New York Daily News By John Bolton Feb 08, 2021
Yemen’s long, bloody “civil war†— which has essentially become a proxy war between Iran and Gulf Arabs — is correctly seen as a humanitarian tragedy. Too many, however, including President Biden, mistakenly think that solving the tragedy requires blaming the wrong side, effectively exonerating the real culprits and their surrogates.
Biden said last week in his first presidential foreign-policy address that “we are ending all American support for offensive operations in the war in Yemen, including relevant arms sales.†This sounds significant, except that direct U.S. involvement ended with the 2018 suspension of in-flight refueling of Saudi air operations in Yemen.
Biden had already “paused†several pending weapons sales to Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, although these arms were always intended for general military purposes, not specifically for use in Yemen. Moreover, perhaps unwittingly, Biden’s ambiguous phrasing calls into question the separate U.S. campaign against Al Qaeda on the Arabian Peninsula, which threatens both Yemen and Saudi Arabia.
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https://www.nydailynews.com/opinion/ny-oped-bidens-bad-move-in-yemen-20210208-ksuazmjyknfkpbvujfkpafhnoq-story.html
