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.
Senators Rand Paul (R-Ky.) and Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.) have co-written a letter to the White House, demanding to know the administration’s strategy behind the now-18 days of airstrikes against the Houthis in Yemen.
The letter calls into question the supposed intent of these strikes “to establish deterrence,” acknowledging that neither the Biden administration’s strikes in October 2023, nor the years-long bombing campaign by Saudi Arabia from 2014 to 2020, were successful in debilitating the military organization's military capabilities.
“Rather, these campaigns only served to embolden the Houthis and rally their recruiting base,” the senators said in the letter. “U.S. military action must have a clear strategy that advances our country’s long-term national security objectives and is compliant with the law of armed conflict.”
In addition, “Congress should be briefed about the recent strikes against the Houthis and the total cost expected to be incurred by this campaign at the American taxpayer’s expense.”
Rand and Merkley also correctly connect the Houthis’ recent attacks on commercial shipping in the Red Sea with the collapse of the Gaza ceasefire, pointing out that no such Houthi attacks took place while the ceasefire between Israel and Hamas (brokered by the Trump team ahead of the presidential inauguration) had been in place.
Paul and Merkley also questioned the Constitutionality of the strikes, given there has been no Congressional declaration of war on the Houthis. Congress wasn’t even consulted.
“We also recognize that any U.S. military response — especially sustained military engagement — must be conducted within the framework of the Constitution,” the Senators said in a release Tuesday. “Although the Constitution assigns the President the role of commander in chief of the U.S. military, it is Congress that is entrusted with the power to declare war — and Congress has not done so with respect to the Houthis.”
The letter comes amidst an escalation of tensions between the United States and Iran. In a post on Truth Social yesterday, President Trump warned that if the Houthis did not cease shooting at U.S. ships in the Red Sea, the real pain would be “yet to come, for both the Houthis and their sponsors in Iran.”
Such rhetoric calls into question whether the strikes on the Houthis are to set the stage for war with Iran itself. Recognizing this possibility in their letter, the senators call on the Trump administration to make clear to Congress and the American public if they indeed intend to strike Iran directly. They conclude the letter by warning of the United States “stumbling into another costly and unnecessary war.”
Bipartisan opposition to military escalation in the Middle East is urgently needed, moving beyond the procedural ‘Signalgate' debacle to a more substantive focus on what the strikes on the Houthis are to realistically achieve, and what they portend for greater regional peace and stability.
In intensifying strikes against the Houthis, President Trump appears to be contradicting his own expressed desire to rein in American military action in the Middle East, risking a broader, regional war, while seemingly failing to identify the Houthis’ strategic calculus tied to the war in Gaza.
While President Trump pledged a legacy of peacemaker in his inaugural speech, continuing along his current path in the Middle East threatens to permanently derail this worthy pursuit, particularly if war with Iran were to break out.
Skepticism from across the aisle to avert this outcome is a welcome development.
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Top image credit: U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders (I-VT) speaks during a press conference regarding legislation that would block offensive U.S. weapons sales to Israel, at the U.S. Capitol in Washington, U.S., November 19, 2024. REUTERS/Elizabeth Frantz
Will Senate vote signal a wider shift away from Israel?
Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth and National Security Advisor Mike Waltz have been roundly criticized for the security lapse that put journalist Jeffrey Goldberg into a Signal chat where administration officials discussed bombing Houthi forces in Yemen, to the point where some, like Sen. Mark Warner (D-Va.) have called for their resignations.
But the focus on the process ignores the content of the conversation, and the far greater crime of continuing to provide weapons that are inflaming conflicts in the Middle East and enabling Israel’s war on Gaza, which has resulted in the deaths of over 50,000 Palestinians, most of them civilians.
As Phyllis Bennis of the Institute for Policy Studies noted in an article in The Nation, the real disgrace in “Signalgate” was not the inclusion of a journalist in sensitive conversations, it is the continued bombing of Yemen without congressional authorization, with all the human consequences it entails:
“[T]he biggest threat—that has already resulted in real lives lost—is being ignored. And that is the threat to the lives of Yemeni people—who, how many, how many were children, we still don’t know—being killed by US bombs across the poorest nation in the Arab world.”
