Rulers Snub Obama's Arab Summit, Clouding U.S. Bid for Iran Deal

Saudi Arabia's King Salman, who met with U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry in Riyadh, on Thursday, has delegated Crown Prince Mohammed bin Nayef to lead the Saudi delegation to the Gulf summit at Camp David. Photo: Andrew Harnik/Agence France-Presse/Getty Images

By

Jay Solomon and

Carol E. Lee in Washington and

Ahmed Al Omran in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia

Updated May 11, 2015 1:24 p.m. ET 

Saudi monarch’s decision signals that the Arab states aren’t on board with nuclear accord

 

WASHINGTON—Saudi Arabia’s monarch pulled out of a summit to be hosted by President Barack Obama on Thursday, in a blow to the White House’s efforts to build Arab support for a nuclear accord with Iran.
King Salman’s decision appeared to ripple across the Persian Gulf. Bahrain said on Sunday that its ruler, King Hamad bin Isaa Al Khalifa, had opted not to travel to Washington.
The only two monarchs from the six countries confirmed to attend the summit at the White House and the presidential retreat at Camp David, Md., were the emirs of Qatar and Kuwait.
At stake for the White House is Mr. Obama’s key foreign-policy initiative, an Iran pact that is proceeding toward a June 30 deadline without support from regional powers. King Salman’s decision signals that the Arab states aren’t on board and could continue to act on their own to thwart Tehran, as Saudi Arabia has done in leading a military coalition against Iran-backed rebels in Yemen.
Senior Arab officials involved in organizing the meeting said not enough progress had been made in narrowing differences with Washington on issues like Iran and Syria to make the Saudi ruler’s trip worth it.
“There isn’t substance for the summit,” said an Arab official who has held discussions with the Obama administration in recent days.
Senior U.S. officials said as recently as Friday that they expected King Salman, who took power in January, to travel to Washington.
The Obama administration planned the summit as a way to build Arab support for the Iran nuclear deal by giving more arms and security guarantees to members of the six-nation Gulf Cooperation Council—Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Kuwait, Bahrain and Oman.
The White House on Sunday sought to play down any rift with Riyadh or the other GCC countries, stressing Saudi Arabia’s crown prince and his deputy would be at the meetings.
“We look forward to the attendance of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Nayef, with whom the president has met on several occasions, including in the Oval Office in December 2014 and January 2013,” said Bernadette Meehan, spokeswoman for the National Security Council.
Saudi Arabia’s foreign minister, Adel al-Jubeir, said King Salman was staying in Riyadh to focus on the Yemen cease-fire and humanitarian aid effort.
“Minister Al-Jubeir reiterated King Salman’s commitment to achieving peace and security in Yemen and his eagerness to the speedy delivery of humanitarian aid to the brotherly people of Yemen,” Saudi Arabia’s foreign ministry said.
The Obama administration has cited the GCC summit as crucial for building regional support for the U.S.’s Middle East policies, particularly its diplomatic engagement with Iran.
Saudi Arabia has been sharply critical of the White House’s efforts to curb Tehran’s nuclear capacity in exchange for the lifting of international sanctions.
Riyadh has also pressed the U.S. to take more-aggressive steps to overthrow Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, Iran’s closest Arab ally, and to push back the Tehran-supported insurgency in Yemen.
Secretary of State John Kerry met with King Salman on Thursday in Riyadh to discuss the Camp David agenda, U.S. officials said. He then met with the GCC’s foreign ministers in Paris, where he offered to give the GCC countries non-NATO major-ally status, said a senior U.S. official. But the Arab diplomats showed “very, very tepid interest,” the official added.
“It’s something we’re prepared to consider, and we had raised it with them,” the U.S. official said. “But they seemed to think it was not that critical or even important a step.”
Last Monday, French President François Hollande met in Riyadh with King Salman and other Gulf Arab leaders to discuss regional security matters. Within the international bloc of countries negotiating with Iran, France has emerged as the most critical of the effort.
Saudi officials told Mr. Kerry on Friday that King Salman would attend the Camp David summit, U.S. officials said, and that the overall message in Paris was positive.
The White House said that day that the Saudi monarch would meet President Obama on Wednesday ahead of the dinner.
“We have heard nothing negative about what we are trying to do,” the U.S. official said on Sunday.
In Paris, Messrs. Kerry and al-Jubeir agreed on a plan to forge a cease-fire in Yemen and to promote a political transition in the Arab country.
The Obama administration also pushed for better integrating the U.S.’s and GCC countries’ missile defense systems as a way to contain Iran.
“Whoever comes will be empowered to speak in the name of their government and will sign onto whatever‎ is agreed to at Camp David,” the administration official said. “So the dynamics may change based on who’s there and there will have to be maybe some adjustments.”
Some Arab officials said they didn’t believe the agenda at Camp David would go far enough to address their concerns about Iran.
Some of the Arab states said they were hoping the GCC could sign a mutual defense treaty with Washington, similar to South Korea’s and Japan’s.
Such treaties would bind the U.S. to defend the Persian Gulf states if they faced Iranian aggression.
The White House, however, didn’t believe it could win congressional approval to back such a treaty, said U.S. and Arab officials involved in the discussions.
Saudi Arabia, the U.A.E. and Qatar also are seeking more-advanced weaponry to counter Iran, including surveillance equipment, cruise missiles and drones.
These countries also have expressed interest in buying the Pentagon’s more-advanced jet fighter, the F-35.
Sales of such military gear are complicated by the U.S.’s strategic alliance with Israel, these officials said. Congressional legislation mandates the Jewish state must maintain a “qualitative military edge” over its neighbors, including Saudi Arabia.
Two people briefed on the presummit negotiations said the Saudis ultimately decided the agenda wasn’t substantive enough to require the attendance of 79-year-old King Salman.
The Sultanate of Oman, which hosted secret negotiations between the U.S. and Iran in 2012 and 2013, said its deputy prime minister, Sayyid Fahd bin Mahmoud al-Said, would lead his country’s delegation. The country’s ruler returned home in March to Muscat from Germany, where he had received months of receiving treatment for an undisclosed illness.
The U.A.E. is sending a delegation led by Abu Dhabi’s Crown Prince Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan. [source]

