About that ceasefire…

As it turns out, that UN-brokered humanitarian ceasefire in Yemen that I wrote about on Friday never actually took hold. The reason why is so surreal that it would be funny if there were no body count attached to it:

A week-long pause in fighting was meant to have started on Saturday to allow humanitarian aid to be delivered, but the Arab coalition carrying out air raids said it had not been asked by Yemen’s exiled President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi, in whose name it is acting, to stop the three-month long bombing campaign.

Didn’t Hadi have to agree to the ceasefire? Did he lose his iPhone charger or something? I mean, we’re not talking about calling in a pizza order; this is actually serious. If Hadi agreed to the ceasefire and then forgot to let his buds know, then he’s got to be held liable for that failure. If he did let his buds know and they just ignored him, then he’s not really even the theoretical president of Yemen anymore, is he? Either way I don’t see how he can remain at the negotiating table and still be considered a good faith actor.

The death toll from Yemen’s civil war is now north of 3000, about half of them civilians, and since Yemen imports the vast majority of its food, the ongoing coalition blockade has left the country on the verge of famine. Forces loyal to Hadi successfully recaptured the airport in Aden today, but at this point every battlefield success that Hadi’s forces achieve simply means that the fighting will go on and the 80% of Yemen’s 25 million people who need humanitarian assistance will continue to suffer.

The only undisputed winner in this whole mess has been Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula. Brookings’s Bruce Reidel finds it “odd” that the Saudis have explicitly avoided striking AQAP targets since their coalition air campaign began several months ago, but the real problem is that it may not be that odd at all. For the Saudis, a stronger and more secure AQAP is less of a threat (as they see it) than the Houthis, and despite the fact that AQAP is far more of a threat to the US than the Houthis ever could be, we continue to help the Saudis help AQAP. How does this make any sense?

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