Last month marked the third anniversary of the war in Yemen. In September 2014, rebel forces from Yemen’s Houthi community abandoned a transitional political process in Yemen that was sponsored by the Gulf Cooperation Council and the United Nations. The mediation had begun after a 2011 uprising toppled President Ali Abdullah Saleh, who had ruled Yemen with an iron fist for more than three decades.
Instead of continuing to talk, the rebels overran Amran, a city in northwest Yemen, and occupied the capital, Sana. They held hostage Mr. Saleh’s transitional successor, President Abdu Rabbu Mansour Hadi, and effectively took over all government functions.
When President Hadi managed to flee for his life, the rebels chased him to Aden and ultimately forced him to seek refuge and help from Saudi Arabia. Six months later, in March 2015, a coalition of nations led by Saudi Arabia started military operations with the goals of restoring the legitimate government of Yemen and reopening peaceful negotiations between it and the Houthis.
A month later, the United Nations Security Council issued Resolution 2216, calling for the restoration of the government of President Hadi, the withdrawal of Houthi forces from Sana and other cities, and the handover of all heavy weapons to Yemen’s Army. The resolution also called for the resumption of the transitional political process.
Three years later, the situation in Yemen remains appalling. In the face of the worldwide condemnation declared in Resolution 2216, and with cholera and famine inflicting unimaginable suffering on the Yemeni people, the Houthis and their allies, who are supplied by Iran, remain defiant and insist on retaining their unlawful hold on power.
Efforts by the United Nations envoy Ismail Ould Cheikh Ahmed to bring about peace and resume the peaceful political evolution that started in 2011 remain stalled. Civilians continue to bear the brunt of the war. While the coalition forces have exercised maximum vigilance in their conduct of the air campaign, collateral damage inevitably takes place, aggravating the problems caused by famine and cholera. At the same time, the Houthis continue their relentless shelling of civilian targets, their recruitment of child soldiers and their frequent missile attacks against Saudi territory.
Throughout the world, concerned and sincere people are asking: What if the guns fell silent in Yemen? Wouldn’t we all be happy that peace had prevailed in this desperate land?
I wish I could say yes, but that question assumes the first of three fallacies about Yemen. If a cease-fire was implemented in Yemen, unconditionally and indefinitely, it would effectively consolidate the de facto partition of Yemen. We would have a theocratic regime modeled on Iran in the north, with a Hezbollah-type militia holding the reins of power. That part of Yemen would be isolated, at odds with Saudi Arabia, its biggest neighbor, and out of step with the region to which it claims to belong. And in southern Yemen, a weak government would take over, giving Al Qaeda and Daesh, another name for the Islamic State, a chance to expand and take root. This part of Yemen would be deprived of natural and human resources, the bulk of which lie in the North. This is not a recipe for sustained peace. A cease-fire without full implementation of Resolution 2216, which aims to establish democracy in a federally united Yemen, would be only a pause before a more violent phase of the conflict erupts.
What if all parties came together and sat around a table to negotiate their differences? Wouldn’t that be nice? Of course it would; however, this second fallacy ignores the fact that we have had no shortage of talks. We have had direct talks, indirect talks, public talks, private talks — talks in Yemen, in Saudi Arabia, in Oman, in Switzerland and for more than 100 days in Kuwait. We have had plenty of talks. The missing ingredient in all of them has been political will on the part of the Houthis to share power, hand over heavy weapons and withdraw from the capital and other major cities.
The Houthis, unfortunately, are guided by mystical beliefs that power must be held by a specific dynasty. It is the same belief that concentrates power in the hands of the supreme leader of the Islamic Revolution in Iran and that brought the Houthis to war six times in the past decade against Yemen’s central government.
The third fallacy is the assumption that Yemen is cholera-infested and famine-threatened. Yes, there is cholera, and yes there are famine-like conditions; but they are concentrated in an area, no larger than 20 percent of Yemeni territory, that is controlled by the Houthis. The problem in this area arises more from failures of management and distribution than from any lack of available humanitarian aid and supplies. The Houthis refuse to use all of the ports available there or the roads for the transfer of aid. They have even stopped paying salaries to doctors, nurses and civil servants in areas under their control.
So where do we go from here? Three simple steps are needed. The international community must insist on the full and immediate implementation of Resolution 2216. Iran must refrain from supplying weapons and materials to the Houthis. Humanitarian aid must be given unfettered access to all parts of Yemen, and access should be granted to the thousands of volunteers who are ready to risk their lives to save the lives of the proud and long-suffering Yemeni people.
The road to peace in Yemen is clear. The Houthis must choose between being an outlaw militia group or a legitimate political party. If they choose the second option, they would have a place at the negotiating table and in government. They could contest the forthcoming parliamentary and presidential elections. But at the same time, they would have to withdraw from Sana, hand over their heavy weapons to the national army and engage seriously in negotiations leading to a peaceful transition to a political solution for a united Yemen.
