What Was UN Envoy Grundberg’s Message to Tehran?

Meanwhile, with the trip of the British Foreign Secretary David Cameron to Muscat and the visit of the UN special envoy to Yemen Hans Grundberg to Tehran, there are clues that these visits share agenda for maintaining the Red Sea crisis. 

The British Foreign Office said in a statement that Cameron was in talks with his Omani counterpart, Sayyid Badr al-Busaidi, to discuss ways to ease growing tensions in the region, especially Ansarullah attacks. The main focus of Cameroon’s talks with the Omanis was the preparation of a peace plan based on the commitments of the Yemeni parties with the mediation of Riyadh and Muscat, the statement said. 

The interesting point is that before his Tehran visit, Grundberg had visited the Omani capital, showing that there are links between his Tehran talks and the British Foreign Secretary’s negotiations with the Omani officials. Oman’s official news agency said that the country’s FM Khalifa bin Issa al-Harthy discussed with Grundberg the efforts to win Yemeni support to a political solution that would protect Yemen and region’s stability and security.

So, primarily, the British and UN diplomatic activism should be regarded as driven by the surging tensions in the Red Sea and Ansarullah’s firm stances in support of the oppressed people of Gaza via blocking Israeli navigation. 

It seems that Washington and London that are desperate to beat Ansarullah’s ironclad pro-Palestinian resolution are seeking ways to move out of the quagmire they have made using mediators. The American and British leaders have come to the understanding that they cannot bring the Sana’a leaders to their knees using military force, as was the case with 9 years of the Saudi war on Yemen. So, they chose de-escalation in the region. 

In recent years, Oman played the role of a mediator between Sana’a and Riyadh so that they might find a solution to end the conflict in Yemen. Therefore, the American and British officials are also trying to get help from the relatively successful experience of the Omanis in assuaging the tensions in the region. 

Although media link the purpose of Cameron and Grundberg’s visits to the region to the internal developments in Yemen, what is certain is that everything currently has to do with the tensions in the Red Sea. This is while Ansarullah leaders consider Gaza war separate from Yemen’s internal developments which should be resolved directly between the Saudis and the Yemenis without foreign intervention. 

West’s de-escalatory steps come as Sana’a leaders have repeatedly warned that Western strikes will not force them away from their support for the Palestinians, and as long as Gaza war continues, they will not stop their anti-Israeli operations. 

Meanwhile, the US has shown it is suffering from a state of desperation when it comes to dealing with Ansarullah actions. On the one hand the White House officials play as de-escalation seekers, and on the other hand add Ansarullah to their terror blacklist and sanction the movement’s leaders. 

Such measures not only have not helped resolve the Red Sea crisis, but also made the Yemenis more determined to defend the people of Gaza and continue the missile operations in the Red Sea. For example, the Minister of Defense of Yemen Mohammad Al-Atafi, who is on the American blacklist, reiterated Sana’a’s unwavering support to Gaza in his recent speech, warning that Yemeni armed forces are ready for long-term confrontation with American and British forces and these countries should be taught lessons about Yemen’s sovereignty power. 

Belated quest for solution in Tehran 

With the tensions further inflamed, Iran’s fundamental role to restore calm to the region grows more and more clear. After American messages to Iran through regional mediators, it seems that this time the UN envoy has a similar mission in Tehran. 

Iran’s FM Hossein Amir-Abdollahian stressed in his meeting with Grundberg on Saturday that the military approach of the US government, especially the military attacks against Yemen and the re-blacklisting of Ansarullah, have compounded the situation and made the road to a political solution bumpy. Referring to Tehran’s continued support for the establishment of stable peace and security in Yemen, Amir-Abdollahian emphasized that efforts to establish stability and security throughout the region will benefit the whole region. 

Grundberg, according to Iranian media, appreciated the Islamic Republic’s position and commitment to peace and security in the region, especially Yemen, and presented a report on the UN actions regarding peace in Yemen and underscored the need for fundamental solutions to regional crises by drawing on the regional capacities. The two sides also discussed the latest regional developments with a focus on Yemen. 

Though admitting that Iran is not directly involved in Red Sea attacks and operations by resistance groups across the region against the Israeli regime and the US bases, Washington and London claim that Tehran holds a sway over these groups and can help defuse the tensions. That is why the UN envoy visited Tehran. 

Iran has always said that the root cause of the regional tensions is the Israeli regime’s war on innocent Gazans and the American support to ongoing Israeli barbarism. The Islamic Republic and resistance groups assert that in order to stop Red Sea crisis, the US should check the Israeli war machine in Gaza. 

Earlier, the US resorted to China to ask Iran to persuade Ansarullah to end its operations, but Beijing refused to play in Washington’s game. Iran more than once made it clear that resistance forces in the region do not take orders from Tehran and support the Palestinian people with their own free will. 

With the war going attritive and Israeli army showing signs of weakness, Tel Aviv and its Western allies find further tensions not in their interests. In recent weeks, the US held talks with Egyptian and Qatari officials, hoping to work out a ceasefire deal in Gaza. At the same time, London is talking to Hezbollah to steer clear of higher levels of regional conflict. Actually, Red Sea front which these days is like a powder keg and can go off any moment is growing worrisome to the Americans and Britons. So, they do as much as they can to end the crisis, and they are specially counting on the Iranian role. 

The US, certainly, cannot continue its campaign to prevent Yemen’s missile attacks for a long time. As a result of 9-year Saudi war, Yemen has been reduced to a scorched earth and even its occupation will not settle Washington’s problems. Thus, it is useless to continue to battle Ansarullah that has massive anti-ship missile arsenals and has shown it has adequate data dominance over the origin and destination of ships sailing through the Red Sea and Bab-el-Mandeb, as well as American and British naval ships, and anytime unveils a surprise for the enemies. As a confirmation to Ansarullah’s power, the White House officials have recently acknowledged that the movement’s missile power is way more from what they were thinking and it is hard to deter. 

Even some Western sources, like Telegram channel Ateo Breaking, have recently claimed that Ansarullah has threatened to cut off internet cables in the Red Sea should the American and British hostilities continue. Though Sana’a officials have not confirmed the threat, it can cut off internet connection between Asia, Middle East, and Europe should it happen. It is noteworthy that 99 percent of world’s network traffic and 80 percent of international phone services are facilitated by these undersea cables. 

The current Red Sea situation indicates that the US has made no gains through its Yemen strikes that were meant to reduce Ansarullah missile capabilities, because Yemenis continue their attacks. The range of their missiles is increasing, and if earlier only Israeli ships were their only targets, now the American and British commercial and war ships are not immune from these attacks. The only remaining choice for Biden administration to save the US from this security predicament is to end Gaza genocide, which will cause automatic end to operations of resistance groups.