Vol. 12, No. 9 22 April 2012
Iran Targets Yemen
Michael Segall
- Iran regards Yemen as a springboard for subversion and for creating a tangible threat to Saudi Arabia, its main religious-political rival in the region. Iran also seeks to establish a physical Iranian presence, ground and naval, in the countries and ports of the Red Sea littoral, which control the shipping (and weapon-supply) lanes leading from the Persian Gulf to the heart of the Middle East and to Europe.
- According to U.S. Ambassador to Yemen Gerald Feierstein, the U.S. has evidence that the Iranians are providing military assistance and trainers to several groups in Yemen, in addition to financial aid and political support. This assistance is conveyed via Lebanese Hizbullah and Hamas. Operatives from southern Yemen in Beirut serve as conduits for the Iranian aid.
- Islamic Iran aspires to superpower status. It is actively involved in the region's primary crisis centers. These include the "Arab Spring's" main fronts with the West and the moderate Arab states: Syria, where Iran backs Bashar Assad through thick and thin; Bahrain, where Iran calls for the overthrow of the Royal House and supports the Shia demonstrators; and Yemen, where Iran is active in attempts to create a new order that is not based on support for the West.
- The weakness of the Arab regimes, the lack of an Arab power center since the "Arab Spring" broke out, and the decline of America's status in the Middle East are bringing Iran closer to its goal. In Yemen, where the interests of regional powers and global jihad intersect, Iran is demonstrating its malign potential and aspirations to regional hegemony. It signals that it will keep trying to shape the Middle East according to its religious ideology and perceptions, and to entrench its status in the region while pushing the older power centers out of it.
- Iran is steadily seeking to add a military nuclear capability as a major component of its strategy of becoming a great power. This capability, according to Tehran, will ensure the Islamic regime's survival (North Korea being an inspiration in this regard), and will also gain it the status of a regional and international power with a free hand and a defensive umbrella for exporting the Islamic revolution to the Middle East and beyond, while using terror as a foreign-policy tool without fear of any significant response.
IDF
Lt.-Col. (ret.) Michael (Mickey) Segall, an expert on strategic issues
with a focus on Iran, terrorism, and the Middle East, is a senior
analyst at the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs and a senior
political analyst at Terrogence.