Saudi-led Alliance Mulls Partial Truces In Yemen: Statement

Smoke billows after an air strike hit the international airport of Yemen's capital Sanaa May 4, 2015.  Reuters/Khaled Abdullah.

 (Reuters) - A Saudi-led Arab alliance conducting air strikes against Houthi fighters in Yemen is considering calling truces in specific areas in Yemen to allow humanitarian supplies to reach the country, the Saudi foreign minister said on Monday.
Adel al-Jubeir also said Saudi Arabia might host a center to coordinate delivery of humanitarian supplies.
The United Nations says the humanitarian situation in Yemen has grown desperate after weeks of air strikes.
"The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia is holding consultations with members of the alliance in defense of legitimacy in Yemen and all countries that support it, to create specific areas inside Yemen to deliver humanitarian supplies, where all aerial operations will stop at specific times to allow these supplies in, as stipulated by UN Security Council resolution 2216," Jubeir said in a statement.
The resolution imposes an arms embargo on the Houthis and on their allies - army units loyal to former President Ali Abdullah Saleh - and demands they disarm and leave captured cities, including the capital Sanaa that they seized in September.
Jubeir warned the rebels against exploiting the truces, saying air strikes would resume if the Shi'ite Muslim group did not abide by the truce.[source]

Saudis Pound Arms Depots In Yemen As Bread, Medicine Run Short

People stand at the site of an air strike in Sanaa April 26, 2015. Reuters/Khaled Abdullah.

