The Price For Saudi Support On Iran Deal? U.S. Help In Yemen War

There will be plenty to discuss when King Salman of Saudi Arabia meets with President Obama at the White House on Friday, his first visit to the United States since taking the throne in January. There’s the looming nuclear deal with Iran which Congress is set to vote on next week. There’s the Islamic State, continuing to carve a brutal path across Syria and Iraq. Then there is the war in Yemen, a deadly and escalating conflict that, by comparison, has attracted limited attention in both the U.S. and abroad.

Since March, the kingdom has led an Arab coalition in an aggressive war against the Houthi rebels in Yemen, who Riyadh accuses of being proxies for regional rival Iran. The military campaign, conducted largely through a series of escalating airstrikes, has been a litmus test for Saudi influence and power in the region. With more than 6,000 civilians killed or maimed by the fighting to date, and millions more without food or medical aid, it has also been a humanitarian disaster, one which the U.S. says it must now confront head-on.

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The Saudi-led coalition has paired punishing airstrikes in Yemen with a naval blockade around the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden. It’s intended to stop the flow of arms to the Houthi rebels, Saudi officials claim. But human rights groups say it’s prevented humanitarian aid, including food and medical supllies, from entering the country, with devastating consequences. The United Nations warned last month that millions now face famine or starvation in Yemen and more than 15 million people lack access to basic health care. Joanne Liu, the head of Doctors Without Borders, said in an interview this week that the naval blockade was “killing” just as many civilians as the bombing campaign. “We see patients right now dying because they’re not getting their treatment” for common illnesses, she said. At least seven U.S. navy ships have patrolled the waters around Yemen since the war began, though military officials deny that they are directly participating in the naval blockade. Other reports suggest that U.S. officials “quietly tried to persuade” the Saudis to ease its embargo. To date, that has not happened. “There’s a real challenge here,” said David Weinberg, a Middle East analyst and senior fellow with the Foundation for Defense of Democracies. The U.S. is backstopping a Saudi-led embargo that’s creating human casualties.”

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