THE FORGOTTEN WAR

The situation in the Middle East remains at the centre of attention and the stand-off between the West and the jihadists from Islamic State is just one component of the large-scale drama in this region. The events in Yemen have in a sense been overshadowed by the war with IS: the country's capital has come under the control of Houthi Shia rebels and the world's media is full of experts saying that the political crisis in Yemen could lead to tragic consequences for Yemeni's very statehood. Seasoned experts recall that Shia rebellions flared up here a few years ago, and in the destitute and poorly-developed Yemen relations between the authorities and the local tribal elite have generally been difficult. Some people are even waiting to see another version of a "colour revolution" in the events in Sana'a - with its own specific characteristics, of course, and yet…

At first glance the Shia rebellion in Yemen and the events in Syria have little in common. But in rea-lity, analysts have not been able to arrange current events in the Arab East into "bio-polar" concepts. The most popular of these concepts is that the countries now caught up in this bloody internecine war had presented an image of stability and predictability until certain forces established their "colour revolutions" here. The most important thing is that "single-line" concepts of this kind usually ignore a number of regional processes, including competition for influence between the major states of the region, which also have great "oil weight", namely Saudi Arabia and Iran. Since this rivalry is steeped in history, this question is a complex one. Saudi Arabia emerged on the world map as an independent state only in the 1930s. Before the First World War its territory was part of the Ottoman Empire and it was here that Lawrence of Arabia organized an uprising of Arab tribes in the rear of the Turkish army. The hereditary ruler of Hejaz, Abdul Aziz al-Saud, was one of the signatories to the infamous Treaty of Sevres, which prescribed the division of Turkey. Then a somewhat brutal inter-tribal war started on the Arabian Peninsula, which by the 1930s had ended in victory for the Saudis and the proclamation of Saudi Arabia.

Relations between the Arabs and the Persians are another matter. Iran has never forgotten that it was the Arab invasion that drew a line under the history of Greater Persia and the Iranian nationalists from the Arabian Peninsula have been described without special deference as "lizard-eaters". For its part, Saudi Arabia is not that kindly disposed to the Shia branches of Islam. And most importantly, all these historical, ethnic and religious differences today have built up into a rivalry for influence in the region. This rivalry is becoming ever more acute, frequently taking the form of armed conflicts. The distribution of forces is well known. Iran is supported in the region mainly by the Shias and the Alawites (it will be recalled that the ruling dynasty of the Assads in Syria belongs to the latter), whereas Saudi Arabia relies mainly on the support of the Salafis

One manifestation of this rivalry was the protracted Iran-Iraq war, the official pretext for which was the dispute between Iran and the UAE for control over two tiny islands. Iraq decided to assume the role of the protector of "pan-Arab interests". The world began talking about an exacerbation of the "armed rivalry" between Tehran and al-Riyadh during the "Cedar Revolution" in Lebanon.

In the current civil war in Syria Saudi Arabia is squarely behind the Syrian opposition, whereas Iran supports Bashar al-Assad. On 11 October 2011 the American special services said they had prevented an assassination attempt on the Saudi ambassador to Washington, Adel al-Jubeir. According to the investigation, the attempt had been prepared back in the spring of 2011 and was organized by… the Iranian government. The conspirators, the law-enforcement bodies believe, got together to arrange an explosion in a restaurant which the ambassador was visiting. Some reports say that the miscreants also planned to blow up the Saudi and Israeli embassies in Washington. A suspect soon appeared on the scene - one Mansour Arbabsiar, who had both Iranian and American citizenship. According to the investigation, and by his own admission, Mansour, together with his associates, hired for 1.5m dollars a drugs dealer who, according to the original plan, was supposed to kidnap the Saudi ambassador. There was a change of plan and the plotters decided to arrange an explosion in the restaurant being visited by the ambassador. Iran was also accused of instigating rebellions in Bahrain, where local Shias were opposing the ruling Wahhabi dynasty, which was very close to the Saudis. 

But Yemen is a different matter. From the very beginning of the Shia uprising in this country Tehran has been providing the rebels not only with moral support. Saudi Arabia has officially been sending troops to aid the Yemeni government, worried that Iran, via Yemen which is in its "underbelly", will try to get at the Shia community in the kingdom.

Some explanation is required here. Saudi Arabia is regarded as one of the world's wealthiest states. Secular magazines in many countries are not short of epithets to describe the luxurious opulence of the palaces and the private aircraft of the local sheikhs, and economists roll their eyes when assessing the revenues from oil. 

Having said that, not everyone by any means is aware that Saudi Arabia's "oil luxury" is not Norway's "oil strategy". And whereas in the Scandinavian kingdom an effective system of reinvestment of "petrodollars", social "equality", and so on, has been created, in Saudi Arabia ostentatious luxury lives side-by-side with real poverty. In Jiddah, the kingdom's largest sea port, the shabby quarters of narrow dusty little streets and filth start literally a couple of blocks away from the luxurious esplanade. As night falls, at the intersections of the grand local highways you can see flocks of children begging. And, by all accounts, they are not immigrants. They prefer not to speak aloud about this in the streets, but all power and control over the petrodollars is, of course, in the hands of the al-Saud clan. As for the rest - the other Bedouin clans and, most importantly, the Saudi Shias - it remains to count on the "left-over principle". Bearing in mind the closed nature of local society, experts cannot even begin to estimate roughly how much explosive material has built up in the kingdom's Shia community. Analysts point to something else, too: there are quite a number of Shias in the kingdom's oil-bearing provinces and the oil infrastructure is very vulnerable to terrorist acts. That said, Iran is constantly making attempts to "set fire to" Saudi's Shias. Many experts date the history of Iran's attempts to "set fire to" Saudi's Shias back to the notorious Juhayman rebellion in Mecca during the hajj in November 1979. The rebels, if you recall, demanded that an "Islamic Republic" be proclaimed in Hidjaz, along the example of Iran. And events at the time were not restricted to the holy city: rebellions broke out in the provinces of Taif and Tabuk and a "car bomb" was detonated in front of the Royal Palace…

On 31 July 1987 the hajj was marked by a new tragedy with a political sub-text. Iranian pilgrims in Mecca organized a demonstration against Israel and the US which quickly grew into a large-scale brawl. The Iranians claimed that Saudi troops and police opened fire without warning. According to the Saudi authorities, the demonstrators first attacked the troops, using knives and iron bars. The number of dead was over 400. The Saudi authorities took unprecedented measures, closing off access for Iranian pilgrims to the country during the hajj. Then the ban was lifted, but suspicion in relations between the two countries was hardly reduced. And the dramatic events in Yemen could turn out to be the harbinger of far more wide-scale disturbances.