 (Reuters) - Saudi-led aircraft pounded Iran-allied Houthi militiamen and rebel army units in central Yemen and the capital Sanaa on Monday despite a formal end to the air strikes, residents said, and a humanitarian crisis worsened as both sides blocked aid.
Residents said warplanes flew between 15 and 20 sorties against groups of Houthi fighters and arms depots in the al-Dhalea provincial capital, Dhalea, and the nearby city of Qa'ataba, between dawn and 0900 local time (02:00 a.m. EDT), setting off a chain of explosions that lasted for two more hours.
Fighting intensified on Sunday, after a lull following an announcement by Riyadh last week that it was ending its nearly five-week-old bombing campaign except in places where the Houthis were advancing.
A coalition of Arab countries led by Saudi Arabia, rattled by what they saw as expanding Iranian influence in the Arabian Peninsula, is trying to stop Houthi fighters and loyalists of former President Ali Abdullah Salah taking control of Yemen.
Vital aid was reported to be being held up by both sides. Houthis were stopping convoys of trucks reaching Aden and an arms blockade by Saudi-led coalition navies searching ships for weapons was holding up food deliveries by sea.
Telecommunications within Yemen and with the outside world could be cut within days due to a shortage of fuel, state-run news agency Saba quoted the director of telecommunications as saying. Fuel shortages were also preventing traders from moving food to market, the United Nations' World Food Programme said.[source]

Thousands of Saudi Forces Flee Bases, Refuse to Participate in Ground Assault on Yemen

Almost 4,000 Saudi forces fled their border bases in anticipation of Riyadh’s order for launching a ground assault on Yemen, European diplomatic sources said on Sunday.

 

By Fars News Agency

Global Research, April 26, 2015

FARS News

“The intel gathered by the western intelligence agencies showed that the Saudi military forces have fled their bases, military centers and bordering checkpoints near Yemen in groups,” diplomatic sources were quoted as saying by Iraq’s Arabic-language Nahrain Net news website.
The European sources said that the Saudi forces’ mass AWOL forced Riyadh to declare ceasefire and dissuaded it from launching ground attacks against Yemen.
Other reports also said that over 10,000 soldiers from different Saudi military units have fled the army battalions and the National Guard.
Experts believe that the Saudi army lacks strong morale to launch a ground invasion of Yemen and such an attack would be considered as a suicide for Saudi Arabia.
Saudi Arabia has been striking Yemen for 32 days now to restore power to fugitive president Mansour Hadi, a close ally of Riyadh. The Saudi-led aggression has so far killed at least 3,005 Yemenis, including hundreds of women and children.
Hadi stepped down in January and refused to reconsider the decision despite calls by Ansarullah revolutionaries of the Houthi movement.
Despite Riyadh’s claims that it is bombing the positions of the Ansarullah fighters, Saudi warplanes are flattening residential areas and civilian infrastructures.
On Tuesday the monarchy declared end to Yemen airstrikes after four weeks of bombings, but airstrikes are still underway.[source]

Former U.N. Envoy Says Yemen Political Deal Was Close Before Saudi Airstrikes Began

A Houthi rebel in San’a, Yemen on Sunday walks past a building damaged by the Saudi-led air campaign against the Iranian-backed force. Photo: khaled abdullah/Reuters.

 

