The U.S., guilty by association in the launch of the war in 2015, has failed to fully engage its diplomacy in the service of peace, continuing instead to fuel the fighting with huge arms sales.
The internal war and outside intervention in Yemen appear to go on unabated under the neglectful eye of the Arab world and the international community. The recent armed struggle for Socotra has left the Southern Transitional Council (STC), supported by the United Arab Emirates, in charge of the island. A UNESCO-declared world heritage site, Socotra has been trampled by troops, armored trucks, and tanks, much to the detriment of its fragile ecosystem and historically peaceful population. Battles continue to rage just east of Aden, where STC fighters remain in a stand-off with troops loyal to President Abdrabbuh Mansour Hadi’s government for control of neighboring Abyan province—as part of the overall struggle for the entire south of Yemen. Farther north of Abyan, Houthi/Ansarullah troops are pursuing a months-long attempt to enter the capital of Marib and secure all oil and gas facilities there. To the west of Marib, a tense front still exists around the city of Hodeida, a strategic port for the importation of humanitarian assistance and potential export of oil via the Red Sea.
Of course, all this is aside from the main war between Saudi Arabia and the Houthis, which is being conducted by air, land forces, and rocketry over the capital Sanaa, the Houthis’ capital Saadah, and Saudi Arabia’s southern border at al-Jawf governorate. Added to that complex geopolitical picture is a pandemic that is sweeping over all without distinction as to party or regional affiliation. Indeed, there is a clear and full tragedy unfolding in Yemen.
Enter COVID-19
The devastating impact of war, disease, and poverty on the people of Yemen has been compounded by a now widespread epidemic for which the country was ill-prepared. At first, COVID-19 looked like it had somehow spared the country as one Middle Eastern country after another fell prey to the virus in early March. Although lacking reliable information from Yemen itself, international agencies now report that virus-related deaths have very likely exceeded the death toll from the war raging in the country since 2015.
Although lacking reliable information from Yemen itself, international agencies now report that virus-related deaths have very likely exceeded the death toll from the war raging in the country since 2015.
The alarming spread of COVID-19 in Yemen is cause to seriously doubt the sincerity—and even the sanity—of those who pursue victory through war instead of negotiations. This critique includes all sides to the conflict as they continue to give priority to improving their strategic positions on the ground. Numbers vary widely depending on the source of information, but a million infections is not an unreasonable estimate at this point. One thing is certain however: the spread of diseases has overwhelmed the country’s inadequate public health institutions. Instead of dramatically building up Yemen’s capacity and encouraging a coordinated regional and international effort to mitigate the spread of the deadly virus, the Arab coalition fighting the Houthis continues to prosecute the war directly from the air and via proxy forces on the ground. The vast sums being spent on the war primarily by the Arab coalition, if diverted to public health, could save millions of lives currently at risk. The fault, however, belongs to all those trying to fill the void at the center caused by the 2011 revolt, which led to the departure and ultimate demise of the late president, Ali Abdallah Saleh, and his replacement by a weak-to-nonexistent legitimate authority.
Yemeni, Saudi, and Emirati sins
Yemen has fallen into chaos because of the mistakes of an otherwise strong president, the late Ali Abdullah Saleh, who could not find it in himself or his advisors to listen to the protesters and invite them to help transition the country from authoritarianism and corruption into a more democratic and less corrupt system of government. War and chaos also resulted from the Houthi takeover of Sanaa in 2014, reflecting the clumsy efforts of the United Nations and the Gulf Cooperation Council to patch together a new social contract among the various Yemeni factions and regions. None of this was helped with the Saudi-led Arab coalition’s intervention in the country in 2015, ostensibly to repel the Houthi takeover, derail what the Saudis perceived as a growing Iranian menace on their southern border, and restore the internationally recognized government of President Hadi to power. Five years of this war have achieved quite the opposite: the entrenchment of the Houthis in Sanaa, a growing Iranian influence bucking up the Houthis, an increasingly divided country, and a marginalized Hadi government.
