West Asia Daily

US diplomacy critical to resolve the conflict in Yemen

Pomper & Hannah, 12-2, 22, STEPHEN POMPER is Chief of Policy at the International Crisis Group. During the Obama administration, he served as Special Assistant to the President and Senior Director for Multilateral Affairs and Human Rights at the National Security Council; MICHAEL WAHID HANNA is U.S. Program Director at the International Crisis Group and a Nonresident Senior Fellow at the Reiss Center on Law and Security at NYU School of Law, Foreign Affairs, How to End Yemen’s Forever War https://www.foreignaffairs.com/yemen/how-end-yemens-forever-warWashington Can Help Broker a Lasting Peace,

In April 2022, the opposing sides in Yemen’s devastating civil war achieved a rare breakthrough. After eight brutal years of conflict, they signed on to a UN-brokered truce that significantly curtailed the fighting that had driven an already impoverished country into a massive humanitarian crisis. Although it was unclear whether the two-month truce would even last that long, some observers allowed themselves to hope that it could be a first step toward a broader peace process. In the best-case scenario, they believed, it might even lead to a political settlement for a conflict that has pitted Houthi rebels, who control large parts of the country and are backed by Iran, against the internationally recognized Yemeni government and an allied Saudi-led coalition that, for much of the war, received logistics, intelligence support, and weaponry from Washington. But the twice-extended truce agreement lapsed on October 2, and the Houthis have resumed their intermittent attacks on Yemen’s oil-exporting infrastructure. It is now unclear whether Yemen’s fragile respite from full-blown conflict will hold.

For U.S. President Joe Biden, the war in Yemen is both a tragic legacy and an uncomfortable loose end. When Biden came into office, he made no secret of his desire to swiftly disentangle the United States militarily from the conflict, then approaching its seventh year, but he also committed his administration to work toward the war’s resolution. This strategy was in part born of regret. Many of his foreign policy hands, including Secretary of State Antony Blinken and National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan, were serving under President Barack Obama when, in March 2015, his administration agreed to support Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates in their war against the Houthi insurgency. Already in 2018, many of those same U.S. officials—including one of us—issued a public statement acknowledging the war’s terrible costs for the Yemeni people and noting that the United States had never intended to hand the Saudi-led coalition a “blank check.” In March 2021, two former Obama officials—again one of us, along with Robert Malley (who is now serving in the Biden administration as the U.S. special envoy to Iran)—wrote an article for Foreign Affairs anticipating the road map for ending the war that the administration would try to follow.

 

But it is easier to help start a war than to help end one. Although the administration moved quickly to withdraw its backing for the Saudi war effort and support a brokered peace, the truce’s lapse shows the far-reaching challenges that would-be peacemakers face in Yemen. Whether the current impasse will lead to a dramatic new escalation by either side is unclear, but if it does, there is no obvious path to peace, and there is little Washington can do to create one. For whatever positive impact the Biden administration’s efforts have had—and they have had one—the United States has neared the end of what its waning influence over the Saudis and Emiratis can achieve, and it does not have the leverage needed to bring the Houthis to the table.

Still, there are compelling moral and practical reasons for Washington to stay the course. The United States may by itself lack the means to bring this horrible multifaceted war to an end, but its diplomatic engagement still matters. U.S. diplomacy opens doors in the Gulf for mediators who might otherwise not have access to the region’s governments, and it greases the wheels of deal-making. If and when the time comes, Washington can also promote a format for settlement discussions that includes not just the principal antagonists but also Yemen’s smaller factions, which have their own interests and disputes and will have much to say about whether a peaceful future is in store for this war-ravaged state.

US diplomacy essential to previous truces in Yemen

Pomper & Hannah, 12-2, 22, STEPHEN POMPER is Chief of Policy at the International Crisis Group. During the Obama administration, he served as Special Assistant to the President and Senior Director for Multilateral Affairs and Human Rights at the National Security Council; MICHAEL WAHID HANNA is U.S. Program Director at the International Crisis Group and a Nonresident Senior Fellow at the Reiss Center on Law and Security at NYU School of Law, Foreign Affairs, How to End Yemen’s Forever War https://www.foreignaffairs.com/yemen/how-end-yemens-forever-warWashington Can Help Broker a Lasting Peace,

U.S. policy was clearly not the paramount driver behind the April truce and subsequent developments; the breakthrough was mainly attributable to the parties themselves, who had by then fought to a stalemate and were ready for a rest. Still, Washington’s actions clearly helped. The United States, for instance, spent several years signaling a growing detachment from its Gulf partners on the subject of Yemen, which shaped perceptions of the war (albeit while straining relations with these states). In 2018, for instance, Washington pressured Riyadh and Abu Dhabi to halt a military campaign targeting the Houthi-controlled port of Hodeida. It rattled both governments by issuing what the Gulf considered a muted response to the 2019 attack on Saudi Arabia’s Abqaiq oil-processing facilities and the 2022 strike on Abu Dhabi, both of which the Houthis claimed responsibility for. (According to Western intelligence officials, the former strike was likely orchestrated by Iran.) Additionally, the Biden administration’s decision to hold back certain military sales as part of its Yemen policy limited the Saudi coalition’s military planning and operational capacity. Worried that they could not count on U.S. support, by the middle of 2021, Riyadh and Abu Dhabi had both begun looking for new ways to manage their security concerns, including by opening channels to Tehran and seeking an exit from the war in Yemen.

The Biden administration’s shoe-leather diplomacy also advanced last spring’s developments. The UN’s Yemen team has by all accounts done a good job of both forging the truce and encouraging progress on confidence-building measures. But it would have struggled to do so without strong U.S. support. Washington helped open doors for the UN with the Saudis, the Emiratis, and even the Yemeni government. Other regional actors have also facilitated peace talks. But ultimately, U.S. involvement proved crucial in making the April truce happen.

Of course, U.S. diplomacy alone won’t be able to compel this disparate set of actors to earnestly engage in peace efforts. But it still has an important, even essential, role to play. As long as the UN is working the Yemen beat, it will need Washington’s support—coaxing the war’s parties with which it has influence, marshaling pressure from international actors who may be able to make inroads with the Houthis, and, with luck, someday helping frame settlement discussions in a way that will make them as inclusive as possible. Given its military involvement in earlier phases of the conflict, the United States has a moral obligation to do what it can to help.