Should the U.S. Military Invade Yemen? || Peter Zeihan
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wrdx5RsbmOY
Language: en | ASR: large-v3-turbo @ 0a363e9161cbc7ed1431c9597a8ceaf0c4f78fcf

[00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:04.660] Speaker 1: Hey everybody, Peter Zion here, coming to you from a warm Colorado autumn afternoon. Today
[00:00:04.660 --> 00:00:10.140] Speaker 1: we're taking a question from the Patreon crowd, specifically, is the United States about to
[00:00:10.140 --> 00:00:15.140] Speaker 1: get sucked into a fresh war in the Middle East in Yemen? And if so, is that something we
[00:00:15.140 --> 00:00:15.360] Speaker 1: want?
[00:00:17.280 --> 00:00:22.040] Speaker 1: Yemen is a mountainous country in the southwestern extremity of the Arabian Peninsula, and
[00:00:22.040 --> 00:00:26.560] Speaker 1: like all mountainous areas that get enough rain to have a population, that population tends
[00:00:26.560 --> 00:00:32.640] Speaker 1: to be a little ornery. uh so basically think of it as chechnya or scotland or west virginia
[00:00:32.640 --> 00:00:34.120] Speaker 1: just warmer
[00:00:34.760 --> 00:00:35.280] UNKNOWN: uh
[00:00:35.280 --> 00:00:41.720] Speaker 1: and it has rebelled against whatever the order has happened to be in the region um jeez at
[00:00:41.720 --> 00:00:48.000] Speaker 1: least since the time of the late egyptian pharaoh so at least 3 000 years ago uh it's been
[00:00:48.000 --> 00:00:52.520] Speaker 1: a problem for everyone who's been the major power in that area and so this is no no
[00:00:52.520 --> 00:00:59.260] Speaker 1: surprise uh that also gives you an idea of how durable the rebellion can be uh let's talk
[00:00:59.260 --> 00:01:05.360] Speaker 1: about the strategic picture in yemen and then we'll talk about what we're up against now so
[00:01:05.360 --> 00:01:09.880] Speaker 1: strategic picture is that these people live in the mountains uh they've got well so they
[00:01:09.880 --> 00:01:13.000] Speaker 1: have enough water for what they need to do and they have a cash crop in something called
[00:01:13.000 --> 00:01:19.320] Speaker 1: kat which is water intensive and is drying the country out and it's basically a mild
[00:01:19.320 --> 00:01:26.240] Speaker 1: narcotic so everyone in yemen is stoned a lot um but the people who are in charge the ones
[00:01:26.240 --> 00:01:30.320] Speaker 1: that are problematic. The Houthis have enough territory that even if you have a collapse of
[00:01:30.320 --> 00:01:34.380] Speaker 1: the water table, it's really not a problem. What we've seen in recent weeks is they've
[00:01:34.380 --> 00:01:37.720] Speaker 1: taken over a lot of the coastal territory, which a lot of people are like, oh, no, this is
[00:01:37.720 --> 00:01:40.720] Speaker 1: bad because they could threaten the strait. But they were threatening the strait before.
[00:01:41.240 --> 00:01:47.120] Speaker 1: They're using primarily missiles and drones that are wholly provided by the Iranians. Yemen
[00:01:47.120 --> 00:01:52.340] Speaker 1: has no indigenous manufacturing capacity itself. So it's basically just assembling kits
[00:01:52.340 --> 00:01:57.420] Speaker 1: under Iranian direction. And that means you're talking about weapon systems that have a
[00:01:57.420 --> 00:02:00.980] Speaker 1: range of over a hundred miles, they don't need the coast to fire. I mean, yes, they could
[00:02:00.980 --> 00:02:04.300] Speaker 1: have people that can go and see, but you don't actually have to have physical control of
[00:02:04.300 --> 00:02:07.700] Speaker 1: the entire coast to do that. You just need one guy with a pair of binoculars and then, you
[00:02:07.700 --> 00:02:13.980] Speaker 1: know, maybe, uh, look at the satellite feed. So if you went in and kicked the Houthis out
[00:02:13.980 --> 00:02:16.880] Speaker 1: of the coast, it really doesn't change the picture. You would actually have to go into the
[00:02:16.880 --> 00:02:23.660] Speaker 1: interior, into the mountains and fight. Uh, which means that if your goal is to
[00:02:23.660 --> 00:02:28.360] Speaker 1: root out this specific problem, you have to invade a country with, you know, 30 million
[00:02:28.360 --> 00:02:35.140] Speaker 1: people, I believe it has, and occupy enough of it that it can't be
[00:02:35.140 --> 00:02:41.860] Speaker 1: used as a base of operations for forces like this. That means you're combining
[00:02:41.860 --> 00:02:47.580] Speaker 1: kind of the worst case scenarios of Afghanistan and Iraq into a single fund fight. Now,
[00:02:47.620 --> 00:02:50.060] Speaker 1: raise your hand if you want to go back into those two countries.
