Why to End the War on Yemen – The Reconstruction the US Ignores

TEHRAN (FNA)- In December, the Senate successfully passed a War Powers Act resolution calling for the end to US support for the Saudi War on Yemen. The House leadership at the time refused to allow a vote, but with the Democrats now the leadership, such a resolution is expected to be voted on in the next six weeks.

It is widely expected that both houses of Congress will successfully pass War Powers challenges to the Yemen War, though they say the exact timing may be unclear because of the government’s shutdown. Even then, there is an expectation that President Trump will veto the measure. This would be a politically difficult veto for the president, as the War Powers Act is explicitly meant to give Congress oversight of US wars, and a veto would effectively be the president overriding Congress on refusing to back a war that was illegally launched in the first place.

This is while the only way out is a renewed call for political negotiations, playing on the fact that the Yemeni factions want peace. For that call to be effective, the US government is required to shift its present course of actions with a three-pronged strategy:

- Back the ceasefire in order to allow humanitarian assistance into the country.

Financing aid while continuing the air campaign is as a cynical manoeuvre by the US and its Saudi allies that do not know where to bomb next. For this aid to reach vulnerable populations, both the US and Saudi Arabia must respect the ceasefire and stop bombing the war-torn country.

- Allow the UN as a mediator and give up on hosting one-sided political talks in Riyadh or elsewhere in Europe. Riyadh is clearly no acceptable destination for Ansarullah, and would likely be contentious for almost all other Yemeni factions. Instead, the US should capitalize on the impartial stance taken by the UN toward the conflict and ask them to facilitate a dialogue – without any interference.

- Take responsibility for the destruction and help the UN in its reconstruction and development vision for Yemen.

If the US wants to truly demonstrate a “Yemen resolve to act alone,” it needs to show that Yemenis can rebuild their country devastated by this illegal conflict - one that, unlike war-torn Libya, Syria, or Iraq, might be salvageable.

The US should build upon the UN resolution to secure and finance a long-term reconstruction plan for Yemen. The plan should be based on the ultimate objective of integrating Yemen within the UN, making use of its human and natural resources and capitalizing on its strategic coastline.

To that end, the US government must not write a check to the Saudis and leave Riyadh to sort Yemen out on their own. Yemen’s experience has shown time and again that Saudi Arabia and its allies are unable to build state capacity or to provide effective long-term development - a failure that helped bring Yemen to the brink of crisis in the first place. Whatever international reconstruction vision emerges, the US is responsible to be part of it, and should remain part of its development and implementation long term.

The US has a particular responsibility at the UN too. The decision by the UN to press forward with a ceasefire resolution, however limited, was a welcome show of determination. But it needs to be carried forward, and supported by national actions, including the ending of all US support for the war strategy and resumption of reconstruction efforts.

In this deliberate man-made crisis there is no firewall between a political process to end the fighting and the humanitarian catastrophe that the world does witness day in, day out. Unless there is outside pressure of a substantial kind on Saudi Arabia and its allies, civilians will continue to endure terrible suffering. While Saudi and Emirati airstrikes are the primary cause of civilian deaths, many more have died from the impact of the US-backed blockade: drought, disease, starvation and preventable deaths.

In summation, those who turned Yemen into a failed state are now required under international law to take responsibility for its reconstruction and peace efforts. They must help the UN to improve humanitarian and commercial access into and around Yemen, including the full functioning of all ports and Sana’a airport. They must help the UN to repair public service infrastructure such as water provision and hospitals, which has been damaged during the US-backed, Saudi-led airstrikes. They must also pay for all the damages they have caused to the country.

Yemen is a complex society, but the choices facing the Saudis, the Americans and their allies now are simple. They cannot continue the failed war, see more people die, and watch malign geopolitical consequences grow. The people of Yemen and all warring factions want peace and unity. The Saudis, the Americans and their allies must stop the protracted war and give international reconstruction efforts a chance to make a difference.

Escalation of Saudi attacks against Yemen on the eve of peace talks

By Fatemeh Salehi

TEHRAN - Yemen peace talk is to start in Sweden this week between the warring sides with the presence of the Ansarollah delegation. There is a great deal of speculation over the success of the talks as a result of the Saudi-backed coalition’s hindrances and the U.S. political and military interests in the continuation of the Yemeni war. 

The talks will focus on agreements on exchange of captives, and reopening of Sana’a International Airport in order to halt the war and eventually running an election.

Mohammad Ali al-Houthi, head of Yemen revolution former President of the Revolutionary Committee or Revolutionary Council has recently said that the repetition of Saudi-led collation’s terms and conditions for negotiations is an attempt to avert the UN-led peace talks.

Al-Houthi believes the UN envoy in Yemen, after the failure of previous talks, has reached the conclusion that any conditions set by the Saudis and its allies were an impediment to the talks.

Previous talks planned for September in Geneva failed to get underway because the Saudi-led coalition prevented the Houthi delegation to participate.

According to an informed source, UN envoy to Yemen Martin Griffiths is expected to travel to Yemen, Sana’a in an effort to preempt another premature collapse of talks.

Iran has supported the UN-led peace talks in Sweden and called on all Yemeni parties to engage in constructive negotiations and take confidence-building steps to pave the ground for reaching a comprehensive agreement to end the pain of the Yemeni people.

Escalation of Saudi-led coalition attacks in Yemen on the eve of the Stockholm talks

While the humanitarian situation in Yemenis worsening by day and the UN issues warnings against the deteriorating conditions in Yemen and calls for the lift of blockade of Yemen, the Saudi officials are seeking to create impediment for course of talks.

