Decisive Storm converting into one major In-Decisive WAR.
Who are the major players...
What did Operation Decisive Storm achieve?
With Operation Decisive Storm, Saudi Arabia has drawn a regional red-line for Tehran and its followers. This red-line is even more historic than the one drawn by Saudi Arabia for Iran and its allies with regards to Bahrain. The Saudi-drafted Gulf Initiative for Yemen is internationally backed by the UN, under Chapter VII. This means that the international community, not just Saudi Arabia or Yemens neighbors, are closely monitoring what is happening in the country.
Once upon a time big military operations were given obscure names so the enemy wouldnt guess what the plan was. The German plan for the invasion of France in 1940 was called Fall Gelb (Case Yellow); the American counter-attack in the Korean War that recovered Seoul was Operation Chromite. But then the PR guys got their hands on it.
By the 21st century we were getting dramatic titles like Desert Storm (the 1991 Gulf war), and then aspirational ones like Operation Iraqi Freedom. So it was only natural, when Saudi Arabia decided to bomb the Houthi rebels who had taken over most of Yemen, to name the operation Decisive Storm. That sounds nice and decisive, and stormy too.
And when the Saudi military spokesman, Brig-Gen Ahmed al-Asiri, announced in April that Saudi Arabia was calling the bombing campaign off after one month and 2,415 bombing sorties, he naturally claimed that it had been a decisive victory. The bombing had destroyed 80 percent of the Houthis transport lines (colloquially known as roads), and they had also knocked out all of the rebels ballistic missiles.
Ballistic missiles? Yes, the Houthis had captured a base outside Sanaa that was home to some Scud B ground-to-ground missiles (range 300 km., vintage 1965), although they might not actually fly after half a century of Yemeni-style maintenance, and they could barely reach the countrys own borders if they did.
Anyway, the Saudi Arabian Air Force took them out, so we can all rest easier now. A Saudi billionaire has even promised to give each of the 100 Saudi pilots involved in the bombing campaign a Bentley (sort of a down-market Rolls-Royce) in gratitude for their efforts.
Moreover, said General al-Amiri, the Houthi militia is no longer in a position to harm civilians. He didnt actually say so, but you would assume from the context and his manner that Yemen is now at peace, and the Houthis have all gone home to their own tribal territory in the north of Yemen, and Yemens legitimate president is safely back in Sanaa, the capital.
Whats that? The legitimate president is still in exile in Saudi Arabia? And the Houthis havent gone home either? They still control most of Yemen right down to Aden. And the remainder of the country is now ruled by Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, except for the bits run by its even nastier Islamist rival, ISIS. How is that a victory?
Have some pity for poor General al-Asiri. He had to say something positive; he works for the government. But the one scene that defines the event was a television studio in Sanaa where a Yemeni news anchor was running a clip of Asiris speech. When the anchor comes back on the screen and picks up his script, he cant say anything. Hes trying to, but hes corpsing.
He giggles, he snorts, he fans himself with his script, he puts his head on the desk, he completely loses it. And then the people behind the camera start laughing too. This is known in PR-speak as abject failure. When you are trying to convince your audience that your bankruptcy was actually a canny tactical move, you do not want them to collapse in hysterical laughter.
What can have possessed Saudi Arabia to launch this foredoomed aerial campaign, and rope in practically every other Sunni Arab state to send a few planes along to help? Mostly, it was simple paranoia. The Saudi Arabian authorities have convinced themselves that the Shias (by which they usually mean Iran) are on the offensive, and gobbling up any Arab territories where they can find fellow Shias. The Houthis are Shias. Q.E.D.
There was a lot of talk about Iran supplying arms to the Houthis at the start of the bombing campaign, and the Saudis managed to get almost every other Sunni Arab counry to send a couple of planes along to help. At the end of it, General al-Asiri didnt mention the Iranians at all. Maybe they all went home (although it would be hard to leave with all the airports shut and the coast under naval blockade). Or maybe they were never there.
Bigger countries have made bigger mistakes and paid quite small prices: the United States invasion of Iraq, for example. Saudi Arabia wont pay a big price either, for it appears that the grown-ups in Riyadh have intervened after a month and turned the military machine off. No follow-up ground invasion, just a smooth transition to Operation Restore Hope, the humanitarian aid they would have provided after theyd won, if they had won.
Saudi Arabia is well out of it, and as outcomes go, its less bad than many. Just a bit of advice. Stop using those American-style names for operations. When the United States started using them is when it started fighting dumb wars, and losing them.
source: http://gwynnedyer.com/2015/decisive-storm-blows-over/
