Saturday, February 16, 2019

Humanitarian Shields

Iran has managed a great propaganda victory by convincing many in the West that Saudi Arabia is responsible for casualties and suffering in Yemen when it is Iran and its allies there who bear that responsibility. Western "humanitarians" are essentially running interference for Iran's strategy.

Yes:

Iran sees itself as still a potential winner in Yemen, despite numerous defeats. For one thing, Iran still has a lot of support from leftist politicians in the West. This is partly resentment against the United States, which has always been the primary supporter of Saudi Arabia, and Gulf Arab oil states in general. Now the majority of legislators in the American Congress are willing to demand the U.S. halt military aid to Saudi Arabia. This is unlikely to pass into law but if it did it would be a major win for China, as well as Iran. The Saudis would be forced to seek other nations as a reliable weapons supplier and China has already proven itself capable of producing and selling (without any strings) modern weapons to the Gulf Arab nation. The best example is missile equipped large (Predator size) UAVs.

While the Iranian Information War campaign (with the help of Russia) to demonize the Arab coalition in Yemen, continues more Western analysts are pointing out that the main cause of civilian casualties are the Shia rebels, who deliberately use civilians as human shields. Arab armies will attack anyway but the Shia rebels are setting up those civilian deaths mainly to manipulate Western media. This has been more obvious during the current ceasefire. The main cause of ceasefire violations and dead civilians have been Shia rebels.

Yes, I've been reporting that. Although those are immediate causes exacerbating the underlying cause of corruption in Yemen.

And the urge to push ceasefires that interfere with a Saudi victory is a form of false compassion.