Saudi Arabia and GCC allies bombing Yemen

[politicus]

Susan's position in the alliance is intriguing. I guess Al-Bashir has now completely changed sides.

Susan is such a weathervane.

[politicus]

"It is hard to get into Yemen, it is impossible to get out"

- Ottoman saying

[politicus]

How many Arab-majority countries are currently *not* involved in any wars?

Oman, Algeria and Tunisia

[politicus]

I have no idea who we should be rooting for. Probably neither.

I'm personally backing the South Yemeni independence rebels.

Would dividing Yemen back into North and South be that bad a thing?

Yes it would. Now East and West, that would make more sense.

What? Based on what? North/South is the same as Shiite/Sunni, Sanaa/Aden. What would an east/west divide be based on?

I'm just referring to that North and South Yemen really had the wrong directions as their names.

Aden was in the far south and in the western part of the country and everything else in South Yemen didn't matter much.

[politicus]

Thought we might as well have a map or two:

[politicus]

There is also the fact that it is the western part of the country that is the actual Yemen (traditionally divided into upper and lower).

[politicus]

We can still call South Yemen "Hadramawt"? Then excellent, let's split it up again- after all it just came into existence in 1991.

Not the Aden area.

[politicus]

After the fall of the Yemeni government the Saudis tried to capitalize on the Houthis need for political and financial support to re-establish their influence in the country. But because Iran tried to fill that support gap too Yemen became a battleground for the two rivals.

If the Houthis successfully consolidate their power in Yemen (without being dependent on Saudi aid) the southern Saudi provinces of Jizan and Najran will become vulnerable to Houthi expansion in the long run because they got a significant Shiite Ismaili populations. The Iranians would of course love this - influencing their support for the Zaidis. As soon as Iran got in for real, Saudi-Arabia had to fight the Houthis.