Previous Reviews
Number 73 ● April 8, 2015
Iran and the Crisis in Yemen: Opportunities and Constraints on the Path to Establishing Iranian Influence in the Region
Dr. Raz Zimmt*
Operation Decisive Storm, which Saudi Arabia recently launched in Yemen, again raised the question of Iran’s increasing influence in the Middle East and its efforts to establish regional hegemony. The military and political agendas of the Shi‘ite Houthis in Yemen, who benefit from Iranian support, forced Saudi Arabia to reconsider its policy, which had previously avoided direct military intervention beyond its borders. On March 25 Saudi Arabia, in cooperation with a coalition of Arab countries, launched aerial attacks intended to push the Houthis from the territory they have captured in recent months, for fear that the Shi‘ites would take control of the Gulf of Yemen and the Bab-el-MandebStrait.
Against the backdrop of the Houthis’ achievements in Yemen, senior commentators have recently warned of Iran’s intention to strengthen its grip on the region. Relating to the issue, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu declared that Iran is moving like a pincer to control and conquer the entire Middle East. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan also stridently denounced Iran, and accused it of attempting to take control of the region. However, a careful examination of regional developments shows that the situation is more complex, and the extent of Iran’s success in expanding its influence in the Arab Middle East is less clear.
The political turmoil in the Arab world in recent years has opened new opportunities for Iran to expand its influence in the region. The Islamic Republic is striving to achieve hegemony in the region and acts accordingly, taking advantage of Arab countries’ weaknesses for its own purposes. At the beginning of the Arab Spring, Iran’s leaders presented the upheaval in the Arab world as an expression of Islamic awakening inspired by the Islamic revolution and the beginning of a transformation that would eventually change the region. However, it quickly became apparent that the political reality in the Arab world is more complex than the Iranians had thought, and that the Islamic Republic did not serve as a model for them to imitate.
The 2011 Shi‘ite uprising in Bahrain intensified fears in the Arab world, particularly Saudi Arabia and the Gulf states, of increasing Iranian influence and deepened the already cavernous suspicion between them and other Sunni Arab countries. The victory of Mohamed Morsi in the Egyptian presidential elections in June 2012 was initially greeted with conspicuous satisfaction in Tehran, but quickly became a bitter disappointment for Iran. A few months after Morsi’s victory, it became clear that the ascent of Islamists did not foretell a strategic change in the relationship between Iran and Egypt, and that the foreign policy adopted by Morsi clashed with Iranian interests.
The civil war in Syria, Iran’s most important strategic ally in the Arab world, is another major challenge. The weakening of the Syrian regime threatened to destabilize the unity of the “opposition camp” led by Iran. While Tehran increased its involvement in Syria by supporting the Assad regime, Hamas turned its back on Iran and declared its support of the Syrian opposition. Even though it currently seems that Iranian support of Syria has been successful in helping the Assad regime maintain its position, Iran’s military involvement is exacting a heavy price.
The accomplishments of the extremist Salafi organization ISIS (Islamic State in Iraq and Syria) presents Iran with an especially important strategic challenge. The organization’s conquest of large areas of Iraq threatens the territorial integrity of that country, and positioned a violent, hostile organization on Iran’s borders. ISIS’s achievements forced Iran to dispatch weapons and advisors to Iraq, headed by the commander of the Revolutionary Guard’s Quds Force Qasem Soleimani. These forces operate in cooperation with the Iraqi government and the Shi‘ite militias who are supported by Iran. Iran also pressured the Lebanese Hezbollah, whose soldiers are fighting in Syria to defend the Assad regime, to dispatch troops to Iraq and participate in the fighting there.
In the shadow of Iran’s military involvement in Syria and Iraq, which is currently exacting a high economic and human price, the Saudi-led Operation Decisive Storm in Yemen is a worrisome development for Iran. The Iranian media decried the Saudi campaign as “an act of aggression supported by the United States” and emphasized the fatalities and damage to property caused by the attacks in Yemen. Iran’s Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif also criticized the attacks and said that the campaign is a dangerous step taken in violation of international commitments. He warned that the campaign would only make the situation in Yemen worse and hamper attempts to find a solution to the crisis. He demanded that Saudi Arabia halt all military actions in Yemen immediately.
On the diplomatic level, the developments in Yemen have the potential to totally destroy the many efforts that the administration of Iranian President Hassan Rouhani has invested, in the last year, in improving relationships between Iran and its neighbors, particularly Saudi Arabia and Turkey. Since he was elected in the summer of 2013, Rouhani has stressed the need to expand cooperation with Saudi Arabia and work to reduce the tension between the two countries, which reached new peaks in recent years following the civil war in Syria, the Shi‘ite uprising in Bahrain and Iran’s ongoing nuclear program. Developments in Yemen, however, have deepened the abyss of hostility and suspicion between them. A few days after the Saudi operation began, Iran announced that the planned visit of Ali-Akbar Hashemi-Rafsanjani, Chairman of the Expediency Council to Riyadh was canceled, and the Iranian media resumed its barbed attacks against the Royal House of Saud.
