UN Hardly Seen as Critical of Saudi Regime’s Bloody Fiasco in Yemen: Int’l Lawyer

“The UN can hardly be seen as being too critical of the KSA in this bloody fiasco given that the UN’s own Yemen resolution, in effect, green lighted the illegal, Saudi-led, belligerent military assault on the people of Yemen…,” Barry Grossman said in an interview with Tasnim News Agency.

Following is the full text of the interview:

Tasnim: As you may know, recent airstrikes by the Saudi-led coalition near the Yemeni capital have killed about 60 people, including dozens of civilians, and injured many others after hitting a hotel in Arhab, 35 kilometers (22 miles) north of Sana’a. A recent report authored by several international aid agencies said Yemen suffered more airstrikes in the first half of this year than in the whole of 2016, increasing the number of civilian deaths and forcing more people to flee their homes. In your opinion, why has the Saudi regime decided to increase the airstrikes, hitting civilian targets?

Grossman: Bearing in mind that the KSA clearly now recognizes it cannot win this war against the people of Yemen, the only conceivable explanations for ramping up its bombing runs on Yemeni civilians are that the Saudi regime is continuing the unrelenting violence in order to carve out a stronger position at the negotiating table while, in the long run, expecting that the Houthi leadership will eventually have to pay a domestic political price for the carnage, mayhem, and destruction of infrastructure which the Saudi-led coalition has wrought as a result of the Houthi asserting themselves politically when it became clear that Yemen’s former transitional President – Mansur Hadi – had no intention of calling an election or relinquishing power.

At the same time, we must remain mindful that the KSA’s American “backers” have, under President Trump’s leadership, reaffirmed their commitment to providing political, material, and intelligence support to the KSA in order to advance the Saudi military agenda in Yemen, bearing in mind that both the USA and the KSA have conceived this contrived conflict as being in no small part a proxy war with Iran. In addition, under Trump’s leadership, the US has dramatically increased the intensity of it drone attacks on Yemen, with more such drone attacks taking place in the month of March than the entire preceding year. This being the case, there certainly is very little incentive for the Saudis to end this sustained attack on Yemenis as long as they continue to promote a geopolitical agenda which fraudulently represents Iran as a regional aggressor and the Saudi regime as an ally which is simply exercising its sovereign right to oppose hostile, foreign infiltration while discharging its duty to fight terrorism.

Of course, the fact that it is the USA which, as a hostile foreign power, has infiltrated the policy-making apparatus of the Saudi regime and that Iran has an established record of responsibly fighting terrorism, is completely lost on them and the corporate media.

Tasnim: Newly-leaked emails written by two former top US officials have shown that Saudi Arabia’s crown prince and defense minister Mohammed bin Salman “wants out” of the war he started in Yemen. The Saudi regime has reached none of its objectives in Yemen. In 2015, the kingdom had a record budget deficit of almost $100 billion, prompting it to rein in public spending in a bid to save money. Why is the regime continuing its attacks on the Arabian Peninsula country despite its failures and cash-strapped economy? What do you think about the future of the war?

Grossman: Well, the Kingdom’s oil pricing strategy for OPEC in recent years has already established that the Saudi regime has prioritized its regional geopolitical agenda and sectarian aspirations over the nation’s economic independence. Quite apart from the massive cost of this illegal war on Yemen, it has become quite clear that the KSA has resolved to fully embrace the US dominated international system or, if you prefer, not-so-new, New World Order, with all that entails, including comprehensive tax regimes, international styled banking, and the corporatization/globalization of its economy. Looked at in this broader context, it seems clear that financing this war using the never-never plan pioneered by the USA is seen by the Saudi leadership as a small price to pay for leading the charge against what is in fact non-existent Iranian aggression, all with a view to eventually emerging as the region’s undisputed dominant power, the voice of Islam, and the American’s Capo in the region. The unprecedented mix of hubris and trust in the USA manifested in this absurd plan is breathtakingly naïve and certainly not Islamic.

Tasnim: The Saudi blockades on Yemen's ports and airspace has caused a human tragedy. According to the World Health Organization, Yemen is facing the "world's worst cholera outbreak". Earlier this month, the WHO said the total number of suspected cholera cases in Yemen this year hit the half a million mark, and nearly 2000 people have died since the outbreak began to spread rapidly at the end of April. Why have the international organizations, particularly the UN, remained passive in the face of the ongoing Saudi atrocities?

Grossman: It is time we faced up to the fact that the UN, like most so-called “international organizations”, is not international at all but rather just a policy tool completely dominated by US led, Atlantic World powers which have long been committed to achieving the “holy grail” of humanity’s hubris, that is, a global system of governance dominated the USA.

It is also time we recognized that “human rights”, like the rule-of-law itself, are now relics of a bygone epoch. We are now well and truly in a new era in which policy made by corporate funded think tanks and special interests trumps the law and human rights paradigm every time unless, of course, it is the Atlantic World establishment which is invoking anachronisms like “international law” or “human rights” to oppose the domestic policies of sovereign states which continue to resist the Atlantic World’s international system.

In any case, it does not take a great deal of specialist expertise to recognize how countries like the USA, Israel, and, most recently, even the KSA, use threats to withdraw funding support for the UN in order compel it to abandon or censor its own initiatives which have quite properly resolved to censure these nations.

Moreover, the UN can hardly be seen as being too critical of the KSA in this bloody fiasco given that the UN’s own Yemen resolution, in effect, green lighted the illegal, Saudi led, belligerent military assault on the people of Yemen, while providing a foundation for the all encompassing embargo on Yemen which has followed and ensured that the predictable cholera epidemic caused by the Saudi destruction of Yemen’s infrastructure and domestic economy cannot be properly managed unless Yemen opens itself up to international aid agencies and NGOs which, in addition to being fully committed to the Atlantic World’s geopolitical agenda, are well known to be infiltrated by foreign intelligence operatives.