Five years of this war have achieved quite the opposite: the entrenchment of the Houthis in Sanaa, a growing Iranian influence bucking up the Houthis, an increasingly divided country, and a marginalized Hadi government.
Whatever the agenda of the Saudi and Emirati leadership, it could not have been pursued without the willing participation of Yemeni militias and armies on the ground. To start with, the Hadi government, living in the lap of luxury courtesy of the Saudi government, has been fighting for a secure foothold inside Yemen and has sought to keep control of Yemen’s central bank holdings. However, it has been unable to do that in either Sanaa (which was taken over by the Houthis) or Aden (where the STC challenges it). Hadi loyalists have been fighting in Marib, trying to fend off Houthi attacks to remain in control of oil and gas facilities in the area. The Hadi forces have also complained of inadequate support from Riyadh, especially because they have to fight on at least two fronts: north with the Houthis and south with the STC and other UAE-supported forces trying to form a separate state there. There are reports of the Saudis’ unhappiness with Hadi’s leadership, that they may be searching for alternatives. Indeed, everyone now questions the Hadi government’s legitimacy as well as the efficacy of continuing to vest this honor upon him when he, like every other major player in Yemen, is struggling to hold on to land and resources.
In fact, the Riyadh Agreement, purportedly a plan to merge the STC with the Hadi government and put an end to bloodshed and chaos in the south, has been suspect in the eyes of Hadi as well as analysts who see it as an abandonment of Hadi in favor of the STC. The hostile takeover of Socotra Island is the most recent example of the STC trying to assert southern independence with clear support from the UAE and suspected connivance from Saudi Arabia. There is no military value to the island for the STC, save that of adding territory to what it already controls in the south, in addition to how the island might help the UAE’s maritime ambitions in the Arabian Sea. It represents, however, a significant defeat for the Hadi government and a further squeezing out of their forces from the south. What is noteworthy here is the withdrawal of the small Saudi force that had gone to the island in 2018 after the UAE sent an expeditionary force, ostensibly to mediate between UAE forces and the island’s population. STC leader Aidarous al-Zubaidi had recently returned from a visit to Riyadh to confer with the Saudi leadership, leading to speculation at the time that the Saudis were lending legitimacy to his desire for an independent southern state.
If the reported Saudi offer of a Riyadh Agreement part II is true, it would shed even more doubt on Saudi intentions and add credibility to reports of their discontinuing support to President Hadi. This offer evidently suggested the STC withdraw its troops from Aden and into Abyan, with no mention of where Hadi’s forces would be deployed. If implemented—and there is no chance of that happening, in any case—it would mean an expansion of STC influence into Abyan, a contested governorate not currently under their control.
Under the best of circumstances and assuming good intentions, Saudi and Emirati leaders are under intensifying pressure to cut their losses in Yemen, given the increasing cost of the war, lower revenue due to the depressed prices of oil, and the vulnerability of their own countries to rocket attacks and land incursions in southern Saudi Arabia. The management of Yemen, as administered territory, also seems too much of a challenge for the Arab coalition, unless one wants to assume the worst and conclude that the prevalent chaos is exactly what they wanted to achieve.
The management of Yemen, as administered territory, also seems too much of a challenge for the Arab coalition, unless one wants to assume the worst and conclude that the prevalent chaos is exactly what they wanted to achieve.
The Houthis, whose motives in capturing Sanaa in 2014 were never transparent, stopped short of taking over Aden due to local resistance and the military intervention by the Arab coalition. They have alternated between trying to hold on to northern territory they control and pushing to expand their area. This lack of transparency has become a hallmark of Houthi rule; most recently, the Houthis were legitimately accused of hoarding information about the spread of COVID-19, brazenly declaring that revealing accurate information on the spread of the disease only causes panic among the population. Information has also been withheld on how they collect and spend their revenue. Specifically, concern has been voiced about widespread corruption within the disbursement of international aid, both by the authorities in Sanaa and by the UN agencies directing and monitoring the process.
