By Jubin Katiraie
The US must act now to stop Iran taking over Yemen, according to political scientist Dr Majid Rafizadeh.
He explains, in a piece for the Gatestone Institute, that one of the Iran’s primary ideals is to export their malign revolution across the Middle East and, by extension, the world. The mullahs plan to carry this out by effectively taking over other countries, which they have already done with Lebanon, Syria, and Iraq.
Their next goal is Yemen, a country in the midst of a civil war with Iran supporting the terrorist Houthi militia by providing them with money, arms, and training. In fact, Iran has used is a US-designated terrorist group, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) to provide most of the support. Iran’s goal is to ensure the Houthis win against the legitimate government so that Iran can take control of the country via proxy.
It should be noted that Iran already helped assassinate Yemen’s former President Ali Abdullah Saleh in 2017, just two days after he called for peace in the country.
Now the US already takes the threat by Iran seriously, which is why Donald Trump visited the Middle East to encourage the “Arab NATO” to deter Iran and uproot extremism, something that led to Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and other Gulf states stepping up their fight against Iran. But this is not enough.
Iran and its proxies are committed to acts of terrorism across the region and beyond. Last July, the Houthis tried to fire a missile at an Abu Dhabi nuclear facility, which could have caused mass civilian casualties and have over the past four years fired several rockets at Saudi Arabia. Thankfully, all have missed their targets and casualties, while still devastating, have been low.
Dr Majid Rafizadeh wrote: “The Yemen conflict means more to Iran than merely taunting its Gulf rivals, whom it has vowed to destroy. It is, rather, an ideological crusade to unite the Muslim world under its own Islamist rule, one that will always see any attempts at peace as merely a delay in the process.”
Iran has been encircling Saudi Arabia with the countries it takes over, in order to, eventually, control Saudi oil fields and holy sites, as well as the Bab al Mandeb and the Strait of Hormuz shipping lines.
Dr Majid Rafizadeh wrote: “Even more alarming, by far, is that Iran is on the threshold of obtaining nuclear weapons and the ballistic missiles to deliver them. Iran, in short, has adopted a dangerous, expansionist ideology that needs to be taken seriously.”
Therefore, it is imperative that the US work to stop Iran from taking over Yemen before it is too late.
