What’s going on on the Saudi-Yemen border, and what it might mean for the US are the major topics of this article from Small Wars Journal, republished at Foreign Policy Journal online. Saudi Arabia, driven by the specter of 175K refugees and a border incursion, felt compelled to react. Oddly, the piece makes no mention of Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula’s use of Yemen as a launching pad for terrorist acts against the Kingdom.

The author believes that the incidents and the Saudi reaction may be signaling the beginning of an effective Sunni Arab alliance to counter Iranian expansionism. This, he writes, would fit well with an American policy of containing Iran.

The piece also discusses the conflict between Tamil insurgents and the government of Sri Lanka. While that conflict is putatively over, unless Sri Lanka takes positive steps, it could be sowing the seeds of a new conflict within the camps in which it is holding many of the LTTE supporters.

The Upside of the Proxy War in Yemen
The Saudi-Iranian proxy war escalates: good news for the U.S.
ROBERT HADDICK

A sectarian rebellion in northern Yemen has now become an open contest between Saudi Arabia and Iran for influence over Yemen and the Gulf of Aden region. This week the Saudis brought their air and naval power to bear against Yemen’s Houthi rebels — Shiite insurgents very likely supported by Iran – after a Houthi incursion into Saudi territory. Iran responded by warning Saudi Arabia to stay out of the conflict. What remains to be seen is whether this conflict will create and harden a Sunni-Arab alliance that might someday effectively contain Iran.

According to the New York Times, the Houthis captured a strategic mountain near the Yemen-Saudi Arabia border and clashed with a Saudi border patrol on Nov. 3. The Saudi response was a sustained air and artillery campaign against Houthi positions inside Yemen. On Nov 10 Saudi naval forces began a blockade of Yemen’s coast in order to cut the Houthis off from resupply.

The Saudi and Yemeni governments believe that Iran is supplying the rebels with weapons, though Tehran denies it.
…