Saudis to gain nothing from Yemen war: Commentator

Press TV has interviewed Redwan Rizk, a political commentator in Beirut, to discuss Saudi Arabia’s ongoing military aggression against Yemen.

The following is a rough transcription of the interview.

Press TV: The numbers here are staggering of course and it seems as many have pointed out in the past as well that Yemen has become “a forgotten war”. Now how many more people need to die before more action is taken to stop Saudi Arabia’s aggression?

Rizk: Well, I think this could not have been happened without the permission of the super powers especially we are talking about the NATO and the Americans. This is a human crime committed by Saudi regime, by Saudi family without any condemnations and signs of condemnation coming from the modern world, let’s say, because if you look at the pictures, if we did not know these are coming from Yemen we could have expected this is Gaza or southern Lebanon.

It is shocking the similarity and the brutality between the Israelis and the Saudis. We could have been very happy if we saw the Saudis are defending or protecting the civilians in Gaza or in Palestine against the Israelis. Since the existence of Israel we have never seen any kind of position or an action coming from Saudi Arabia against the Israelis except words and words and lies coming from this regime. The aggression that we are seeing against the poor people in Yemen, [unarmed] let’s say, the poorest in the Arab world and on top of that they did not do any action against the Saudis themselves except that the Saudis are trying to use the card of Yemen to reserve their place on the negotiation tables and they are trying to get out of their borders seeking for more power and influence in the region.

We cannot understand that do they have to kill that many civilians, destroying the whole country of the peaceful …? We know that Yemen never, never [waged] a war or taking any [aggressive] action against any other Arab country or any other country since we know the history of Yemen and it seems like the Saudis did not know that, they did ignore that and they just wanted to spread outside their borders even though that we have to remind the people that the Saudis did steal about 200,000 square kilometers from Yemen and we know that Najran used to be a Yemeni land and it is very rich in oil.  

Press TV: But as you have just pointed out, the Saudis cannot be continuing this aggression had it not been by the backing and support of its Western allies particularly the US. However, as you have also just mentioned and we have been discussing here on Press TV before as well, the Saudis are not achieving much on the ground militarily speaking at least.

So what is the way to end this war now because Saudi Arabia, many have pointed out, is stuck in this quagmire where if it withdraws now it seems that it has failed to achieve anything on the ground but if it continues also the costs are going to be extremely high?

Rizk: Well I think this is becoming a suicide mission for the Saudis because now this is something I want to assure that they will not achieve anything, so far they have not at all, not even a point in their war. On the contrary, they might see that this war is now being taking place on Saudi lands and the regime might explode from the inside because we have to remind that the execution of Sheikh Nimr al-Nimr was the first serious step in the fall of the Saudi monarchy, of the Saudi regime.

And we could have seen that most of the Saudi people cannot afford such a regime anymore and that we might see a revolution evolving inside Saudi Arabia. The Yemenis all they have, I am sure that they have paid a very high price, but at least they have gained their dignity …  

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