The sins of the international community
Since 2011, three successive UN special envoys have failed to stitch together an agreement to reconcile the various parties in conflict and to get the permanent members of the UN Security Council to put their weight behind an effort to end the war. The latest of the envoys, Martin Griffiths, wasted two years trying to secure the neutrality of the vital Hodeida port while the real war raged elsewhere in Yemen and Yemeni and regional parties continued to fundamentally disagree on what a final agreement would look like.
The United States, guilty by association in the launch of the war in 2015, has failed to fully engage its diplomacy in the service of peace, continuing instead to fuel the fighting with huge arms sales, training of fighter-pilots, and putting in place a missile defense system in an extensive but futile effort to guard against rocket attacks against sensitive targets inside Saudi Arabia. Democrats in Congress have repeatedly urged the Trump Administration to suspend arms sales to the region, arguing that peace and stability in Yemen are in the best national security interests of the United States. The latest legislative effort, by Senator Chris Murphy (D-Connecticut), does not seem any more promising than previous attempts—at least while the Republican majority continues to block such moves.
Yemen needs Yemenis
Young men and women from Yemen are now spread far and wide across Europe, the United States, and Asia. Through their various engagements and contributions, they have demonstrated the ability of a new Yemeni generation to launch a rebuilding of their country and lead it into the future. Oil and gas potential is very promising and could well support such efforts once the war ends. If the international community seems incapable or unwilling to stop the bloodletting, it remains incumbent on Yemeni leaders themselves to use the good counsel of their youth to patch up their differences and enable a positive and constructive transition into the future.
Nabeel A. Khoury is a nonresident senior fellow at the Atlantic Council’s Rafik Hariri Center for the Middle East. A retired foreign service officer, he most recently served as director of the Near East South Asia office of the Bureau of Intelligence and Research.
Top image credit: President Donald Trump meets with Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Vice President JD Vance before a call with Russian President Vladimir Putin, Monday, August 18, 2025, in the Oval Office. (Official White House Photo by Daniel Torok)
The U.S. military recently launched a plainly illegal strike on a small civilian Venezuelan boat that President Trump claims was a successful hit on “narcoterrorists.” Vice President JD Vance responded to allegations that the strike was a war crime by saying, “I don’t give a shit what you call it,” insisting this was the “highest and best use of the military.”
This is only the latest troubling development in the Trump administration’s attempt to repurpose “War on Terror” mechanisms to use the military against cartels and to expedite his much vaunted mass deportation campaign, which he says is necessary because of an "invasion" at the border.
Unfortunately, more than two decades of widely-accepted, bipartisan laws and norms first laid the groundwork for this to occur.
After 9/11, the Bush administration created the Specially Designated Global Terrorists list, and Congress expanded the pre-existing Foreign Terrorist Organization list. These lists allow the executive branch, at its sole discretion, to add and remove individuals and groups to standing lists of “terrorists,” a term that is defined broadly.
The Trump administration has exercised this authority to formally designate transnational cartels as “terrorists” due in part to their role in the flow of people and drugs across the southern border into the United States. They have leveraged this designation to justify a range of actions, including deploying troops to Los Angeles and deporting immigrants to a brutal Salvadorean prison without due process.
Another post-9/11 legal invention that paved the way to what the Trump administration is doing today was the USA PATRIOT Act’s updates to immigration law that allowed deportation of not just those involved in actual violent acts of terrorism, but also those loosely associated with designated “terrorist groups,” even if those associations were peaceful and law-abiding or involuntary and a result of duress. People who have previously been excluded from the United States by these provisions include Iraqi interpreters for U.S. troops, victims of forced labor by violent armed groups in El Salvador, and even Nelson Mandela. These provisions mean that not just alleged members of cartels, but also cartel victims could be denied entry into the United States or deported if already here.