It’s important to put the U.S. battle with the Houthis in context. The Houthi campaign to block shipping in the Red Sea is a reaction to Israel’s war on the people of Gaza. Continued U.S. military support for Israel is the fuel that is sustaining conflicts throughout the region, from Yemen to Lebanon, and, if Israeli leader Benjamin Netanyahu has his way, in Iran.
Trump administration envoy Steve Witkoff has said the U.S. supports resuming ground operations in Gaza, blaming Hamas from rejecting new conditions for continuing the ceasefire.
Only a minority of members of Congress have taken a stand against U.S. military support for Israel’s brutal attacks on Gaza or its escalation of the fighting to other parts of the region. Last November, resolutions brought by Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) designed to block parts of a $20 billion arms package to Israel received 19 votes in favor — a long way from a majority, but the first time Congress had taken action on the issue of U.S. provision of arms to Israel.
Now Sanders is bringing new joint resolutions of disapproval to block an $8.56 billion sale of bombs and other munitions to Israel. Sanders said he is doing so in order to “end our complicity in the carnage,” adding that “it would be unconscionable to provide more of the bombs and weapons Israel has used to kill so many civilians and make life unlivable in Gaza.”
More than 50,000 people have died from Israel’s military attacks on Gaza. And a paper by Sophia Stamatopoulou-Robbins for the Brown University Costs of War Project estimates that at least an additional 62,000 have died from indirect causes like preventable disease and malnutrition.
The United States gave Israel $17.9 billion in military aid in the first year of the war in Gaza — October 2023 to the end of September of 2024. But arms offers since that time — sales beyond the $17.9 billion in military aid, including items that have yet to be delivered — total over $30 billion. These weapons could enable Israeli aggression for years to come. The current deal is particularly concerning because it consists mostly of bombs and missiles of the kind used in Israel’s relentless attacks on Gaza.
While handling of classified information is a real issue, enabling collective punishment and taking military action without congressional approval are far more important with respect to their human consequences abroad and the prospects for restoring democratic input on issues of war and peace at home. The press needs to widen its lens and take on these life and death issues on a more consistent basis.
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Top photo credit: German Prime Minister-in-waiting Friedrich Merz (Shutterstock.Penofoto)
Recent polls show the center right Christian Democrats (CDU-CSU) headed by prospective chancellor Friedrich Merz losing ground against the populist right Alternative for Germany (AfD), even before the new government has been formed.
The obvious explanation is widespread popular dissatisfaction with last month’s vote pressed through the outgoing parliament by the CDU-CSU and presumptive coalition partner the SPD (with the Greens) to allow unlimited increases in defense spending. This entailed disabling the constitutional “debt brake” introduced in 2009 to curb deficits and public debt.
The new parliament, with the AfD as the main opposition party, took its seats last week. The AfD opposes financing rearmament by a massive upsurge in public debt, and supports negotiations to end the war in Ukraine. Die Linke (the Left) which substantially improved its position in the February elections, opposes rearmament and favors peaceful conflict resolution. Polls show support for Die Linke has also risen since the elections.
Mainstream consensus on financing rearmament
The aversion to incurring debt to finance public expenditure, including for defense, has been a central policy tenet of the German center-right CDU-CSU. The Zeitenwende (epochal change) declared by Chancellor Scholz in 2022 provided an exceptional $100 billion in funding for defense, allowing Germany to reach the 2% of GDP target set by NATO last year.
However, the latest move by Merz — which can be seen as an intensified Zeitenwende — permits any defense expenditure in excess of 1% of GDP to be exempted from the debt brake’s provisions. The justification given is a potential Russian military threat and the conviction that the U.S. is bent on reducing its commitments to the conventional defense of Europe.
