Saudi Arabia has the fourth largest military budget in the world. What’s the use of all that shiny military hardware if you aren’t going to use it? Although Saudi Arabia has so far been unsuccessful in bombing Yemen’s Houthi rebels into submission, according to The Wall Street Journal, the “display of military might has already unleashed a patriotic fervor in Riyadh.” After the presumed victory in Yemen, next up on the docket: regime change in Syria. From Khalid al-Dahkil, a Saudi sociologist and prominent commentator:
The massacres in Syria should stop and its regime there should go. The right thing to do after Yemen would be for the Gulf countries, together with Egypt, Jordan and Turkey, to go into Syria to dislodge that regime.
The Wall Street Journal, “In Yemen Conflict, Saudi Arabia Displays Its Military Might,” 4/23/15.
Of course, only Shiite Bashar al-Assad’s massacres are of concern to Sunni Saudi Arabia. Those inflicted by the Sunni Islamic State and Sunni Nusra Front get a free pass, just as Saudi Arabias concern about revolution and the overthrow of a “legitimate” government in Yemen extends only to Shiite Houthi rebels, not to the Sunni Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula rebels.
See also “Why Is Yemen Our War?” by Patrick Buchanan, SLL, 4/24/15.