[00:02:50.520 --> 00:02:50.960] UNKNOWN: It's
[00:02:50.960 --> 00:02:55.640] Speaker 1: basically what we're looking at here. It's just that Yemen, unlike Iraq, doesn't even have
[00:02:55.640 --> 00:03:00.060] Speaker 1: decent infrastructure that U .S. forces could operate from, and it has all of the twisting
[00:03:00.060 --> 00:03:05.260] Speaker 1: and turning supply chain problems because of mountain roads that Afghanistan had. So, you
[00:03:05.260 --> 00:03:07.880] Speaker 1: know, no fun at all.
[00:03:09.120 --> 00:03:15.920] Speaker 1: In addition, Yemen threatening Gulf infrastructure, Gulf shipments, and
[00:03:15.920 --> 00:03:20.780] Speaker 1: Saudi Arabia, if you remove it from the equation completely, you haven't solved any of the
[00:03:20.780 --> 00:03:25.820] Speaker 1: problem. Keep in mind that these weapon systems that the Iranians are sharing have a range
[00:03:25.820 --> 00:03:30.120] Speaker 1: of about 600 miles, and they're pretty basic. You could see that expanded in the future,
[00:03:30.220 --> 00:03:34.000] Speaker 1: but 600 is plenty. And if you look at the attacks that have happened elsewhere in the
[00:03:34.000 --> 00:03:38.620] Speaker 1: region, as we know from the war with the United States in February, March, April, and May,
[00:03:39.160 --> 00:03:43.500] Speaker 1: the Iranians can already hit everything in the region. And as was underlined just last
[00:03:43.500 --> 00:03:49.060] Speaker 1: month, the Iranians still have influence in southern Iraq. And so recently there was a
[00:03:49.060 --> 00:03:55.380] Speaker 1: drone and missile attack on what's called the East -West Pipeline, which takes Saudi
[00:03:55.380 --> 00:04:02.100] Speaker 1: Arabian crude from the Persian Gulf across Arabia and into the Red Sea.
[00:04:02.540 --> 00:04:07.720] Speaker 1: Anyway, an attack from Iraq is the one that damaged it and took it offline for a couple
[00:04:07.720 --> 00:04:14.280] Speaker 1: weeks. So even if you take Yemen out of the equation, you would then, if you really want to
[00:04:14.280 --> 00:04:19.540] Speaker 1: secure the area, have to go and do the same thing for Iraq again. And even that wouldn't
[00:04:19.540 --> 00:04:23.340] Speaker 1: fix things because these weapons have more than enough range that can be operated from Iran
[00:04:23.340 --> 00:04:29.900] Speaker 1: direct during the war. On multiple occasions, the Iranians hit sites on the Saudi coast of
[00:04:29.900 --> 00:04:34.220] Speaker 1: the Red Sea. So all of this is in range from multiple places. So you're really talking
[00:04:34.220 --> 00:04:38.900] Speaker 1: about doing something that's significantly more involved than what we did on the global war
[00:04:38.900 --> 00:04:45.820] Speaker 1: and terror and having to physically occupy Yemen and Iraq and Iran
[00:04:45.820 --> 00:04:52.020] Speaker 1: all at the same time. So no, I can't say that is something that I would recommend.
[00:04:52.840 --> 00:04:58.440] Speaker 1: The flip side, of course, is if the U .S. doesn't do something like this, then there is no
[00:04:58.440 --> 00:05:05.340] Speaker 1: military solution whatsoever to secure Persian Gulf energy. You basically
[00:05:05.340 --> 00:05:11.160] Speaker 1: have a really ugly choice to make. You make a political deal with Iran that allows the oil
[00:05:11.160 --> 00:05:17.420] Speaker 1: to flow. And that means giving Iran a whole lot of things that it wants that the United
[00:05:17.420 --> 00:05:23.880] Speaker 1: States has been fighting to not give it since the revolution back in 1979. Or you walk away
[00:05:23.880 --> 00:05:30.320] Speaker 1: and just realize that the Middle East, you can't do anything with it. You can't control it.
[00:05:30.360 --> 00:05:34.100] Speaker 1: You can barely influence it. And the crude isn't going to flow unless the Iranians cut
[00:05:34.100 --> 00:05:39.280] Speaker 1: deals then with individual powers in the area. So it's an ugly, ugly, ugly situation. And
[00:05:39.280 --> 00:05:42.860] Speaker 1: Yemen just underlines just how ugly.