Saudi Coalition Rejects Diplomacy, Readies Long War in Yemen

UN Withdraws Staff, Abandoning Last Hope for Peace Talks

The United Nations has loaded the last of its staff in Yemen quietly onto airplanes, sending them to safety in Ethiopia, and capping their failed effort to start peace talks in the war-torn country.

There is no room for peace talks now, it seems, with Saudi Arabia and its allies so decidedly in favor of a full-scale war against the Shi’ite Houthis, and leaving no room open for a settlement.

For the Saudis, there is no middle ground, and democratic reform is not the goal. The only goal for the war is to reinstall General Hadi, Yemen’s dictator from early 2012 until his resignation in January, back into power.

The Saudi coalition partners in the Arab League all seem to be on board with this strategy as well, insisting that the war will go on until the Houthi “rebels,” who at this point seem to be the closest thing to a de facto government Yemen has, unconditionally surrender.

Given those conditions, there’s not much that could be done by the UN in negotiations, and for the time being, perhaps much longer than anyone realizes, the Saudi coalition is to be engaged in an open-ended war of aggression against neighboring Yemen.

Author: Jason Ditz

Jason Ditz is Senior Editor for Antiwar.com. He has 20 years of experience in foreign policy research and his work has appeared in The American Conservative, Responsible Statecraft, Forbes, Toronto Star, Minneapolis Star-Tribune, Providence Journal, Washington Times, and the Detroit Free Press.