Merz’s CDU is paying the price with its fiscally conservative voters, who oppose incurring new public debt for the defense hike, rather than cutting spending to pay for it. These voters view Merz’s turnaround on fiscal probity as a betrayal of his own election campaign program.
Presumably, the rise in AfD support comes from the defection of some of the CDU-CSU voters. Although Scholz and his cabinet resigned on March 25, they remain as caretakers until the new government under Merz is formed, perhaps as early as Easter.
Public opinion and the mainstream parties’ program
Tension between the mainstream parties’ determination to continue arming Ukraine and a growing preference among much of the public for seeking a negotiated outcome has for some time been evident. The Ebert Foundation’s Security Radar 2025 report documents rising public anxiety in Germany and elsewhere in Europe about possible escalation of the war in Ukraine, with for example, 59% of Germans worried the war might escalate to the use of nuclear weapons, anda majority of (54%) of Germans agreed that defense spending should increase, with 36% opposed.
However, 53% favored a negotiated settlement of the war even if Ukraine has to sacrifice territory. A third of Germans favored NATO membership for Ukraine, a quarter favored supporting Ukraine “until it wins” and only 11% favored deploying German troops to Ukraine.
These findings suggest that the customary German reticence about armed conflict and preference for peaceful conciliation of conflicts has not been overtaken by any martial fervor.
The German public favors increasing defense spending, so long as this is understood as taking responsibility for the conventional defense of Germany itself, rather than giving priority to aiding Ukraine’s defense in the current war. The Security Radar report discerned across Europe a mood expressed by the slogan “my country first.”
How much and how soon will spending increase?
The actual magnitude of a boost to defense spending in the coming few years remains a matter for the coalition’s programmatic document (still being negotiated). The relaxation of defense spending has so far produced an additional 3 billion euros for Ukraine in 2025, to be added to the 4 billion euros already approved for 2025. This includes German made air defense systems which will need two years to be produced. There is no indication yet of the release of a torrent of new money or weapons to Ukraine.
Neither outgoing Chancellor Scholz nor Friedrich Merz has indicated Germany would contribute troops for the “coalition of the willing” peacekeeping effort advanced by UK PM Keir Starmer and French President Emmanuel Macron. The question of providing Taurus missiles to Ukraine will likely arise again soon after the new government takes office. Merz has previously advocated sending these, or at least threatening to do so to exact concessions from Russia. Throughout his tenure, Scholz firmly resisted pressure to provide these missiles.
A recent report from the Breugel economic think tank estimates what defense equipment, manpower, and industrial developments would be needed for Europe to assume most or all of Europe’s conventional defense without the United States.
The authors argue that Germany needs to raise its defense spending to 3.5% of GDP within the next three years and had to lift public debt limits to do so. They suggest that Europe would face several serious constraints in attempting to replace in a timely way the American material and technical contributions to the Ukrainians in a continuing war.
Many economists, market analysts, and the DAX stock market index responded positively to the planned increases in defense spending, predicting a recovery of Germany’s weak economy as the plan is implemented. The plan includes a 500-billion-euro fund for infrastructure modernization to be spent over 12 years.
What's ahead?
In essence, the funding of a major increase in German defense spending belongs in the logic of burden-shifting of continental conventional defense from the United States onto NATO’s European members. It rests upon the anticipated continued engagement of the Americans in NATO, in the hope that a new division of labor will convince the Americans of the value of their ongoing engagement in European security.
Moreover, the spending increase will need to be sustainable over years in order for the conventional capability of Germany to compensate for an American drawdown of forces deployed in Europe. Because the rearmament aims to achieve greater “independence” from the U.S., the German and European arms industry stands to benefit.
The European public is seemingly not fully convinced of the necessity to embrace a radically changed security stance for Germany and the European members of NATO. In order to ensure stability and win long-lasting public support, the burden-shifting of conventional defense in Europe should be paired with renewal of diplomatic contacts with Russia, and with an agenda of arms control and mutual confidence building measures.
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