Yemen, Yemen; Glorious Yemen...

Since 1538, the Turkish people have sacrificed their sons as martyrs for Yemen, thousands of kilometers away from the heart of Anatolia. They composed dozens of folk songs about Yemen for their hundreds of thousands of children lost there. The late Ruhi Su was one of those who sang one of these songs in the most beautiful, enthusiastic, and at the same time, most sorrowful way:

“Yemen, Yemen, glorious Yemen

Yemen, with its blood-soaked lands

I cannot bear Yemen

I cannot part from my beloved”

Our people, who generally love to read every national and international issue through the lens of “geopolitics,” and the historians who emerge from the bosom of these people, have naturally chosen not to read this issue—which becomes extremely emotional due to the losses—devoid of geopolitics, or have rejected doing so.

Yemen was at the heart of the global struggle in the 16th century, just as it is today, and perhaps even more intensely. Its importance, which relatively declined in later centuries with the establishment of new trade routes, rose again in the 19th century. The reason was the opening of the Suez Canal.

Thus, the year 1869 became a new milestone for the region. In Yemen, a series of rebellions against the Ottoman Empire broke out, which would last until the end of the First World War.

The memoirs of Gazi Ahmed Muhtar Pasha, who served in the region after the 1870 rebellion, I believe, serve a special function even for understanding Yemen today. Muhtar Pasha, who became immortalized in the 93 War (Russo-Turkish War of 1877-1878) but commanded armies across the imperial geography from Montenegro to the Red Sea, reveals the importance of Yemen's geographical and climatic conditions, its intricate tribal structure, and the fact that each tribe (including the Turks) collaborated with different actors, in why Yemen could not unite over the past two hundred years.

The memoirs are full of painful scenes. Provisions and ammunition that were promised but never arrived, soldiers who walked for days in a miserable state to cross the desert and fell as martyrs, the betrayal of the Yemenis toward each other and the Ottomans... It is as if the opening scene of an episode stretching from 1914 to today is being played out.

However, Muhtar Pasha also includes some ridiculous events and the geographical and local realities embedded within them. For example, at one point, following the victory of Turkish artillerymen who devastated a fortress deemed impregnable, the Yemeni accompanying Muhtar Pasha begins to mock his compatriots on the other side. The Pasha describes the continuation as follows:

“At this moment, our Sheikh Omar was shouting to the Shakik camel drivers, ‘Oh you scoundrels, they call these people Turks; the corpse of one of them kills ten of yours with his [using a vulgar term]!’ When I asked the reason, he said, ‘Oh my master, these wretches, seeing that the soldiers were exhausted and devastated by the sam wind last night, were almost openly celebrating, saying they were taking a feast to Muhammad Aiz. Now I am giving them the answer to that. Because according to them, no one but them could climb these mountains. Especially after what happened last night, they were mocking, asking if the one who led these soldiers to war had any sense.’” (Ahmed Muhtar Pasha, Memoirs: The First Volume of My Life's Adventure, Istanbul: Tarih Vakfı Yurt Yayınları, 1996, p. 55.)

As a soldier, he analyzes events with a cool head. But the “geopolitical” approach occupies little space in his work. He sees the hand of Egypt, which acted independently from Istanbul, and even the Russians, in the rebellion in Yemen.

Let us come to today…

With the blow the resistance axis in Yemen has dealt to the Red Sea in recent days, world money markets have been turned upside down.

Ansar Allah, or the Houthis, who emerged from the wave called the Arab Spring, have been fighting against the Gulf monarchies since 2015, and officially against American imperialism since 2025. Furthermore, they are one of the rare actors to emerge from within the Islamic world since 2023 to hold Israel accountable for what it has inflicted in Gaza.

Turkey, which is a regional power and, as formulated by Nurettin Taşar, can exhibit diplomatic flexibility and independence as a “middle-sized state” during a process where global hegemony is weakening and international change is occurring, is inevitably involved in the events—just as it was over a century ago, but this time with a different capacity—and is being drawn even deeper.

How so?

It is one of the parties to the “Mecca Agreement” signed on August 7; furthermore, the recent attacks by the Houthis target another signatory (the Saudis), and the third signatory (Pakistan) is implicitly threatening Ansar Allah and Iran that the agreement could be activated.

The Pakistan side, at this point, continues to play both sides, as it has since Trump took the presidential seat. On September 10, the Pakistan Foreign Ministry Spokesperson announced that a military response was not discussed at the signing stage of the agreement, but that they would act in accordance with the agreement when the time comes.

The “last straw” was the claim by the Abraha regime, which is a puppet of Zionism and American imperialism, that a drone belonging to the Houthis was shot down south of Mecca before entering restricted airspace.

It is very, very difficult to believe the claims of this regime, which has devastated the holy cities of the Islamic religion not with elephants, but with its relationship with construction and imperialism. After all, even if Ansar Allah is anti-imperialist, it pursues an Islamic cause. In today's wars, where propaganda is as important as presence on the field, it is unthinkable for them to make such a move.

But Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, perhaps due to the relationship he was able to establish with Trump despite his closeness to China, or perhaps because he is one of the signatories of the “Mecca Agreement,” immediately condemned the Houthis. Coincidentally, an attack attempt had been made on the city that gives its name to the pact, even though it was not signed in Mecca, and which is the holiest place for the Muslims of the world!

Pakistan Chief of Army Staff Asım Münir, who has very close relations with Trump and his deputy Vance and who flew to Washington for lunch with the US President, also warned Iran on September 18 to rein in the Houthis.

And in this entire picture, the Turkish Ministry of Foreign Affairs published the following tragic note dated September 16:

“We strongly condemn the drone attack by the Houthis targeting the holy city of Mecca.

We reaffirm our support for the sovereignty, territorial integrity, and security of Saudi Arabia; we once again emphasize our solidarity with Saudi Arabia.

We reiterate our call for an immediate end to these attacks, which also threaten regional stability and security, and for refraining from any action aimed at further escalating tensions.”

Of course, this statement can be explained by being a party to the agreement, just like Pakistan. But I hope that it does not go further than this, that evidence is requested from the regime we are allied with, and that Turkey is not thrown back into adventures from centuries ago, this time for reasons whose compatibility with its own interests is debatable.

Today, the view of a significant portion of the Turkish public toward the Houthis, Yemen, and even the entire Arab world is inevitably negative due to emotions and historical memory. However, our people can still identify their own national (geopolitical) interests much more rationally than those at the helm. Today, of course, they would not want to send their own sons to distant deserts, and of course, war technology has now reached far beyond marching soldiers through deserts.

However, I hope that issues that were not considered or shared with the public in August do not pull us into points that could work against us in the medium and long term, in pursuit of unproven claims, to the detriment of Turkey's and the region's interests. Yes, as Muhtar Pasha's Yemeni said, one Turk may be worth ten enemies; but Yemen's geography and human conditions have not changed, and geography, considering the miserable situation of the US army in Iran, still carries weight.

Ruhi Su summarizes this situation quite well:

“Yemen, Yemen, glorious Yemen

Yemen, with its blood-soaked lands”