By Henry Srebrnik, [Saint John, N.B.] Telegraph-Journal
Might the protracted civil war in Yemen be coming to an end?
After years of open hostility and proxy conflicts across the Middle East, Saudi Arabia and Iran in early March agreed to re-establish diplomatic relations, seven years after breaking ties.
Saudi Arabia’s monarchy and a majority of its populace are Sunni, while Iran’s people are overwhelmingly Shi’a, and this has involved clashes throughout the Middle East, especially in Yemen, which borders the Saudi kingdom in the Arabian Peninsula.
The rapprochement between them comes after years of Iranian-backed Houthi militias in Yemen targeting Saudi Arabia with missile and drone attacks. A Saudi-led coalition has been at war with the Houthis since 2015. It has led to the deaths of more than 350,000 people.
Now, however, Saudi and Omani envoys are holding peace talks with Houthi officials in the capital, Sana’a, as Riyadh seeks a permanent ceasefire to end its military involvement in the long-running war. Topics include the reopening of the Houthi-controlled airport in Sana’a and the Red Sea port in Hodeida, and the lifting of the Houthi blockade of the government-controlled city of Taiz.
Hans Grundberg, the UN special envoy for Yemen, said he was working with all relevant actors to ensure that current efforts are in support of the UN mediation. “My role has consistently remained focused on resuming an inclusive, Yemeni-led political process. Only such a process can deliver a sustainable settlement and bring about a future of durable peace and development,” he has stated.
The hostilities began when a former Yemeni field marshal, Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi, was installed by the Saudis as interim president eleven years ago. This did not sit well with a northern Yemeni militia known as the Houthis, who are Shi’a Muslims.
The Houthi movement in Yemen’s north-west Sa’dah province in response to the growing influence of Sunni Salafism which attacked their Zaydi Shi’a faith as apostasy.
They captured Sana’a in September 2014, dragging the country into civil war. In turn, a Saudi-led coalition of Sunni states launched a military offensive against them. At the time, Saudi officials told the United States that it would take them six weeks to restore the legitimate Yemeni government and end the Houthis’ coup.
Nine years on, though, the Houthis have emerged as a strong military power while the Saudi-backed forces remain fragmented. In September 2019, a missile and drone assault on a major Saudi oil installation had briefly disrupted half of the kingdom’s crude production. So the Saudis’ approach shifted from defeating the Houthis to securing their own borders from Houthi attacks.
To find a way out of its costly quagmire in Yemen, Saudi Arabia scaled back its military intervention and stepped up its diplomatic efforts in a bid to de-escalate. The kingdom declared two unilateral cease-fires in 2020 and 2021 and reduced its already inadequate military support to Yemeni government forces.
In April 2022, the Saudis and the Houthis agreed to a cease-fire that lasted for six months, and in June of that year the two sides held talks that excluded the Yemeni government. “The Houthis have won the war in Yemen,” Bruce Riedel, a former CIA analyst, reported at the time for the Brookings Institution.
Because of pressure from Riyadh, Hadi handed over his authority to a Presidential Leadership Council (PLC), the eight members of which were selected by Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. But this is no easy task. The Houthis’ military gains have allowed them to dictate the path of international diplomacy in Yemen. They know Saudi Arabia is desperate to extricate itself, and that the international community wants the Yemen problem to go away.
The Houthis have refused to negotiate with the PLC or other Yemeni factions, such as nor were any other Yemeni parties, such as the separatists of the Southern Transitional Council, that they cast as “Saudi mercenaries.” They view the war as one between them, as the only true representatives of Yemen, and the Saudis.
Even as negotiations progress, the rebel group has continued to carry out attacks targeting key seaports and vital infrastructure and ratcheting up the pressure on the internationally recognized Yemeni government.
On Feb. 16, the ambassadors of the United States, France, and the United Kingdom condemned Houthi drone attacks on vital Yemeni infrastructure, noting that “Yemen possesses natural resources that enable it to meet the needs of its citizens if it is able to resume exporting oil and gas, without being attacked by the Houthis.”
Not deterred, on March 23 the Houthis conducted a military drill close to the Saudi border to remind the Saudis of the cost of no agreement and further concessions.
Through the recent China-brokered Iran deal and by making concessions to the Houthis, Saudi Arabia seeks a quick and easy way out of the Yemen war, which has become an “unnecessary distraction” from its domestic development objectives.
The kingdom has the leverage it needs to force the PLC to accept a political settlement with the Houthis. The Houthis and Iran might de-escalate and even accept one to get the Saudis out of the way. They are clearly on the verge of victory.
Some 24 million people in Yemen, two-thirds of the population, will need some kind of humanitarian assistance during the course of 2023.
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