During his recent visit to New York for the UN General Assembly, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, much to the chagrin of officials in Washington and elsewhere, repeatedly insisted that the United States should view the Islamic Republic of Iran as a friend. Iran, Ahmadinejad proclaimed, is "an opportunity for everyone." This alleged "opportunity" must have come as news to Iran's Mideast neighbors -- especially Israel. With its well-documented penchant for supporting terrorism and upheaval throughout the region, it's difficult to see any opportunity in Tehran's often hollow overtures.
But in the neighboring country of Yemen, a very real opportunity to make good on its promise of friendship is rapidly emerging for Iran. Deprived of ink and oxygen by wars in both Iraq and Afghanistan, a bloody and volatile conflict has been raging in the unstable northern Yemeni province of Sa'ada. Houthi Rebels -- Shia disciples of the late Zaidi leader Hussein al-Houthi -- have for five years engaged in an on-again, off-again battle with Yemen's central government for sovereignty of the nation's mountainous north. The conflict reached its apparent apex in recent months, when the Sunni-dominated government in Sana'a unleashed what it termed "Operation Scorched Earth"; an aggressive and intentionally overwhelming summer assault from both land and air intended to shock the Shia insurgents into submission.
The conflict has created a growing humanitarian crisis in the Middle East, as approximately 150,000 refugees trapped between Yemen's warring factions have been forced to flee their homes and take to makeshift camps near the southern border of Saudi Arabia. Both Riyadh and UN relief workers have to date struggled getting essential aid to these Yemeni refugees, as both Sana'a and the Houthi rebels place blame on each other for the prolonged conflict. The group Human Rights Watch recently accused both factions of endangering civilians and perpetuating the refugee crisis; while Yemen's central government continues to accuse Shia agents in Iran and Iraq of supplying and aiding the rebels.
Tehran, for its own part, has done little to assuage Yemeni -- and, for that matter, Saudi -- concerns of an Iranian hand in the conflict beyond rote denial and perfunctory statements. Sana'a, certainly not lacking in its own paranoia and fear of all things Shia, claims to have recovered Iranian-made short range missiles and other armaments from Houthi weapons depots. And just last week, one of Yemen's top Sunni clerical figures, Sheikh Abdul Majid al-Zandani, placed blame for the burgeoning civil war squarely upon the Islamic Republic. "The way events are moving in this country," exclaimed al-Zandani, "indicates to us that Iran wants to export the Shia ideology by force, which we utterly reject."
