Resistance in the Global South: Pepe Escobar Connects Yemen’s Bravery to Brazil’s Democratic Crossroads

Pepe Escobar in Yemen

by Pepe Escobar [10-20-2026] Pepe Escobar(bio).

In a special edition of “Pepe Café”, a geopolitical analyst dissects the collapse of the colonial system in West Asia.

247 – In one of the most profound and comprehensive geopolitical analyses on the Pepe Café program, journalist and international correspondent Pepe Escobar drew a revealing parallel between the front lines of the Global South: the anti-colonial resistance of the Yemeni people in the heart of West Asia and the decisive battle that Brazil is waging in the streets and at the polls to preserve its sovereignty.

Escobar began by deconstructing imperialist terminology itself, rejecting the Eurocentric designation of “Middle East”, and rescuing the origins of Franco-British colonial agreements (such as the Sykes-Picot partition after the fall of the Ottoman Empire). It was from this imperial architecture imposed by London and Paris that the two contemporary pillars supporting Western hegemony in the region were born: the State of Israel and the monarchy of the House of Saud in Saudi Arabia.

In contrast to these artificial state constructions, the journalist highlighted Yemen as one of the founding civilizations of Arab history — an ancient people who today, under the leadership of the Ansarallah movement, openly challenge the military bloc led by the United States and its agents in the Gulf.

The Collapse of the Siege: Yemen and the Doctrine “Rfinery by Refinery”

Detailing the war launched years ago by the Riyadh-led coalition against Yemen, Escobar pointed out that the Saudi aggression — financed and armed by the Western military-industrial complex — has failed miserably to subjugate the Yemeni population. More than that: it provoked a military and technological response of unimaginable strategic proportions for planners at the Pentagon and the US military command (CENTCOM).

With surgical operations of drones and high-precision ballistic missiles targeting the vital nodes of the Saudi economy — hitting terminals of the state oil company Aramco, pipelines and airport complexes in Riyadh—, Ansarallah imposed what Escobar defines as the doctrine of symmetrical deterrence:

“Yemenis have set a crystal-clear equation for Gulf monarchs and their sponsors in Washington: airport by airport, refinery by refinery. Whoever imposes blockade, famine and bombardment against a sovereign people cannot expect their oil centers to remain untouched.”

Escobar stressed that this retaliation strikes at the backbone of the entire Western monetary arrangement: the stability of the petrodollar. By exposing Saudi Arabia's military vulnerability —unable to protect itself even while operating billion-dollar US air defense systems—, Yemen's resistance accelerates the erosion of old routes of submission to the empire.

MBS fragility and the Axis of Resistance trap

The analyst also paid attention to the internal instability faced by Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (MBS). For Escobar, Riyadh's attempts to co-opt regional powers like Turkey and Pakistan — using the holy sites of Mecca and Medina as a political-diplomatic shield — reveal the desperation of a regime cornered by palace divisions, the dissatisfaction of historically marginalized tribes, and the failure of its warlike adventures.

On the other side of this board rises the Axis of Resistance, articulated by Iran, the Lebanese Hezbollah, popular forces in Iraq, the Palestinian resistance in Gaza and Yemeni fighters. Far from being a momentary alliance of convenience, Escobar defines the bloc as a consolidated historical response against centuries of colonial humiliation, military oppression, and the plundering of energy wealth.

The bridge with Brazil: the crossroads between sovereignty and surrender

It is at the end of this global reading that Pepe Escobar establishes a direct connection with the Brazilian reality. For the correspondent, the confrontation seen in West Asia is not an isolated event, but the acute manifestation of the same polarization of classes and power projects that is tensing Latin America and, in particular, Brazil.

According to Escobar, Brazil faces its own trench against a rentier, financier and blatantly sellout elite — represented by the far right and personified in figures who seek to raffle off the country's assets to comply with the dictates of Washington and Wall Street.

“What is in dispute in Yemen and what is in dispute in Brazil is exactly the same thing: the right of a people to self-determine its own destiny. On one side are the forces that defend national development, energy sovereignty, public universities, and the dignity of the working classes; on the other, the old oligarchies willing to sell Petrobras, dismantle education, and act as colonial overseers of the Empire's interests.”

Addressing the spontaneous mobilization that has taken over federal universities and popular movements in recent weeks in defense of Brazilian democracy, Escobar emphasized that the political battle in the streets and the search for every vote and every abstention represent the vanguard of resistance in the Global South.

For the analyst, just as the peoples of West Asia have been demonstrating that the military and financial power of the West is not invincible, the Brazilian working class carries on its shoulders the historical role of stopping fascism and paving, alongside the sovereign nations of the planet, the definitive construction of a multipolar world.