Events in Yemen also threatened to put a damper on efforts to improve the relationship between Iran and Turkey, which have declined because of the civil war in Syria. The aggressive declarations made by President Erdoğan and his support of the military campaign in Yemen is already been severely criticized in Tehran. A member of the Iranian Majlis MP Ahmad Tavakoli called for canceling Erdoğan’s planned visit to Tehran,. The editor of the conservative newspaper Kayhan, Hossein Shariatmadari, claimed that the most recent declarations of the Turkish president are an insult to the Iranian people and the “opposition front.” In response to Erdoğan’s declarations, the Iranian Foreign Ministry summoned the Turkish envoy for explanations, and the visit was eventually held as scheduled.
Iran’s efforts to rehabilitate its relationship with Hamas may also hit a dead end if developments in Yemen escalate further. Following the above mentioned rift over Syria, the fall of the Muslim Brotherhood’s regime in Egypt in the summer of 2013 and Operation Protective Edge in Gaza the next summer, gave Tehran new hope of restoring its relationship with Hamas. These developments have also allowed Tehran to look forward to gaining a foothold in the Gaza Strip in order to increase its influence in the Palestinian arena. In recent months, there have been several reports that Hamas leader Khaled Mashal plans to visit Tehran. Simultaneously, sources in Gaza reported that the Hamas leadership was discussing the possibility of renewing its relationship with Iran, because it needs Iranian assistance to rebuild the infrastructure damaged in Gaza during last summer’s campaign. However, when Operation Decisive Storm began, Hamas published a statement supporting the ousted president of Yemen and implying its support the Saudi operation. For Iran, this declaration was a like a bitter pill, and evidence that Hamas prefers to promote its relationship with Saudi Arabia and the Sunnis, rather than strengthen its connection to Tehran. Commentary published on the Iranian website Farda News attacked the announcement by Hamas, and called it evidence that Hamas has not learned the lessons from its previous attempts to turn its back on Iran and Syria despite their historic support for the Palestinians.
The increasing violence in Yemen is a worrisome development for Iran not only on the diplomatic front but also militarily. Events could force Iran to redirect military and economic resources to Yemen exactly when the military campaigns that the Revolutionary Guards are conducting in Syria and Iraq are facing difficulties. In Tikrit, Iraqi forces aided by the Revolutionary Guard’s Quds Force have had trouble warding off the ISIS forces who recently took control of the city. An international coalition led by the United States recently bomb the city after two weeks in which the Iraqi security forces supported by the pro-Iranian Shi‘ite militias halted their attempt to re-conquer the city after suffering severe losses. The aerial attacks were launched in response to an appeal from the Iraqi government that feared, apparently, the heavy losses it would suffer in street battles against ISIS fighters.
In Syria, too, the forces of the Assad regime suffered a severe blow after rebels completed conquest of Idlib in northwest Syria. From the reports of human rights organizations, it emerges that the city was conquered by forces from several organizations Jabhat al-Nusraand Jund al-Aqsa after a 5-day offensive. Idlib is close to the strategically important road that connects the capital Damascus to Aleppo, and is not far from the Latakia district which is considered one of Assad’s strongholds.
These developments raise questions about the ability of Iran to allocate additional resources to assist the Houthis in Yemen. Despite the geo-strategic importance of Yemen, the Revolutionary Guards would find it hard to expand their activity to a third front. It should be emphasized that despite the financial assistance and weapons that Iran has transferred to the Houthis in Yemen in recent years, much of their success should be credited to internal factors within Yemen, such as joining with former president Ali Abdullah Saleh and their access to the army’s caches of weapons. Iran recently signed an agreement to expand its cooperation with the new government in Yemen including, inter alia, Iranian assistance developing Port al-Hudaydah overlooking the Bab-el-MandebStrait, and inaugurating 14 weekly flights between the two countries, which will give Iran an efficient way to transfer munitions to the Houthi fighters. However, it is doubtful that Iran will be able to further expand its military involvement in Yemen because of the significant resources it needs to invest in blocking the advance of ISIS in Iraq and of the rebels in Syria.
In conclusion, the crisis in Yemen, in late March, may well open new opportunities for Iran to establish its regional influence. Iran has already demonstrated its skill in taking advantage of any opportunity to strengthen its grip, and enhance its standing as a regional power. Evaluating the challenge that Iran presents to its neighbors must, however, take into account its weaknesses as well as its strengths. The active, Saudi-led Arab mobilization to halt the progress of Iran’s Shi‘ite allies, the deepening internal fissures in Yemen, and the significant challenges Iran is facing in Iraq and Syria all place limits on Iran’s power, and cast doubt on its ability to achieve its goal of regional hegemony. Even if the concerns of Iran’s neighbors about its intentions are well-founded, and despite Iran’s impassioned declarations against its adversaries in the Gulf, it seems that the path to Iranian control over the Arab Middle East, whether directly or through its Shi‘ite proxies, remains far from simple.
* Dr. Raz Zimmt is a researcher at the Alliance Center for Iranian Studies at Tel Aviv University and a fellow at the Forum for Regional Thinking..
T h e A l l i a n c e C e n t e r f o r I r a n i a n S t u d i e s ( A C I S )
Tel Aviv University, Ramat-Aviv 61390, Tel Aviv P.O.B. 39040, Israel
Email: IranCen@post.tau.ac.il , Phone: +972-3-640-9510
F a x : + 9 7 2 - 3 - 6 4 0 - 6 6 6 5
Iran Pulse No. 73 ● April 8, 2015
© All rights reserved
