America Is Complicit in Yemen Atrocities

By Staff, Intelligencer

During his Senate confirmation hearing on Tuesday, US Secretary of State-designate Anthony Blinken said President Joe Biden’s administration would end the US support for Saudi Arabia’s military intervention in Yemen, which in Blinken’s words had “contributed to … the worst humanitarian situation anywhere in the world.”

As part of this shift in posture, Blinken said the administration would immediately review an order issued by former secretary of State Mike Pompeo last week designating Yemen’s Ansarullah revolutionaries a terrorist organization.

Pompeo’s order, which went into effect Tuesday, was emblematic of the Trump administration’s spiteful and chaotic exit, being one of several parting booby traps set by the outgoing secretary in an apparent attempt to undermine Biden’s foreign-policy plans.

At best, Pompeo’s last-minute order will be quickly forgotten as a pointless, spiteful gesture toward the new administration. Unlike most petty pranks, however, this one has potentially devastating consequences: The UN warned that it could cause Yemen to experience “a large-scale famine on a scale that we have not seen for nearly 40 years” by making it impossible for aid agencies and NGOs to deliver assistance to areas controlled by the Ansarullah. Biden’s incoming foreign-policy and national security teams tend to agree, hence their commitment to quickly review and most likely reverse this designation.

Beyond revisiting the Ansarullah blacklisting, the Biden administration intends to cease helping Saudi Arabia prosecute the Yemen war with logistical support and arms sales. Weapons sales to the Saudis and other countries were among the actions former president Donald Trump considered to be foreign-policy achievements.

In late December, the Trump administration notified Congress that it was pushing ahead with another sale of $500 million worth of precision-guided bombs to Saudi Arabia. Lawmakers had until Thursday to pass a resolution of disapproval.

Writing in the Washington Post on Wednesday, Yemeni human-rights activist and Nobel Peace Prize laureate Tawakkol Karman urged Biden to halt the sale before it is completed; it is not clear whether the administration has taken any action yet. On the campaign trail, however, Biden made clear his intent to change America’s posture toward Saudi Arabia and its catastrophic misadventure in Yemen.

In an October statement marking the anniversary of the murder of Saudi Arabian dissident journalist Jamal Khashoggi, Biden pledged: “Under a Biden-Harris administration, we will reassess our relationship with the kingdom, end US support for Saudi Arabia’s war in Yemen, and make sure America does not check its values at the door to sell arms or buy oil.”

The humanitarian crisis in Yemen is indeed staggering; Blinken was not exaggerating when he described it as the worst in the world. Over 200,000 people have died in the ongoing war, which has gone on for nearly six years. Millions more have been injured, displaced, or otherwise traumatized. Of the country’s 30 million people, some 24 million [80 percent] are dependent on outside assistance. Schools, hospitals, water, and sanitation infrastructure have been destroyed. Extreme poverty, hunger, and childhood malnutrition are rampant. The country was already running out of water due to climate change and population growth; now, much of that water is polluted, poisoned, or inaccessible.