The Saudi-Iranian Neo Cold War

It's been four months since I described Yemen as a powder keg ready to explode. At the time the entire world was riveted to the television, watching the unfolding events of the "Velvet Revolution" in Iran. The Yemeni keg has since exploded. It is currently on the verge of causing regional conflict.



For more than a week now, Saudi Arabia has been carrying out military operations on its remote southern border to punish Houthi rebels from neighboring Yemen who crossed over and attacked one of its patrols. Both Yemen and Saudi Arabia have accused Iran of arming the rebels.

Accusations and counter accusations have been flying between the two rival regional powers. On Tuesday, Iran's foreign minister Manouchehr Mottaki warned that, "those who pour oil on the fire must know that they will not be spared from the smoke that billows."

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Yemen: A Powder Keg Ready To Explode

With the recent obsession about the Iranian "Velvet Revolution," the ongoing coverage of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict and the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, news from a country like Yemen seldom makes headlines in Western media, especially in the U.S. In fact, even for reporters savvy in Yemeni politics and fluent in Arabic, accurate and unfiltered news about what's really going on inside Yemen is hard to unearth. This is due to the security apparatus of Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh, which to a large extent has made it difficult for independent media outlets to access troubled areas like Abyan, east Aden and Sa'ada, in northern Yemen.

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