...“I don’t think you can restore a government, especially an unpopular one, from the air, and I don’t think the use of force in this matter does anything but create long-term enmity,” said Chas Freeman, who served as the ambassador to Saudi Arabia between 1989 and 1992. He noted that former President Hadi’s unpopularity was partly due to his deep ties to Saudi Arabia and the United States. Freeman is currently a senior fellow at the Watson Institute for International and Public Affairs at Brown University.
Barbara Bodine, who served as ambassador to Yemen between 1997 and 2001, directed us to recent remarks she made on the Zogby Show about the impact of the bombings on Yemen’s social fabric.
“It’s just been pushed over the edge,” she told host James Zogby. “It’s been declared a level 3 humanitarian crisis, there’s only four of those in the world. … The devastation of the physical damage, infrastructure damage, … the water system to the extent it has existed has been completely destroyed.” Bodine is currently a professor of diplomacy at Georgetown University.
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All of the diplomats pointed out that, contrary to administration statements that the Saudi war is serving counterterrorism objectives, the war has actually undermined U.S. national security interests. In particular, they noted that the campaign against the Houthis has allowed one of its enemies – al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) – to seize more territory.
Grappo220
“No question about that, no question whatsoever, that the war has turned everyone’s attention away from what concerns us most, and that’s violent extremism and terrorist groups,” said Gary Grappo, a former deputy chief of mission to Saudi Arabia. “Al Qaeda has grown in strength, and in numbers, and in resources, and that’s directly related to the turning of attention to the internal instability and ultimately the war in Yemen.” Grappo is currently CEO & founder of Equilibrium International Consulting.
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“I would argue that the Houthis were not in the Iranian camp until they were driven into it by necessity,” Freeman said. “When they were attacked by the Saudis – or counter-attacked, depending on how you see it – they needed support from somewhere, and they got it from Tehran. So the Saudi effort to punish the Iranians [for the nuclear deal] by punishing the Houthis ironically cemented the relationship between Iran and the Houthis that otherwise probably would not have existed.”
Khoury also described the Houthi-Iranian relationship as having been advanced by the Saudi-led bombing campaign. “Once the Houthis got there, they thought … they are [also] against the Saudis so they must be good friends to Iran, so they started [cooperating],” he said.
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