The Worst Humanitarian Crisis In the World Was Also The US’s Worst Foreign Policy Decision In A Decade

 The Worst Humanitarian Crisis In the World Was Also The US’s Worst Foreign Policy Decision In A Decade 5 December 2019 I have to ask: what the hell was the US  thinking when they gave their stamp of approval to Saudi and greenlit  the Coalition’s intervention? The intervention deepened Iran’s ties with  the Houthis, increased Houthi weapon capabilities, strengthened Al  Qaeda and ISIS, and created the worst humanitarian crisis in the world.  Truly a stunning achievement.  

The  Saudi/UAE coalition and its western backers in the US/UK have recently  faced a reality check. There is no way to dislodge Ansar Allah (the  Houthis) from Northern Yemen, and their misguided attempts to restore  Hadi to power have increased Houthi military capabilities and have  driven the Houthis closer to Iran. There has been an on and off  ceasefire in Al Hudaydah for the better part of a year, and recently the  Houthis and the Saudi Coalition entered indirect peace talks that were  brokered through Oman. Saudi air strikes saw an 80% decrease throughout most of November. The Yemen Data Project  has shown a significant decrease in airstrikes in 2019 compared to  previous years. The Houthis have the capability to consistently hit  Saudi oil fields and pipelines with their new UAV-X drones. By  developing the capacity to hit the Saudis in their wallet, the Houthis  effectively brought the war in Yemen to a stalemate.

The US entered the war in Yemen in late March when Obama set up a Joint Planning Cell  to assist Saudi bombers with military intelligence and targeting  assistance. Obama also authorized midair refueling to Saudi that  refueled Saudi jets on average twice per day  as they ruthlessly bombed Yemen’s infrastructure. In addition, the US  sold tens of billions of dollars-worth of weapons to Saudi Arabia. This  included precision guided munitions and cluster bombs. Under Donald  Trump, from early to mid 2017, the US assisted in the Saudi naval  blockade in the Gulf of Aden  near the Bab el Mandeb Strait. The US’s deepening role in the Yemen  Civil War has failed on both a strategic level in terms of countering  Iran, and on a counter-terrorism level in regards to the US’s original  stated objective to counter Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) in  Yemen.

With Iran  controlling the Strait of Hormuz, Washington decided that the Houthis,  who they viewed as an Iranian proxy, could not be allowed to control the  Bab el Mandeb Strait, a strategic choke point through which 4.8 billion  barrels of oil flows through per day. Assuming that the Houthis are an  “Iranian proxy,” the only reason the US would need to worry about the  Bab el Mandeb Strait being in peril is if the US either invaded Iran or  created a proxy war in Iran. Since a proxy war would be ineffective, as  shown in the past, the endgame would have to be American boots on the  ground. This would be a senseless war that would cost the US trillions  of dollars and thousands of American lives. The war would only benefit  Israel, defense contractors, and war profiteers. There is no reason to  believe that the Houthis would, unprovoked, disrupt the global oil  markets. While the Saudi coalition was able to retake the Bab el Mandeb  Strait, the Houthis still have extensive access to the Red Sea  coastline.

The main  strategic failure of the US-backed Saudi-led war in Yemen is that it  deepened Houthi ties with Iran, and it has vastly expanded Houthi  military capabilities from their position in Northern Yemen. The Houthis  once were quasi-independent and did not need Iranian arms. WikiLeaks exposed  that in 2009 the US embassy in Sana’a revealed that the Houthis  acquired their guns from the Yemeni black market and not from Iran. The Houthis also ignored Iran when the Iranians told the Houthis not to take over Sana’a. However, since the Saudi coalition started relentlessly bombing the Houthis they had to turn to Iran  for help. Iran now has the capability to strike at Saudi Arabia, a US  petro-client state, in the heart of their oil fields and around their  pipelines. In 2016 the Houthis used to tell Iran to get lost when they proposed building a naval base in Yemen: “Not one inch of Yemen’s land or waters will be forfeited to any foreign party … whether a friend or an enemy.” 

