Jafar Qanadbashi – Expert on the Middle East

Over the past five months, the Coalition forces have tried over and over again their luck to occupy the highly strategic city of Hudaydah in an attempt to realize their dream of the past three and a half years to dominate the capital city Sanaa; but today in the face of the unique resistance of the Yemeni people, it only seeks to achieve some limited and sectional military successes to prepare the ground for participation in London peace talks to put a face-saving end to the Yemeni war.

It is just natural for the leaders of Riyadh and Abu Dhabi to wage a severe psychological and propaganda warfare in parallel with the fierce battles around Hudaydah and hire numerous media outlets in the region as well as at international level in order to highlight the provisional achievements of this operation.

In recent days, the above-mentioned media have repeatedly spoken about the “complete collapse” of Hudaydah and the defeat of Yemeni forces and have released numerous pictures and videos on this subject. This is while, according to the experiences of the past three and a half years, in the midst of intense military fighting, judgment about the success or failure of the aggressor armed forces is very difficult and considering the military tactics used by the Yemeni forces it is impossible.

Over the past few days, some strategic areas around Hudaydah fell into the hands of the Coalition forces for several hours but after they were forced to withdraw the strategic points were retaken by Ansarallah and the Yemeni popular forces.

It is clear that the Coalition will strongly need field triumphs to engage in any kind of talks and will inevitably endeavour to achieve somewhat limited successes until the December talks.

However, the overall regional and international conditions have prompted the Western backers of Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates to officially underline the need for an immediate end to the war in Yemen contrary to their former policy lines. They are also trying to take practical action to end the war the consequences of which have hurt the interests of the US and Europe. An overview of the global protests in recent days regarding the sale of weapons to the UAE and Saudi Arabia as well as a look at the waves of global opposition to the continued massacre of civilians in Yemen clarifies the causes of Western governments’ request for the end of the war.

Nonetheless, there are two other factors that need to be considered in this regard: The first factor originates from the overall strategy of the West in the face of regional conflicts. The West in this type of wars tries to prevent victory of anti-West opposition and pro-democracy activists.

While on the battlefield Ansarallah Movement is on the verge of victory and for the same reason the alarms have been sounded in the Western world.

The second factor is about the scandal of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi’s brutal murder which has prompted the West to nervously work for the termination of the Yemen conflict and boost the ongoing efforts to convene the Yemen peace talks in London.

It should be noted that under these circumstances, peace talks will be legitimate which will be held between the warring parties and negotiations with the aggressor regimes cannot be legitimate; therefore, the Saudi-led coalition is faced with serious trouble in finding a party acceptable to sit at the negotiation table with Ansarallah.