Sanaa’s naval forces have proven that aircraft carriers and warships are no longer able to protect sealines or straits, no matter how advanced their military capabilities are. It has become a matter of concern and panic to the United States (US), and threatens its influence and bases in the Middle East, and perhaps its areas of influence in other parts of the world.
What the Yemeni missiles, boats, and navy drones are doing is a revolution in all naval military standards and theories that have been in circulation for a hundred years. Building aircraft carriers and battleships costs billions of dollars which can be destroyed in seconds by a Yemeni missile that costs only a few thousand. Here lies the unexpected American dilemma.
The most dangerous thing which worries Western political and military strategists these days is the “contagion” of the Yemeni maritime challenge and the possibility of it spreading to neighbouring Arab countries first, and then in the Muslim world. “New Yemen” has become a model of another “North Korea” in the Arabian Peninsula, in one way or another after its complete control over the Arabian and Red Seas, the extension of its control to the Indian Ocean, the Cape of Good Hope, and the Strait of Hormuz, directly or indirectly.
The American retaliatory attacks which targeted Saada, Hodeida, and other Yemeni targets did not achieve their goals of “terrorizing” Yemen, but rather gave the opposite results in terms of expanding the scope of the naval war to the oceans and open seas, whether in the Indian Ocean or the eastern African coast deep into the Cape of Good Hope in South Africa.
A single Yemeni missile fired by the Yemeni naval forces at the giant American battleship “USS Laboon” in the Red Sea (which cost a billion dollars to build) struck the American naval leadership in an unprecedented state of panic. This is because it no longer had any meaningful response to this missile, as there is none. There are no military bases or skyscrapers in Yemen, and no civilian infrastructure such as power or water generation stations, nor giant oil refineries, and if they exist, they cannot be compared with their counterparts in the region and the world. This is one of the sources of strength because sometimes, material poverty is a blessing and a virtue.
The culture of resistance, reinforced by missiles and drones, adopted by the Yemeni leadership in Sanaa against the occupation (Israel) and its supporters in Washington and Western capitals, is triumphant, and overturns all power and political equations in the entire world, not just the Middle East. With its courageous stances, Yemen has become a powerful regional power that challenges the US and its aircraft carriers in an effective and influential manner.
“Abu Yemen” now controls the most important seas, oceans and straits in the world, without owning fleets or battleships. This is just by the power of determination and will. It frightens billions of aircraft carriers with missiles. It does not cost even a few thousand dollars, and here lies the true miracle.
America is forced to change and recognize the new great Yemeni power supported by the axis of resistance, moral values, and the poor Arabs and Muslims. This explains its panic over the developments of the Gaza war, and its tireless and hasty efforts to save the occupying state (Israel) from its certain annihilation, or at least postpone it.
[by Abdul Bari Atwan in Rai Alyoum]