Recently,  Iran helped the Houthis level the playing field with Saudi Arabia by  transferring the Houthis Iranian drone technology. Hitting Saudi oil  fields and pipelines seems to have made Saudi think twice about carpet  bombing Houthi area. I would not be shocked if the Houthis continue to  morph into a self-fulfilling prophecy espoused by the State Department. The  Houthis have already hit Saudi oil fields, largely for their own  interests to counter Saudi bombing. In the future, the Houthis will  likely be willing to act as a proxy for Iran and use their drones to do  real damage to Saudi oil markets, and by extension global oil markets,  if the US fully engages Iran. One hand washes the other.

Aside from losing out strategically to Iran, the US also undid all of its counterterrorism work against AQAP in Yemen. USSOCOM (United States Special Operations Command) did not want the US to fight the Houthis. They relied on the Houthis to combat AQAP in Yemen: “the  Houthis, have been successful in rolling back AQ (Al-Qaeda) and now  ISIS from a number of Yemeni governorates” — something that hundreds of  U.S. drone strikes and large numbers of advisers to Yemen’s military had  failed to accomplish.” 

US military support for Saudi Arabia has been “inadvertently” allowing Al Qaeda to grow. Of course one must ask how “inadvertent” it is when US allies, Saudi Arabia and the UAE, are paying Al  Qaeda fighters’ salaries to fight the Houthis. A senior Yemeni tribe  leader also claimed that “coalition fighter jets and US drones were  idle” after AQAP cut a deal for 100s of fighters to leave Mukalla in  Spring 2016. It’s not hard to believe that the US ignored them because  they were being redirected to attack the Houthis. In addition, a portion  of the billions in arms sold to Saudi Arabia and the UAE were transferred to AQAP in Yemen. This included American manufactured TOW anti-tank missiles and  Oshkosh armored vehicles. It appears as if the State Department’s  objective to dislodge the Houthis, in conjunction with the interests of  defense contractor lobbyists, overrode the US’s original counter  terrorism objective in Yemen to combat AQAP, who is considered the most dangerous Al Qaeda cell in the world according to US officials.

Since the Saudi intervention, AQAP’s influence in Yemen has expanded.  AQAP has even been taking advantage of the chaos to make propaganda  videos showing them rebuilding Yemen’s devastated infrastructure.  Laughably, the greatest threat that AQAP faces at this point is ISIS, as  the two  fight it out for greater control of the areas they are trying to carve  out in Yemen. ISIS was able to gain a foothold in Yemen the same way  they gained one in Syria and Libya. Endless infighting between factions  coupled with the black market being flooded with guns allowed them to  plant their flag. Of course, this was not hard to predict once the US  decided to focus its attention towards combating the Houthis with the  Saudi/UAE coalition. It’s never a good idea to fight a war on two  fronts. Al Qaeda in Yemen has not been this strong since its formation  in 1988 (eventually AQAP became the official Al Qaeda cell in 2009), and  now the Islamic State is in the mix, and they are using US weapons.  It usually takes multiple years to begin to see the results of a  successful large-scale counter-insurgency operation, and in this case it  appears as if the US has set itself back a decade, and will now have to  deal with a strengthened AQAP and an emerging ISIS threat. USSOCOM’s  reservations about the US backing the Saudi bombing campaign have been  fully vindicated.

Of course the biggest loser of the war is the Yemeni children. In 2017-2018 at least 130 children starved  to death everyday. In 2016 alone, 63,000 died from preventable hunger  and disease. These children will suffer from hunger for the next 20 years  as a result Yemen’s civil war. I have to ask: what the hell was the US  thinking when they gave their stamp of approval to Saudi and greenlit  the Coalition’s intervention? The intervention deepened Iran’s ties with  the Houthis, increased Houthi weapon capabilities, strengthened Al  Qaeda and ISIS, and created the worst humanitarian crisis in the world.  Truly a stunning achievement.