By Walid Shoebat

In this article we will attempt to answer:

The Sunni Coalition with Saudi Arabia. Will it hold?

Who are the real players in the coalition?

Why this coalition will eventually turn on Saudi Arabia?

Will Turkey have a showdown with Iran and why?

If we look at the Sunni Coalition against the Shiite Houthis in Yemen, it is Saudi money and the defense of Mecca that prompts other Arab states to lend their name to the coalition, not the love of the Saudi monarchy, while the only real hardcore players in this coalition are Saudi Arabia and Pakistan. The reason Turkey did not participate on the war against the Houthis in Yemen is that Turkey and Saudi Arabia cannot have a meeting of minds because Turkey never accepted Saudi Arabia as historically it sees the Saudi monarchy as the British puppet which ousted the Ottomans.

The sons of Sharif Hussein, commander of the Arab Revolt against the Ottomans, pictured in Baghdad / Seated in the front row from left to right: King Ali of the Hijaz, King Abdullah of Jordan, King Faysal of Iraq (former king of Syria)

How could an imperialist entity be Islamically propped up as the Custodian of the Two Holy Places, Mecca and Medina in succession to the Caliph who in Turkey’s view should rule from Istanbul? In fact, Turkey has not and will never intervene in Yemen and Erdogan is going ahead with his visit to Iran in June.

For an example on how things turn on Saudi Arabia, just look at the Saudis. They had thought that former President Ali Abdullah Saleh was their man in Yemen, but now they realise that he is with the Houthis. This shows how fast the alignments changed and Pakistan’s Nawaz Sharif’s summons to travel to Riyadh was that the Sharif family has massive business interests in Saudi Arabia and Sharif is in no position to defy the Saudis while the other participant are not capable of fighting a protracted guerrilla war in Yemen.

Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif with King Salman Bin Abdulaziz Al Saud

Egypt is in the coalition for money and money can’t buy you love when the stakes are high, Egypt does not want either Wahhabi Islam or the Muslim Brotherhood which threaten the very existence of Egypt’s government. In addition, Egypt is barely coping with the Sinai where terrorists have Abdul Fattah Al-Sisi’s hands full. Does he want to expand his military to Yemen when historically Egypt’s war in Yemen during Jamal Abdul Nasser brought nothing but body bags? Before Al-Sisi, Nasser supporter Abdullah al-Sallal overthrew Imam Badr of North Yemen in 1962. Al-Badr and his tribal partisans began receiving increasing support from Saudi Arabia to help reinstate the kingdom, while Nasser subsequently accepted a request by Sallal to militarily aid the new government. Consequently, Egypt became increasingly embroiled in the drawn-out civil war until it withdrew its forces in 1967. Most of Nasser’s old colleagues had questioned the wisdom who later remarked in 1968 that intervention in Yemen was a “miscalculation”.

Currently UN mediation in Yemen will have a consensus reached on power-sharing being worked out between Iran and Russia.

Also, when it comes to Turkey, why would Turkish stance to strengthen a “Sunni bloc” against Iran in support of two regional Turkish oppositions: Saudi Arabia and Egypt? Erdogan is pro-Muslim Brotherhood and Saudi Arabia and Egypt are not. The evidence began to show that Turkey’s offer to provide logistical support to the mission was minimal.

Rule number one when reading the media is to always remember; never read articles which covers  what politicians say, or pay any attention to the lip-service they give, or even the hardline criticism they launch at each other,  and only focus on what they do. Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu stated that: “we said we can give every kind of support, including intelligence, but not military support.” No military support in a war means only talk. Then you have the tongue-lashing at each other between Turkey and Iran which only excites media to sell newspapers not worth the ink or the paper. Erdogan criticized Iran and Iran’s Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif criticized Erdogan. It ended with Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu stressing the need for a political settlement in Yemen, warning against a wider escalation of the conflict. “Iran and the Arab world need not to engage in a showdown,” he said after pointing to Iran’s not-too-subtle influence in Yemen.

So Turkey wants to replace the U.S. to becoming the peacemaker in the region. Turkey wants to be  the one that calls the shots and can claim the last lost seat of the Caliphate which rules all of the Muslim world from Istanbul. Yemen is not Turkey’s foreign policy priority. Ankara loves being a mediator but not a party in this crisis.

So what does all this tell us? As we have been stating for years, Turkey refuses to enter the Sunni vs. Shiite war for several reasons. Firstly, Tehran and Ankara intend to increase their trade volume with Iran and this year its a $30 billion deal. The tongue lashing is all for show. It is not only Yemen that is an issue, but in Syria, neither country expressed willingness to change its position and the friendship still continues while Iran does not pressure Turkey over Syria and Turkey helps Iran to bolster its uranium enrichment. Turkey’s Development Minister Cevdet Yilmaz already described the international sanctions imposed on Iran over its disputed nuclear program as “unfair”. Turkey’s policies with Iran not only angers Saudi Arabia, but writes the real headlines the papers miss: Babylon (Saudi Arabia) is found wanting and her days are numbered and the Persians will ultimately burn her. The Houthis have 300 Scuds and the bombardments only took out a handful while Scuds are still aimed at Saudi Arabia from the Yemen border with Saudi Arabia. Mecca is still under threat.

The silence by Iran regarding its ally Syria and Turkey’s silence about Iran’s influence in Iraq is because what’s coming next are bigger ideas than the Saudi created Sunni coalition, that is, uniting what Sykes Picot divided to forge alliances between two major regional superpowers, Turkey and Iran. This coalition will include with them the Muslim states in the Caucasus, Syria, Iraq, North Africa, Sudan and several others. With this mega alliance, if Abdul Fattah Al-Sisi of Egypt and Khalifa Belqasim Haftar of Libya refuse to comply, they will simply be invaded (See Daniel 11).

Also, there is a historic link between Turkey and Iran. It is crucial to understand that many in Iran and the Caucasus are of Azeri Turkish heritage. This ethnic affiliation is crucial to comprehend a final Shiite-Sunni alliance between Turkey with Iran and other Muslim states which is already sparking an Islamic unification away from Saudi Wahhabism including all the way to the Caucasus.

For example, Iran’s Hassan Rouhani on April 9th last year officially welcomed his visiting Azeri counterpart from Azerbaijan, Ilham Aliyev to sign several agreements on Tehran-Baku trade and economic cooperation. Iran has 35 million people of Turkish ethnic origin make up the majority in Iran — nearly half of the Iranian population. Ayatollah Khamenei (the current Supreme Leader) himself is Azeri Turk on his father’s side.

While Arabia’s Islam has always tried to attempt to unite the nations through intermarriage to make one Umma (Muslim nation), it failed to remove God’s ordained ethnic adhesive. Turkey and Iran have much in common besides Islam. The coming Muslim alliance is of mixed nations and multitudes that refuse to completely blend into the Arab melting pot and is why we believe that in the end, Saudi Arabia is toast.