By Joe Lauria and Margaret Coker

Updated April 26, 2015 7:45 p.m. ET 

UNITED NATIONS—Yemen’s warring political factions were on the verge of a power-sharing deal when Saudi-led airstrikes began a month ago, derailing the negotiations, the United Nations envoy who mediated the talks said.
Jamal Benomar, who spearheaded the negotiations until he resigned last week, told The Wall Street Journal the Saudi bombing campaign against Iran-linked Houthi rebels has hardened positions on a key point—the composition of an executive body to lead Yemen’s stalled transition. This will complicate new attempts to reach a solution, he said.
“When this campaign started, one thing that was significant but went unnoticed is that the Yemenis were close to a deal that would institute power-sharing with all sides, including the Houthis,” said Mr. Benomar, a Moroccan diplomat.
Mr. Benomar is scheduled to address the U.N. Security Council behind closed doors on Monday and report on the suspended political talks.
Most Yemeni political factions agree talks were progressing in the run-up to the Saudi air campaign, but their views vary on Mr. Benomar’s assertion that a deal was close.
This round of U.N.-brokered talks—which began in January and included 12 political and tribal factions—represented a crucial part of a mission to install a unified government in Yemen, the poorest Arab country and home to al Qaeda’s most dangerous offshoot.
The Houthi rebels, who have overrun significant parts of the country in the past eight months, had agreed to remove their militias from the cities they were occupying under the deal that had been taking shape. The U.N. had worked out details of a new government force to replace them, Mr. Benomar said.
In exchange, Western-backed President Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi, who has since fled the country, would have been part of an executive body that would run the country temporarily, Mr. Benomar said.
The Houthis had agreed to that reduced role for Mr. Hadi until the Saudi military intervention began on March 26. At that point, the Houthis hardened their position on this key point and opposed any role for Mr. Hadi in government, Mr. Benomar said.
Saudi-backed factions have also hardened their positions, saying the Houthis shouldn’t be granted political power.
Several Yemeni political factions, which were also interested in power-sharing, said the military tensions in the capital led to feelings of unease during negotiations. In their takeover of the capital, the Houthis kidnapped members of rival political parties.
“We did not like the Houthi plan on the table, but we were willing to sign it since it reflected reality. It was either that or no deal,” said Mohammed Abulahoum, president of Yemen’s Justice and Building Party.
The air campaign transformed Yemen into a battlefield for a broader contest over regional power between Shiite Iran and Sunni countries led by Saudi Arabia.
The Saudis want to restore Mr. Hadi to the presidency and also support a separate armed political faction named Islah, which is anti-Houthi. Iran supports the Houthis, who abide by a Shiite offshoot of Islam. Many Yemenis accuse both countries of meddling in their affairs.
The Houthis took over the capital San’a and the government and then advanced on the south.As they approached the port city of Aden, where Mr. Hadi had taken refuge, he fled the country and ended up in Saudi Arabia.
Yemen’s troubles mark an abrupt turnabout from what the international community had once hailed as a success story.
The 2011 Arab Spring protests triggered political change in Yemen, a largely peaceful transition from dictatorship to democracy. Groups that felt oppressed or excluded for decades under the former regime, such as the Houthis, were supposed to take part in the new government.
But that transition stalled in 2014. In the two months leading up to the Saudi air campaign, the Houthis and other parties insisted on a reduced role for Mr. Hadi, blaming him for the slow pace of reform.
Mr. Hadi, his Saudi allies and other political factions opposed the terms for the presidency being hammered out by Mr. Benomar.
“A very detailed agreement was being worked out, but there was one important issue on which there was no agreement, and that was what to do with the presidency,” Mr. Benomar said. “We were under no illusion that implementation of this would be easy.”
Two other Arab states—Qatar and Morocco—were willing to host new rounds of Yemen peace talks. But after both countries joined the Saudi-led military coalition, the Houthis rejected those venues, according to Mr. Benomar.
President Hadi has suggested that talks resume in the Saudi capital of Riyadh under Saudi auspices. But that was a non-starter for the Houthis.
A senior diplomat familiar with the negotiations said the Saudis also intervened to prevent a power-sharing deal that would include the Houthis and that would give 30 % of the cabinet and parliament to women.
Saudi Arabia declared last week that it was shifting to a new phase in the Yemen campaign more focused on seeking a political solution. But it left open the option of continued military action, and has kept up airstrikes at a robust pace since the declaration.
Mr. Benomar said he would tell the Security Council on Monday that only U.N.-led talks in a neutral location can have any chance of success.
On Saturday, Ismail Ould Cheikh Ahmed of Mauritania was named as the new U.N. envoy for Yemen.
On Sunday, Yemeni officials reported several apparent strikes by the Saudi coalition against Houthi targets amid deadly clashes between Houthi militants and forces aligned with Mr. Hadi.
Strikes hit the capital San’a as well as targets in energy-rich Marib province, officials said. Several southern provinces also saw strikes, including one that hit a convoy of Houthi fighters heading to the southern port city of Aden.[source]

