The War on Yemen Keeps Getting Worse

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The American Conservative : The War on Yemen Keeps Getting Worse

By DANIEL LARISON • September 7, 2015, 10:41 AM

 

The Saudi-led coalition is expanding its ground war in Yemen:

 

The deployment comes after 45 troops from the United Arab Emirates and 10 Saudi soldiers were killed in Marib on Friday, the worst setback to date for the Saudi-led coalition since it began its offensive in March. Mounting losses will test the will of the Gulf states to extend their involvement after helping the internationally recognized government of President Abdurabuh Mansur Hadi retake parts of southern Yemen.

 

Expanding the ground war carries a “huge risk of heavy casualties” for the Gulf Arab monarchies, said Ibrahim Fraihat, senior foreign policy fellow at the Brookings Doha Center. “Yemen has historically proved to be a very tough spot for foreign armies to fight and win.”

[Draggingtree]

Yemen and the Destructive Habit of Taking Sides

By DANIEL LARISON • October 5, 2015, 12:20 AM

 

Paul Pillar concludes an excellent post on the U.S. role in the war on Yemen with this observation:

 

Mistaken policies such as the U.S. posture toward Yemen will continue as long as U.S. policy is made in a domestic political climate in which prevailing sentiment automatically labels some foreign states as “allies” and others as practitioners of “nefarious” behavior, and insists that the United States always align itself with the former and always oppose anything having to do with the latter.

 

The most common excuse for U.S. support for the Saudi-led campaign and blockade of Yemen is that Washington needed to “reassure” Riyadh that they could count on U.S. backing in the future in spite of the nuclear agreement reached with Iran. As I’ve said before, this is a thoroughly unsatisfying explanation that tries to ignore the many substantive objections to U.S. involvement in this war by invoking the importance of “alliance management.” Never mind that the U.S. is under no obligation to the Saudis or any of the other client states attacking Yemen. Properly speaking, none of them is a genuine treaty ally, http://www.theamericanconservative.com/larison/yemen-and-the-destructive-habit-of-taking-sides/