post-Cold War unification of North and South Yemen."

The Biden administration affirmed in more than one press release its commitment to "assisting Saudi Arabia in strengthening its defense capabilities."

At this time, the United States has not demonstrated a clear plan to resolve the complex conflict in Yemen, as much as its recent decisions have complicated them. But it is pushing efforts to find a comprehensive political solution in the country.

Despite the Saudi-led coalition's air attacks, it does not seem that the multi-loyalty "National Army" forces loyal to Hadi are able to defend their strongholds in North Yemen, while most of their forces are deployed in the oil regions of eastern South Yemen, especially those controlled by the Brotherhood Muslims.

The likely fall of Marib in the hands of the Houthis could lead to an Iranian-American approach toward a possible return to the nuclear deal. But it will open the way for several scenarios and possibly new rounds of conflict, which will mainly reflect on the future of South Yemen, which seeks independence from North, the fate of the internationally recognized government of President Abd Rabbo Mansour Hadi, and even the fate of Saudi Arabia.

Ayad Qassem

Head os South24 Center for News and Studies