Even the NYT Editorial Board Admits That Obama's "Successful" Yemen Is Really "The Catastrophe In Yemen"

The aftermath of an explosion in Sana, Yemen, on Monday. Credit Yahya Arhab/European Pressphoto Agency.

Saudi Arabia’s military intervention in Yemen’s civil war was always a risky gamble. Now there’s evidence showing just how damaging four weeks of airstrikes have been: more than 1,000 civilians killed, more than 4,000 wounded, and 150,000 displaced. Meanwhile, the fighting and a Saudi-led blockade have deprived Yemenis of food, fuel, water and medicines, causing what a Red Cross official called a humanitarian catastrophe. Yemen has long been a weak state, and with each day it draws closer to collapse.

The Saudis claim the airstrikes have punished the Houthi rebels, who have tried to take over Yemen, by wiping out many of their weapons and military installations around the country. But the rebels, who are supported by Shiite Iran, are still on the march. The Saudis, who lead a coalition of Sunni Arab nations, are nowhere near to restoring the Yemeni president, Abdu Rabbu Mansour Hadi. Mr. Hadi was ousted by the Houthis in January and driven into exile in Saudi Arabia.

The Obama administration has helped the Saudis with intelligence and tactical advice and by deploying warships off the Yemeni coast. Now it is wisely urging them to end the bombing. The White House seems to have realized that the Saudis appear to have no credible strategy for achieving their political goals, or even managing their intervention. On Tuesday, they declared a halt to most military operations, only to resume bombing hours later. More airstrikes followed on Thursday as warplanes from the coalition struck Houthi targets around the Yemeni cities of Aden and Ibb.

The Sunnis constitute a majority in Yemen. Saudi Arabia and other Sunni countries intervened because they feared that a Houthi takeover would extend the influence of Iran, which also has footholds in Lebanon, Syria and Iraq. That fear appears to be exaggerated in Yemen. Nevertheless, the intervention has threatened to turn what has been a civil war between competing branches of Islam into a wider regional struggle involving Iran.

Saudi Arabia has been further unnerved by the possibility of a nuclear deal involving the United States, other major powers and Iran. Such a deal, it fears, would help make Iran the dominant regional power and spur reconciliation with the United States, thus putting Saudi Arabia’s security relationship with Washington in jeopardy. This has left American policy makers with a formidable diplomatic challenge: reassuring the Sunni nations of continued support while trying to see if Iran, an adversary since 1979, could be nudged into a more productive relationship.

The deployment of the U.S.S. Theodore Roosevelt aircraft carrier and other warships to the Arabian Sea this week was intended as proof of that reassurance. American officials said they were prepared to intercept a nine-ship Iranian convoy headed for Yemen and believed to be carrying weapons for the rebels. Fortunately, the Iranian vessels turned around, avoiding a possible confrontation.

The fighting needs to end, relief supplies need to be delivered quickly and a political dialogue needs to be restarted. Before the outbreak of the Houthi offensive, a United Nations-led diplomatic initiative had made some progress, but the Security Council never gave it enough support and attention. And now, the United Nations official who led the negotiations, Jamal Benomar, a Moroccan diplomat, has resigned and returned to New York.

Finding a political solution will not be easy; it may not even be possible. For one thing, it will require Saudi Arabia to accept the Houthis, an indigenous Yemeni group, as part of the governing power structure. But such a solution is the only hope for bringing some stability to the country and refocusing international and Yemeni resources on Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, the most lethal Al Qaeda affiliate, which is the real beneficiary of the widening chaos. [source]