However, the Saudi-led coalition continues to carry out their brutal attacks against residential areas in Yemen, with 14 dead and wounded during just one attack on a house in Al Hudaydah.

The Saudi-led coalition has intensified the blockade of the strategic port of Al Hudaydah, the serves as the only entry point for Yemen’s humanitarian aid. Riyadh is making every effort to create obstacles on the way of the Stockholm talks to serve the U.S. political and military objectives which calls for the continuation of the Yemeni War which broke out with the U.S. approval in the first place.

Under the pretest of military aggression against Yemen, the U.S. signed significant arms contracts with Riyadh and gained financial rewards.  

On the verge of the Yemen peace talks, not only the Saudi attacks haven’t let up but have gained momentum in provinces of al-Bayda and Dhale and on common borders with Saudi Arabia and the West Bank.

Since November, the Saudi Arabian-led intervention in Yemen has carried out over 100 air strikes against the residential areas in Al Hudaydah and the attacks have intensified in recent days, particularly in the border areas and regions close to Sana’a.

Although the U.S. and Western countries seem to have raised criticism of Saudi Arabia over Yemen, in practice, they don’t take any concrete steps to lift the siege and cancel their arms contracts or boycott Riyadh.

Crown prince of Saudi Arabia Mohammad bin Salman considers the war in Yemen a proxy war between Iran and his country, although Riyadh has failed to achieve much in the past four years of battle against Yemen.

Although Yemen’s Ansarollah has repeatedly expressed willingness to stop their attacks against the aggressors and initiate talks, the Saudi-led coalition took no steps for peace talks.

As it appears now, the Stockholm peace talks on Yemen won’t reach a desirable objective. Although some analysts argue otherwise and believe following Jamal Khashoggi’s case, the Saudis are more apt to agree to stop the war to get out of the world criticism.  

Yemen’s Message to UN for Only Durable Peace vis-a-vis Saudi Seditions

By: Kayhan Int’l 

Saudi Arabia is the main impediment for peace in Yemen, a country on which for almost the past four years Riyadh has imposed an uneven war that has destroyed the infrastructure of the Arab World’s poorest country and plunged it into famine and epidemic diseases. 

The Saudis, who on the orders of the US and the Zionist regime, have killed around 30,000 men, women, and children, have now tightened their illegal blockade of the Yemeni port city of Hodeidah in violation of the peace draft for immediate stopping of hostilities, by not just preventing merchant ships bringing vital food and medicine to the besieged nation, but targeting poor fishermen who venture into the open sea for their livelihood.

This latest provocative move comes hours after the special UN envoy, Britain’s Martin Griffiths, held talks in the Yemeni capital Sana’a with leaders of the popular Ansarallah Movement, as part of efforts to resolve the crisis. 

It is clear the Saudis fear the prospects of talks in Sweden next month among the various Yemeni groups since this might lead to restoration of peace and stability through democratic means in the Arabian Peninsula’s only republican country, thereby encouraging the suppressed masses groaning under the tyrannical rule of the Najdis to rise up for their own rights. 

Hopefully, Griffiths has realized that the villain of the piece is Saudi Arabia, and if he is really sincere in his peace efforts he should make it clear that any negotiations on Yemen will be among the Yemeni people without the presence of either the Saudis of the Emiratis – let alone their American masters. 

The UN ought to know that as long will as Ansarallah are branded as "Houthi rebels” and as long as Saudi Arabia, the UAE and their accomplices in the war on Yemen not considered aggressors and war criminals, peace is not possible in Yemen.

Riyadh and Abu Dhabi want a client regime in Yemen, coupled with total deprivation of the rights of over forty percent of the country’s Zaydi Shi’a Muslim population which forms the overwhelming majority in northern Yemen.

This is totally unacceptable. Fortunately, the Ansarallah, as defenders of the independence and integrity of Yemen, have seen through the devilish plot of the American stooges, who in an attempt to deprive the besieged Yemenis of even medicine and food, including the daily fish catch of the half-starved people, think they can dent the resistance of the heroic people of Hodeidah through such dastardly moves.

This warrants the Ansarallah, which as a goodwill gesture had ceased its missile attacks on Yemen’s Saudi occupied regions of Najran, Asir, and Jizan, to be on guard, because the cowardly enemy knows only the language of weapons, and Insha Allah (God Willing) will be defeated on the battlefield.

It is clear the defenders of Yemen are wary of the weakness of the UN as well, who is under intense pressure from Riyadh, Abu Dhabi, Washington and Tel Aviv, to impose a humiliating peace which would be worse than the ongoing imposed war. 

Perhaps this was the reason, the chief negotiator of the legal government of Yemen, Mohammad Ali Al-Houthi, during his latest round of talks with Griffiths, made sure to place an AK-47 rifle under the table next to where he was sitting.

It is an established tradition among the Yemenis, whether ordinary people or officials, to always girdle themselves with the ubiquitous Jambiyya which is tucked on their waists, whether in peace or war. 

Thus, it was a shrewd move on the part of the Ansarallah to convey a message to all and everybody that those thinking that the Yemenis will be tricked into submission are living in a fool’s paradise.

The enemy media has failed to understand the clear visibility of a machinegun at an official meeting with the UN envoy, and is indulging in feverish propaganda to depict the Ansarallah as warmongering and opposed to peace, while the whole world knows them to be heroic defenders of their homeland against foreign aggression. 

The message, whether from Sana’a or from Hodeidah is loud and clear. There is no question of surrender for the resilient people of Yemen, who want a just peace that safeguards the integrity and independence of their nation, and if not the aggressors, should be ready for spectacular fireworks that will literally make the Red Sea turn crimson red.