Dr Zafer Mohammed Al Ajmi
One of the latest ambiguous labels nowadays is the “Yemeni quagmire,” which became widespread despite its diminutive meaning. Since Decisive Storm started, this label multiplied at a sporadic pace.
This debate was closed early on by concluding that it came from the enemy’s camp as a psychological warfare tactic. Despite this, I will try to refute this argument not based on an abstract theory, but on actual examples of quagmire crises by examining common factors with what is happening in Yemen. These are as follows:
— Bloody quagmire crises are established when parties get involved to serve an ambiguous issue. Despite the brutality of the conspiracy theory in the collective Arab minds, but that was not the case for the Arab alliance since it was by invitation from the legitimacy to restore President Hadi’s regime, stop the tyranny of the Houthis, and limit Iranian expansion. All of these goals were accomplished, unlike other crises that are characterised by changeable and unclear aims, and sustainability. The path to reclaim the legitimacy is irreversible.
— When countries are involved in many wars, they suffer huge economic setbacks, other than loss of lives, while the martyrs of the Arab coalition forces were few. In addition, participating governments did not even get close to exhausting their funds to pass the costs of the war over to future generations.
— Quagmire arises as a result of miscalculations and the difficulty of withdrawal from the war. In 1963, Cairo had deployed a battalion to Yemen to end up sending later over 70,000 men. Washington entered the Vietnam War with 400 men in 1961 to reach half-million troops in 1975. In 1979, Moscow entered Afghanistan with 700 men and ended in 1988 with 120,000 men.
Unlike what had happened in the past, the Arab coalition ground forces were not dragged into war, its leaders did not announce their predictions that the war will be quick and easy. The war was a series of extensive air campaigns, which could have been stopped at any time. In my estimate, decisiveness in strongly entering Yemen was based on learning from prior strategic mistakes.
— During past wars in the swamps of Vietnam, Afghanistan, and Yemen, the invading forces were faced with harsh geographic terrains that neutralised the feasibility of using ground weapons. Similarly there were acute social differences that forced the invader to act without taking into consideration common values; Vietnamese culture being very different from American culture. The Afghanis’ belief that the Soviet Union is atheist made a difference in that war.
However, the social and behavioural attitudes of Yemenis are not far from the rest of the Gulf. Also southern parts of the Arabian Peninsula are geographic extensions of Yemen.
Because a swamp remains a swamp, we are sometimes scared to mention certain facts. However, I am compelled to say that Yemen wiped out four Turkish brigades a century ago.
In the swamps of the civil war in northern Yemen in the early sixties, the forces of the supporters of the Republicans and the Royalists were wiped out.
The French army was defeated in the battle of Dien Bien Phu, led by Vietnamese Gen Giap in 1954, but that did not prevent the Americans to swallow the same cup in Saigon in 1975.
In Afghanistan, despite one member — Doctor Brydon — being injured out of the 15,000 strong British army in early 1842, the stubbornness of the invader led to a major defeat in Kandahar in April of the same year. Fearing Russian offensive, the Brits were subjected to another defeat in Afghanistan in 1880.
Hundred years later, the Russians arrived in Afghanistan to suffer a major defeat at the hands of the Mujahedeen. This was not enough warning that Americans are still licking their wounds on the outskirts of this swamp.
Would this lead us to logical contradictions by saying that Yemen is or is not a quagmire.
Finally, Yemen will not be our swamp since we realise that it has no specific boundary and only those who are hasty and reckless will fall into it.
Yemen will not be our swamp because it is usually formed when the water resource feeding it is weak, while we did not stop agitating through the Security Council resolution number 2216 under Chapter VII, the terms of the Gulf initiative, the Save Yemen conference in Riyadh, and the promised Geneva conference in order to create a legitimate Yemeni army.
The way I see it, the momentum of political actions goes parallel with military work.
The writer is CEO of Gulf Monitoring Group.