These same post-9/11 immigration law amendments also allow for revoking or denying immigration benefits to foreign nationals who “endorse or espouse” “terrorist activity,” defined broadly. The Trump administration has already revoked the visas of several immigrant students and scholars solely for their nonviolent activities criticizing the U.S.-Israel genocide in Gaza, as part of what they call a “zero-tolerance” policy for terrorism. The administration has primarily leaned on an older and more obscure provision of immigration law to carry out these attacks on immigrants’ free speech rights. But if current efforts are blocked by courts, or they wish to go further, post-9/11 immigration law may give them the tools to justify doing so.
The original decision to treat the 9/11 attacks not as crime but as warfare, and to launch a literal “war on terror” in response, remains the primary post-9/11 legal innovation on which so many abuses are made possible. Under this global war paradigm, the Obama administration carried out ruthless drone killings, including one that targeted a U.S. citizen, and justified the strikes with a mish-mash of legal standards that applied rules of war outside of actual war zones, and expansively interpreted what constitutes an “imminent threat” and resulting “self-defense” powers.
Every post-9/11 president has claimed wide authority to use military force so long as it serves a vague “national interest.” We can see echoes of this in the Trump administration’s insistence that the small Venezuelan boat blown up by the U.S. military posed an “immediate threat to the United States,” that the strike complied with the laws of war, and was “in defense of vital U.S. national interests.”
Commentators are entirely correct to denounce these assertions of legal authority. But policymakers have spent more than two decades accepting a war paradigm against whomever presidents determine to be “terrorist,” making it politically and legally all the more difficult to push back against what the Trump administration is doing now.
It is also worth recalling that dragnet detentions and deportations of immigrants under the auspices of the “War on Terror” are not entirely unique to the Trump era. In the Bush administration, then-FBI Director Robert Mueller leaned on civil immigration enforcement authorities to round up more than 1,000 Arab, Muslim and South Asian immigrants without due process for secret detention until they were “cleared” of terrorism.
A year later, the National Security Entry and Exit Registration System, which some have called the original “Muslim registry,” was launched, imposing onerous registration and surveillance requirements on lawful noncitizen immigrants suspected of no wrongdoing, almost entirely from Muslim-majority countries, with a stated justification of countering terrorism. This program wasn’t fully dismantled until well into the Obama administration, and produced no convictions for acts of terrorism. It did result in the deportation of more than 13,000 people, mostly over minor immigration process violations.
There are more powers that post-9/11 legal infrastructure affords that this administration has not pursued. It is not impossible to imagine terrorism prosecutions against low-level drug purchasers at home, new hot wars across Latin America, and more dragnet deportations of immigrants, justified by a melding of the laws of war, counterterrorism law, and immigration enforcement. This is because, on a bipartisan basis, our lawmakers have built and strengthened a post-9/11 package of powers that gets handed to each successive president, ripe for potential new weaponization and abuse. The targeting of immigrants and cartels as “terrorists,” including with the tools of warfare, is not a sharp deviation from our recent history — it is its logical conclusion.
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Top photo credit: President Donald Trump speaks with members of the media at Joint Base Andrews, Maryland on Sunday, September 7, 2025. (Official White House Photo by Daniel Torok)
President Donald Trump told reporters outside a Washington restaurant Tuesday evening that he is deeply displeased with Israel’s bombardment of Qatar, a close U.S. partner in the Persian Gulf that, at Washington’s request, has hosted Hamas’s political leadership since 2012.
“I am not thrilled about it. I am not thrilled about the whole situation,” Trump said, denying that Israel had given him advance notice. “I was very unhappy about it, very unhappy about every aspect of it,” he continued. “We’ve got to get the hostages back. But I was very unhappy with the way that went down.”
Trump may indeed be upset, but the Israeli Prime Minister is casting him in the same light as Biden: issuing indignant statements over Israeli actions that blatantly undermine U.S. interests, actions that almost certainly could not have occurred without Washington’s tacit consent, while offering no hint that Israel will face consequences for allegedly defying the United States.
