US-Saudi Aggression Should Stop, Not Have Commenced: Newsweek
The Newsweek website published an article for the writer Tom O’Connor in which he wrote that President Joe Biden has taken an early initiative to ease U.S. participation in the war in Yemen and shift efforts toward finding a diplomatic solution.
“While efforts to cease U.S. support were suppressed under former President Donald Trump, the Biden administration just weeks into office has suspended offensive aid for the Saudi-led war effort”, he added.
“In my view, the Biden administration believes that a successful effort to end the fighting in Yemen and return to a political process there can contribute directly to overall reduction of tensions in the region,” Gerald Feierstein, a former U.S. ambassador to Yemen who serves today as senior vice president of the Middle East Institute, told Newsweek.
Yemen’s warring sides have, predictably, expressed opposite reactions to Biden’s Yemen policies. The Hadi government has sought robust U.S. assistance for its ally and primary supporter, Saudi Arabia.
“The true position as it relates to Yemen is to stop the war and lift the siege,” Ansarullah spokesperson Mohammad Abdulsalam recently told Newsweek. “This will address all the negative humanitarian and military effects and will allow the Yemeni political process to begin.”
The United Nations and a number of humanitarian groups involved in aid to victims of the conflict agree that an expeditious end to hostilities is the only way to alleviate the suffering of millions of Yemenis and bring stability to a nation also afflicted with poverty, sickness and famine.
Griffith in Iran
In a bid to advance this approach, U.N. Special Envoy for Yemen Martin Grifftih traveled to Tehran this past week to discuss the situation with Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif.
The two “discussed the urgent need to make progress towards a nationwide ceasefire, the opening of Sana’a airport and the easing of restrictions on Hudaydah ports,” and the U.N. official “welcomed the expression of Iran’s support towards the U.N.’s efforts to end the conflict in Yemen,” according to a readout sent to Newsweek by Griffith’s office.
Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Pouya Alimagham, an author and Middle East historian, joined the global calls for action on Yemen. He argued that Washington should press Riyadh and Abu Dhabi to halt the conflict, regardless of the pace of JCPOA dealings.
“The Saudi-Emirate war has not yielded any political results, and has instead only fostered the world’s worst humanitarian crisis in the region’s poorest nation,” Alimagham told Newsweek. “In that vein, there is simply no reason as to why the war should continue. Every indicator suggests that it should not have commenced in the first place, and should have ended long ago at the least.”