On the tenth anniversary of Operation Decisive Storm!

Since its first day on 9/21/2014 until this moment, the Houthi coup has remained a fixed fact and a real action; while all the opposing reactions to it have been lost, and their goals have been scattered in quelling that action, and they have been beset by ambiguity and confusion in the contradiction of their drawn-up objectives, the failure of their features, and the distortion of their images, compared to the reality of the coup that has not faded. Between the action and the reaction, Yemen has sunk into a swamp of confusion, and has been unable to regain its destiny and control its will.

The Decisive Storm operation led by our sister country, along with the UAE, within the framework of an international coalition, was a logical act that sensed the danger to the Yemeni interior and the regional exterior. However, it was not as serious and responsible as would have been to achieve an inevitable difference and accomplish the mission of eradicating the danger with extreme care and methodological professionalism. Rather, its intentions conflicted and its goals overlapped between its declared system and its implicit system, which was to create a new Yemeni reality that coexists with the continuation of the coup in the form that the coalition would draw and determine its shape. The effect of this contradiction in the coalition’s system dispersed its ability to eliminate the Houthi danger by accepting the possibility of the continuation of that coup in a way that its danger would not reach the region.

First of all, one cannot deny what this alliance has achieved or underestimate its importance. It had a profound impact in changing the map of confrontations and initiating the restoration of the state and establishing its national army, as the storm had expanded the circle of deterrence against the coup and the liberation of some cities. However, that resolute spirit lost its luster when it achieved what it was enthusiastic about achieving, and which was included among its priorities. However, it relaxed its resolve and its ambitions to liberate the geography that was not important in its view diminished.

The purpose of our recapitulation of the storm nostalgia is not to limit it to negatives and positives, to measure its accuracy, or to trace its failures and mistakes; rather, it is to reflect deeply on the slide of the war scene in Yemen into a dramatic trend replete with painful comedy, and the enemy’s achievement of new gains, while the legitimate party, backed by an international alliance and endorsement, is seeing its gains decline and its strengths fade. This equation has created exhausting questions, extensive debates, and broad doubts that dream of finding logical explanations that dispel this dialectic and convince a people who have been kept awake by these concerns and whose energy has been exhausted in comprehending the fate of their homeland.

The Decisive Storm was the first glimmer of hope upon which many goals were pinned and with which the facts of victory were aligned. These facts were on the verge of being realized, and then we entered into intertwined complexities, the implication being that the Houthis were moving forward while the national issue was frozen in the courtyard of those successive, deceptive complexities in looking at the Yemeni issue. Complexities produced by the storm first, the countries of the region second, the international community third, and the United Nations, which aligned itself with these complexities and continued to lead a fluctuating action that consolidated the complexity and reduced its danger until everyone lost control over containing the tragedies of the Houthi danger throughout a decade of conflict.

To unravel this complex picture about the Houthis, legitimacy, the region, and the international community, two important ideas emerge that explain it. The first: Although the Houthi coup is a proven fact connected to an Iranian ambition that is worrying for Yemen, the region, and the world, this fact appeared in the eyes of the Yemeni, regional, and international community accompanied by doubt and disdain for its dimensions, and its consequences, what it could become in the future, and the risks it will bring were minimized. The Houthis exploited this wavering vision to the fullest extent, and it was the window through which they crossed to consolidate their project day after day. This point is sufficient to summon the other point represented by the squandering of many opportunities that were imminent to eliminate the Houthis. The first opportunity was what the storm reached in its early stages, and the Yemeni army reached the "Nahm" strait, followed by similar opportunities such as the joint forces reaching Hodeidah and their ability to liberate it, as well as the liberation momentum that the national army and with it the national resistance had on various fronts. It is not the combat opportunities that were wasted, as there are political, economic, and social opportunities that were wasted under the mount of deception and confusion of vision. With this enemy, it is therefore regrettable that the enemy has gone through dangerous stations to the point of suffocation, and the popular joy at his downfall was overwhelming, but soon those shocks he receives produce opposite results and he emerges from them a winner, and all the intentions determined to discipline him fail in their early steps, until he became a force capable of overcoming his ordeals and strengthening his capabilities in all aspects.

No matter how hard we search for a reason that explains this position, we will not find anything other than selfishness and thinking about personal interest as a logical motive that made everyone’s position on the Houthi appear this way, whether to the Yemeni society and parties, to the countries of the region, or to the international community. Their hostility to the Houthi is limited to the extent that he will harm them. The Decisive Storm operation was slack when it destroyed the state’s weapons that he had in his possession after he maneuvered with them for his brothers. Likewise, the international powers reduced his threats to international navigation for two years and did not begin to deter him until his danger became unbearable. Then came the American raids to destroy his equipment to extinguish him on the one hand and to seek to clip Iran’s arms in the region after the logic of dealing with Iran turned into a noisy military path and the extinction of that soft conflict with it.

Therefore, this anniversary besieges us to read our national issue with transparency and logic and insight into a crisis-ridden decade full of contradictions and deviations that have made us stand in a pitiful corner. Our enemy has spread in more than one coat and its presence has become intertwined with many interests that have affected the path of liberation. It has become difficult for us to proceed with getting rid of it after our will has been scattered, our goals have been torn apart, and the majority has failed to support and back us and push us towards putting an end to all the tragedies that the Houthis have created in our land and our people economically, politically, militarily and socially.

In this turbulent context, the epic heroism of the Yemeni heroes of the army and resistance over a decade cannot be denied. These are the only heroisms that have remained steadfast on the ground to this day, unshaken by factors of erosion and tempted by interests, and resistant to retreat. Were it not for their strong wills, they would have been swept away by that dirty game internally and externally, which cared about nothing but the implementation of its goals and the achievement of its interests. Then those determinations were restricted and colored by hints of pale peace, the abhorrent legitimization of the coup, overlooking the crimes of the enemy, and ignoring its victims. They will remain the fixed truth capable of uprooting the truth of the coup without caring about the intentions of politicians and leaders who are in harmony with listening to instructions of disappointment and clinging to all pressures that hinder the initiation of a Yemeni salvation battle with a purely Yemeni will that does not submit to the tails of regional and international interests. The people are the ones concerned, as happened in Sudan, and no other country is capable of saving itself.