Washington’s special envoy for Yemen is heading to both Saudi Arabia and Jordan, in an alleged effort to help a UN brokered ceasefire initiative to succeed. However, this visit seems to be little to do with Yemen and more about US power in the region.
Whilst during US President Joe Biden’s first address on foreign policy, back in February of 2021, ending the war in Yemen was stated as a top priority, more than a year later nothing to that effect has been followed through on. Initially the Biden administration vowed to freeze offensive weapons sales to Saudi Arabia, whilst approving a 650 million dollar weapons sale later that year. In early July, prior to Biden’s first visit to the Middle East as US President, Washington then began talking about lifting the ban on offensive weapons sales to Riyadh.
Last year saw dramatic escalations in the war between the Sanaa based Ansarallah government of Yemen and the US-UK-backed Saudi led-coalition, mainly due to a renewed round of fighting over the resource rich Marib region that was held by Saudi-backed forces. The world’s worst humanitarian crisis — that has been ongoing since 2015, caused by the illegal Saudi war and blockade of Yemen — is not even close to being solved, and the United States, along with Britain, and even Israel, have continued to aid the Saudi war machine.
A two-month-long UN brokered ceasefire truce was first destined to end in May. Despite several violations of the ceasefire, it largely held and until today the fighting has not intensified to the extent it did last year. With Riyadh now seizing two oil tankers that were on their way to Yemen, intended to ease dire living conditions, coupled with airstrikes in the north, it seems that the conflict is on its way toward another boiling point. At the same time, the United Nations has been urging both sides to show restraint and to agree to a long-term ceasefire agreement. As nice as this may seem on the surface, this solution is one for Saudi Arabia and its Gulf State allies alone, and is not serving to end the Yemen crisis. The real solution cannot be that the people of Yemen will remain in their current political and economic position, this is a recipe for disaster and would mirror the type of strategy that Tel Aviv pursues in Gaza. That strategy is to only engage militarily occasionally, with the stated purpose of trying to “keep the peace,” while allowing subsistence living for most of the population in the besieged territory. All this with the hope that the dire living conditions will drive the people to rise up and overthrow their governing party and armed forces. Clearly, this is not real “solution” for the people of Gaza or Yemen.
The major difference between Yemen and Gaza, however, aside from the land mass that Ansarallah has at its disposal, is its access to superior weapons technology, something that the Palestinian armed groups do not possess. The weapons capabilities of the Yemeni resistance is a huge factor here and has been enough to greatly pressure both Saudi and the United Arab Emirates politically.
The US Biden administration’s “Peace initiative”
The US government has so far failed abysmally on all fronts when it comes to the war in Yemen. It has failed to protect the interests, in addition to the security, of Riyadh and Abu Dhabi, whilst also failing to play any significant role in peace making to end the conflict. At best, the Biden administration’s policy is nonsensical. Now, following a largely failed trip to both Riyadh and Tel Aviv, the US State department has announced that its special envoy to Yemen will be traveling to the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan and the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA).
To begin with, it is telling that the US special envoy to Yemen is visiting Jordan and the KSA, taking no current interest in visiting Yemen. Whilst the war in Yemen has become a thorn in the side of the United States, working against the ability of the US to project its power over the Gulf regimes, they seem to be attempting to exploit it for what they can get right now. If the US government can be seen to strike a deal which could provide more security for Saudi Arabia, there is a greater possibility of moving Saudi Crown Prince, Mohammed Bin Salman, further towards a US regional agenda. The KSA clearly serves the United States on many fronts, but is beginning to drop the US leadership in some areas and not treat them as the gods they once were to the Saudi royals of the past.
The strength of Ansarallah’s arsenal has proven a threat all Saudi oil facilities and the life blood of the Kingdom’s economy, and reopening the conflict could prove devastating to not only Riyadh, but the world economy at large. So, it is in the interests of both Washington and Riyadh to find a solution to their Yemen problem, a solution that could end up making or breaking the US’ position of power when negotiating with the Gulf regimes. If the United States pursues the wrong course of action, it could end up favoring their sworn enemies in Tehran and Moscow, whilst on the odd chance they utilize Jordan to broker agreements with Ansarallah, Washington could put itself in a more advantageous position.
Iran currently holds the keys to regional security, a reality which enrages both the US and Israel, but is now accepted as fact by the KSA and UAE. This is why both Riyadh and Abu Dhabi are attempting to grow closer to Tehran and are shying away from Israeli proposed defense alliances, at least in the open, for now. The other growing concern for Washington, which seems to be a side issue for it — a potentially fatal move — is the possibility for a new Lebanon-Israel war, which would undoubtably mean regional forces will also be included. If such a war breaks out, Israel will be completely embarrassed and many will begin to shy away from normalization with Tel Aviv. The message will be, if Israel can be blown to pieces by Iranian allied groups, what will happen to the second ranked Arab allies of the United States? Therefore, if the US government is smart, they will make every concession politically possible in order to prevent such a war; a war that Hezbollah has already announced its intention to start at any moment over Lebanon’s access to its own oil and gas resources.
For the United States, they just need one big win in the region and brokering a long-term Yemen ceasefire may just be the win they are going for. The only problem is, do they possess the power to make this happen and are they focusing their energy in the wrong place?
