Alliances shift in the sands of the Middle East

Allies are a wonderful thing to have when you're fighting your way around the world. We would never have won our Revolution without France's support, for instance, and World War II showed what was then formally called "the Allies" could do when working in union.

But somehow, as our aircraft carrier Theodore Roosevelt steamed valiantly through the waters off Yemen to join other Yankee ships to intercept Iranian arms destined for the rebels there, the disturbing thought hit me that our allies today seem to have radically changed.

A brief overview:

In the southern reaches of the Middle East, as our ships sail toward the ancient port of Aden in Yemen, whose six- or seven-story "skyscrapers" built centuries ago are its most important gift to humanity, the Saudis have all but invaded to fight the Houthis. In case you haven't heard of them, the Houthis are Yemeni tribesmen from the north who have taken over the capital of Sanaa.

The Houthis are also fighting the local al-Qaida movement, which is also fighting the local Islamic State movement, both of which are fighting against the U.S. presence in the Middle East and the Saudis, whom the U.S. is supporting but prudently warning not to go too far. The U.S. and the Saudis are also up in arms (so to speak) over the Iranian presence in the tiny country.

How could one forget the fact that there is a "legitimate" elected leader of the country, President Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi, who was finally forced to flee the country last month. It is not clear which group or group of groups forced him to flee, but gone he is. The U.S. had supported him, at least with its usual unctuous statements about installing democracy everywhere in the world.

There was no announcement from the Pentagon as to what the American sailors would do once they were just off the coast of Yemen.

Somewhat similar events and the congealing (for the moment, at least) of groups for purposes unclear have oddly enough been happening in the north, in Iraq, Syria, Turkey and Libya.

Most readers know that, after gratefully abandoning the quicksand of Iraq under President Obama, we returned there last year to again train the Iraqi military. This time, we want the Iraqis to fight the Islamic State or ISIS based in Syria, which they did in liberating Tikrit. Also on the anti-ISIS side are the Iranian-backed Shiite militias, who would most likely put an end to ISIS pretty quickly, except that the U.S. doesn't want them because of their ties with Iran.

Washington complains all the time about the Iraqi army - or this present-day version - but it would apparently rather lose the fight against ISIS than let the Iranians help. With all of this happening at the same time the U.S., the Europeans and Russia are in crucial negotiations with Tehran over Iran's nuclear plans, one wonders what stands out in Washington's mind as priorities.

Finally, although the Kurds in the north of Iraq are by far the best fighters in the region, the U.S. has stood up on its bureaucratic hind feet and refused to send them arms directly, falling back on agreements that arms must go through Baghdad to Kurdistan.

There is one overwhelmingly important core problem here. It is the ages-old struggle between the Muslim Sunnis and the Muslim Shiites, two branches within Islam that show only minimal differences in belief yet have the power to make men and women in the region fight for their lives and their countries.

So there we have it, ladies and gentlemen, our new allies - Yemen and Iraq!

You may think I've been joking, and I have been having my fun, but the fact is that every day, someone in the government says, almost tearfully, that Yemen was one of our "best allies" in the Middle East before those Houthis came raging down from the north. (What do they think, that it's their country?) The same with Iraq.

So one might ask, with no attempt at disrespect, why a great power like the U.S. should choose such obvious "outlier" countries as these two as its allies, especially when they have so little to give and so much to force us to lose.

Why? Because it feeds Americans' need to think we're "saving" peoples. Also, because it's easier - or it appears easier - to deal with leaders like Yemen's and Iraq's. But the risks are great.

America could keep its Protestant pilgrim's soul because, protected two great oceans, it has not had to fight and compromise as have other countries. But once America entered the miseries of the Middle East, really with the invasion of Iraq in 2003, it put itself at the same service of all those countries whose borders were chockablock up against the others.

If you think all of this is crazy, then, trust me, you're just fine.

Georgie Anne Geyer can be reached at gigi_geyer@juno.com.

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