To make matters worse, Qatar’s foreign minister revealed that Washington’s so-called warning came not before the Israeli strike, but only after Doha was already under fire.
“The attack happened at 3:46,” Sheikh Mohammed bin Jassim Al Thani said. “The first call we had from an American official was at 3:56 — which is 10 minutes after the attack.”
Whether Washington knew of Israel’s war plans, colluded in them, or whether Trump is truthful in claiming ignorance, the outcome is the same: Israel has dealt a severe blow to American credibility.
What value does an American security umbrella—or even the hosting of a U.S. base—hold if the United States either conspires in an attack against you, or proves unwilling or unable to prevent one?
That is the question now confronting every U.S. partner in the Persian Gulf, all of whom have staked their survival on American protection. Given how Washington has stripped away every meaningful constraint on Israel since October 7, 2023, their leaders should have known this day was inevitable.
Personally, I do not believe the United States should extend security guarantees — implicit or explicit — to any state in the Middle East. The region is no longer vital to U.S. interests, and America is already dangerously overextended. Existing commitments should be reassessed and, where necessary, rolled back. But this must be done deliberately and on Washington’s terms — not sabotaged by Israel — because the point of the exercise goal is to strengthen the credibility of America’s essential commitments, not to erode U.S. credibility across the board.
Adding insult to injury, Israel has undercut not only the credibility of America’s security guarantees but also its diplomatic standing. This marks the second time this year that Israel has exploited the cover of U.S.-led diplomacy to launch unlawful military action — the first being its strike on Iran in the midst of nuclear talks in June.
Israel may see clear advantages in eroding the credibility of American diplomacy. An America unable to negotiate is an America forced to follow Israel’s lead into reckless military adventures that run counter to U.S. interests. For Washington, this is nothing short of disastrous.
The question now is how Trump will respond. If his claim is true — that he neither received a heads-up nor colluded with Israel — then expressions of displeasure are meaningless unless paired with real consequences for Israel’s repeated sabotage of U.S. interests.
Since late May, Trump has capitulated to Netanyahu on virtually every front — from Iran to Gaza to Lebanon — consistently at America’s expense. This humiliating deference has only emboldened Netanyahu, making him ever more dismissive of Trump and U.S. priorities, culminating in the brazen strike on Doha.
Perhaps this episode will force Trump to recognize the folly of outsourcing American policy in the Middle East to Israel. Only he has the power to reverse course.
Top image credit: German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, French President Emmanuel Macron, Volodymyr Zelenskyi, President of Ukraine, Keir Starmer, Prime Minister of the UK, and Donald Tusk, Prime Minister of Poland, emerge from St. Mary's Palace for a press conference as part of the Coalition of the Willing meeting in Kiev, May 10 2025, Kay Nietfeld/dpa via Reuters Connect
After last week’s meeting of the “coalition of the willing” in Paris, 26 countries have supposedly agreed to contribute — in some fashion — to a military force that would be deployed on Ukrainian soil after hostilities have concluded.
Three weeks prior, at the Anchorage leaders’ summit press conference, Russian President Vladimir Putin noted that Ukraine’s security should be ensured as part of any negotiated settlement. But Russian officials have continued to reiterate that this cannot take the form of Western combat forces stationed in Ukraine. In the wake of last week’s meeting, Putin has upped the ante by declaring that any such troops would be legitimate targets for the Russian military.
The question remains why European leaders persist with plans that, if implemented, risk putting them directly at war with the world’s largest nuclear power. The answer appears concerning.
One possibility is the credibility of Russian pronouncements. Putin engaged in nuclear signalling earlier in this war — most notably when the full-scale invasion was launched and again after facing military setbacks in the autumn of 2022. Although such signals may have succeeded in deterring the West from intervening directly in the war, the perception that Western countries could transgress supposed Russian red lines without incurring a nuclear response may have diminished the deterrent power of subsequent threats.
