SAUDI IS TRAPPED: HOUTHIS HOLD THE FUSE TO THE PETRODOLLAR- WORLD WAR III STARTS IN YEMEN Jiang Xueqin, the Chinese-Canadian educator and presenter of ‘Predictive History’, discussed with Glenn Diesen the view that the conflict which could draw the major powers into its maelstrom is not the confrontation between the US and Iran. He argued the real war is already the one between Saudi Arabia and the Houthis. A century from now, he said, that is where people would look for the start of a third world war. The kingdom cannot win it, cannot exit it, and cannot let it continue. THE REAL WAR IS NOT THE ONE ON CAMERA ➡️ Great wars, in his telling, are not started by the great powers. They are started by allies on the margin. Serbia in 1914. The clients of Athens and Sparta. Yemen now. The United States and Iran, he says, have settled into a major standoff. The problem that is actually moving is the war emerging between the Houthis and the Saudis. ➡️ Riyadh treats the Houthis as a threat to its existence. For ten years it has tried to beat them, including by trying to starve them. It has not worked. Houthi drones and ballistic missiles can hit the pipelines, the refineries, and the desalination plants. His line is blunt. There is nothing the Saudis can do about it. THE TRAP Give in, end the blockade on Yemen, and the Houthis grow strong. Refuse, and the Houthis keep striking Saudi energy, and the kingdom may not survive a long fight. ➡️ Jiang says Riyadh is trapped on credibility too. Any compromise will be read as weakness. Saudi Arabia sells itself as leader of the Islamic world because it is rich, and because it holds Mecca and Medina. It cannot be seen backing off. Muhammad bin Salman, in this reading, is arrogant enough to believe an all-out push will make the Houthis fold. Tribespeople with sailboats against F-35s and the most advanced American kit. A year ago Washington already tried to take the Houthis out. It did not work. THE MECCA SPIRAL He says Saudi Arabia, Turkey, and Pakistan signed the Mecca Accords, a mutual-defense pact, and that Riyadh has invoked it after the hits on its energy sites. ➡️ Saudi Arabia and the UAE have asked the Yemeni government to launch a massive offensive. Pakistan, he says, is sending troops to guard Saudi energy infrastructure. Iran and the United States are states. China and Russia can still pull Tehran back. The Houthis are not a state. He calls it a messianic fever. They hate the Saudis. Hit them, and they will do whatever they can to hit back. That, he says, is how this spins out of control very quickly, and how it drags the great powers in. WHY WASHINGTON CANNOT WATCH IT FALL If the fight turns bad for Riyadh, Jiang argues the Americans will be compelled to enter. Saudi Arabia is the base of the petrodollar. If the kingdom falls, so does that system. ➡️ The stake he names is not only oil. Gulf money helps hold up the AI bubble and the Treasury market. A Saudi break, in his picture, is an American financial break. ➡️Even a dream force does not solve the map. Egyptians, Turks, Pakistanis, half a million troops around the Houthis, and that force is still ringed by Iran and its proxies. Hezbollah and Iran, he says, become the outer siege. The army sent to crush Yemen is pinned before it moves. ➡️ If Saudi Arabia moves on the Houthis, his conclusion is that Washington has no choice but to put ground troops in to pin Iran down. THE LADDER AFTER THE MIDTERMS He quotes the logic he attributes to Trump. Nothing to lose once the midterms are gone, because Democrats take the House, and then there are two years to do whatever he wants. Including ordering a ground invasion of Iran. ➡️ It would not open as a march on Tehran. A quick win. Kharg Island. Qeshm. A move on Pickaxe Mountain. A limited tactical strike that does not stay limited. That is the Vietnam pattern he reaches for. Two thousand Marines land at Da Nang to take an airfield. Two or three years later, half a million troops are in the country. THE HAND NOBODY SEES Israeli politicians he cites, including Bezalel Smotrich, have said Israel will not join the US fight with Iran or the Saudi fight with the Houthis. Jiang does not read that as absence. ➡️ Right before Riyadh announced an offensive, Benjamin Netanyahu made a secret visit to the UAE. Saudi Arabia needed Abu Dhabi to get the Yemeni government to move. When the Houthis took the Red Sea coast, he says, Riyadh asked Israel for help, and the answer was yes, if you normalize. ➡️ His argument is that the one capital benefiting from every fire in the region is not in the official war, and is working behind the scenes to make this one burn hotter. THE BOTTOM LINE Jiang’s picture is not a US–Iran duel with Yemen on the side. It is a marginal war the kingdom cannot exit, a petrodollar it cannot risk, and a non-state enemy that gets stronger when it is hit. A hundred years from now, he says, the place to look for the start of a world war is not Hormuz. It is the Houthi–Saudi fight. The fuse is already lit in Yemen, and nobody in this story has an exit that does not make it worse. #YemenWar #HouthiSaudi #Petrodollar #JiangXueqin #PredictiveHistory #WorldWarFuse #MBSTrap HT: YouTube Glenn Diesen @Glenn_Diesen