YAL Media Ambassador

The Civil War in Yemen has been a humanitarian disaster, and a new senate bill could end U.S. support for it.

For the past 14 years, the internationally recognized government of Yemen has been fighting on and off with Houthi rebels in a civil war that has caused almost 3,000 casualties and resulted in 2.4 million displaced persons. Neighboring gulf states have been aiding the Yemeni government as well as a coalition of international actors, including the United States

“It looks like the apocalypse,” said U.N. Aid Chief Mark Lowcock while describing the situation in Yemen.

Despite regional and international help, the war has dragged on and continues to claim more lives and money. The United States should seek to limit its involvement in this conflict because of the monetary costs, the costs to Yemen, and the unintended consequences that this civil war has created.

In the coming weeks, the U.S. Senate will have just the opportunity to severely limit its support of Saudi Arabian involvement in Yemen’s civil war, which may lead to complete U.S. separation from the conflict.

The Senate will vote on a radical bipartisan bill proposing congressional approval, rather than executive approval, in advance of any future financial support for Saudi strikes against Yemen. Presidential support for Saudi Arabia is already illegal without congressional approval under the War Powers Resolution. This bill is a step in the right foreign policy direction to end U.S. involvement in conflicts that always have escalating costs and unintended consequences.

U.S. direct aid to Saudi Arabia already totals over $700,000 per year, as well as the current cost of refueling and targeting assistance for Saudi aircrafts. President Donald Trump seeks to expand this military relationship with Saudi Arabia, stating in early March that he had just signed a multi-billion dollar arms deal with Saudi Arabia. The deal would be worth $350 billion over the next 10 years. The deal will be in the form of aid money and private contracts with other U.S. arms manufacturers in exchange for weapons.

This push to increase the strength of the Saudi military has come with an attempt to check the power of Iran and other Middle Eastern players who are enemies of the U.S. Seeing as the Saudis have not been able to end the 14 year civil war in Yemen with the United States’ help, another $350 billion deal will not prove to be any more fruitful in stabilizing the region.

Just as in Vietnam, military costs and aid expenditures always continue to increase. This is how the situation is playing out in Saudi Arabia.

Besides the obvious financial costs that the spring from an arms deal with Saudi Arabia to help stabilize in the Middle East, the United States’ support of Saudi Arabia has had severe unintentional costs for the Yemeni people, like the high death toll and its ripple effect.

The multitude of deaths and displacements caused by the war have sparked an investigation by Human Rights Watch (HRW) into the war crimes of allied and Houthi rebel forces. Both allied and rebel forces have restricted human rights advocates from traveling to Yemen.

Furthermore, Yemen, the poorest country in the Middle East, now has one-third of its population at risk of famine, with a massive cholera outbreak brewing. U.S. support of Saudi Arabia prolongs the conflict, and, thereby, the unintentional suffering of the Yemeni people.

Not only has prolonged involvement in the civil war in Yemen created a humanitarian crisis, it has also led to the expansion of Al-Queda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP).  The power vacuum of the civil war has created an environment in which AQAP has thrived, even allowing for AQAP’s capture of the entire port city of Mukalla in 2016.

As seen in Syria with the growth of ISIS, U.S. aid to Saudi Arabia intended to add stability has actually helped destabilize the region and fostered the growth of a terrorist organization.

Clearly, U.S. intervention in Yemen has created a disaster for the Yemeni people and a growth opportunity for AQAP, though neither outcome is intentional. The bipartisan bill up for Senate vote would curtail executive powers to continue these unintended outcomes by redefining U.S. involvement according to the War Powers Resolution, thereby putting the power back with Congress, where it legally belongs, to intentionally act on behalf of the United States and its interests abroad.