Another is the West’s longstanding normative approach to questions of security in Europe since the end of the Cold War. This view, expressed just days ago by NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte, insists that Moscow can have no veto over Kyiv’s sovereign right to accept foreign troops on its soil. The right of states to choose their own security arrangements freely, a principle outlined in the Charter of Paris that marked the de facto end of the Cold War, is often cited in support of this worldview.
Of course, the citing of principles at one another did little to stop Russia from taking matters into its own hands in February 2022. Previous efforts to deny Russia a veto on principle, such as the 2008 NATO Bucharest summit at which Ukraine and Georgia were invited to join the alliance, foreshadowed Russia’s invasion of Georgia just months later. Staunch defenders of the “right to choose” also conveniently ignore the principle of indivisible security, also found in the Paris Charter, asserting that no state should take measures to increase its own security at the expense of another state’s security. They also de-emphasize the fact that Ukraine’s eventual NATO membership is primarily a matter for existing NATO members, and not Kyiv, to decide.
These considerations aside, what is the strategic thinking behind the European approach?
Despite proposals to the contrary by some, any reassurance force would only be deployed to Ukraine after the war has ended. So unless plans currently under consideration are meant to be a mere opening salvo in negotiations with Moscow, insisting that a Western military presence on Ukrainian soil will emerge as soon as a ceasefire takes hold provides Russia with every incentive to continue fighting to prevent such an outcome from materializing. Therefore, continued insistence that such a force will take shape in the face of repeated Russian objections suggests that European calls for a ceasefire are not entirely genuine.
Indeed, European leaders did not voice their support for ending the war before Donald Trump assumed office — they only began doing so once Trump had cajoled Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky into calling for a 30-day unconditional ceasefire, leaving them with little option but to fall in line given Europe’s heavy dependence on the U.S. for its security. (Since Russia will never accept an unconditional ceasefire before its political objectives have been met, calling for one also serves the tactical purpose of painting Moscow — not altogether unfairly, of course — as the main obstacle to peace.)
With these facts in mind, European calls for a ceasefire appear to be rooted not in conviction but rather convenience. The real purpose of the coalition’s ongoing plans for a postwar troop deployment to Ukraine may be to sabotage the possibility of successfully negotiating an end to the war. This would fit with other aspects of the current European approach, for example threatening more sanctions against Russia but not putting forward any realistic offer of sanctions relief as an incentive.
This conclusion should not be surprising. Although Ukraine may be gradually losing on the battlefield, today’s European elite largely believes that a “bad deal” to end the war would be worse than the war continuing.
Perhaps Europeans believe that Ukraine will be able to hold the line long enough for Russian casualties to mount and the Russian economy to melt. Or perhaps they fear the perceived loss of status that may flow from a climbdown and compromise peace with Russia. More cynically, even if Russia breaks through Ukrainian lines, this could strengthen European unity and finally get European publics on board for higher defense spending — and Moscow will not be able to rule a restive Ukraine in any event.
European leaders should think twice before doubling down on this logic. The recently announced memorandum of understanding on the Power of Siberia 2 pipeline, if implemented, could consolidate Russia’s pivot to China over the long term by shipping gas from Western Siberia which might otherwise have been destined for European markets. Besides the risks of military escalation, a prolonged war and the attendant rupture in economic relations between Russia and the rest of Europe could breed strategic consequences that are not yet set in stone — and would best be avoided.
Russia will be an adversary of the collective West for the foreseeable future. But succeeding in a multipolar world requires creating the strategic space to engage with all power poles at least to some degree. A world of rigid blocs need not be a self-fulfilling prophecy — and would undermine the survival of a “rules-based international order” to a much greater extent than deferring disagreements over Ukraine’s territorial integrity and beginning the arduous task of rebuilding a shared sense of security in Europe.
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