Yemen Has Become the Graveyard of the Obama Doctrine
A soldier looks through a hole in a building damaged after an airstrike by Saudi-led coalition in Sanaa, Yemen, Tuesday, Sept. 20, 2016.
By Samuel Oakford Journalist based in New York, The Atlantic Read bio
Peter Salisbury Associate fellow with Chatham House’s Middle East and North Africa Program, The Atlantic Read bio
September 23, 2016
The human costs of facilitating Saudi Arabia’s proxy war have been enormous, and there’s no end in sight.
This past Tuesday, President Barack Obama delivered his final speech to the United Nations General Assembly in New York. Though he tried to sound optimistic, he couldn’t help but strike a rueful tone. Gone was the global media darling who electrified world leaders in 2009—that Obama was “determined to act boldly and collectively on behalf of justice and prosperity at home and abroad.” The graying, deliberate Obama of 2016 could offer only limited aspirations of a “course correction” in world politics, while pondering why cycles of conflict and suffering persisted. Though the president advocated for the “hard work of diplomacy” in places like Syria, he also elaborated on one of his recent, common refrains, cautioning that in the Middle East “no external power is going to be able to force different religious communities or ethnic communities to co-exist for long.” Across the region, “we have to insist that all parties recognize a common humanity and that nations end proxy wars that fuel disorder,” Obama said.
http://www.defenseone.com/ideas/2016/09/yemen-has-become-graveyard-obama-doctrine/131794/?oref=d-channelriver
