 Hey, good morning everyone. I'm Fred Wary, I'm a senior associate in the Middle East program here at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. Thank you for joining us today. For this panel on the Yemen conflict, is there an end in sight? We're very pleased to be hosting this panel. And I really want to acknowledge the help of our co-sponsors in facilitating this event. Yemeniati and the Sanaa Center for Strategic Studies. Now, of course, we're all aware of the Yemen conflict. It's a tremendous humanitarian toll. It's tremendous geopolitical implications. The conflict started in March 2015. I think we can predate its roots earlier than that. I think its roots are ultimately local, rooted in governance, rooted in center periphery tensions within Yemen. Also, there's a sectarian dimension, but I think that's been overplayed quite a bit. But very quickly, this conflict, as we know, has taken on enormous significance, geopolitical significance. It's also had profoundly dire implications for the coherence of the Yemen state. And does this state still exist? And of course, we're also seeing the rise of radical actors as one result of this conflict. And finally, it presents an enormous policy dilemma, as we've seen recently, for America. And America has, in some sense, become a party to the conflict recently. We're very fortunate to have two guests with us to discuss these issues. And in sort of framing the policy or the discussion, the analytical discussion, we wanted to keep it squarely focused on Yemen, on the situation on the ground, on the tremendous humanitarian toll, on the political dynamics on the ground. But we also wanted to bring in a US policy perspective. And of course, the Gulf perspective, as the Saudis are a key party to this conflict. Our first guest, and we're very pleased to have him join us from overseas, is a Carnegie non-resident fellow. And I think we're really blessed at Carnegie to have this wealth of expertise where we draw upon very bright young Arab scholars from the region with enormous on-the-ground expertise. For real, Muslemy is the co-founder of the Sana'a Center for Strategic Studies. I think he's certainly not a stranger to most of you. Really one of the most, I think, nuanced and objective and informed students of Yemen. And of course, we're also extremely fortunate to have someone else who's not a stranger to all of you, Ambassador Barbara Baudin. I think one of America's premier policy practitioners in Yemen. She's currently the director of the Institute for the Study of Diplomacy at Georgetown University. And of course, she's the former United States Ambassador to Yemen. And with that, I think we agreed we'll turn it over to you to start out. Bring us up to date on the conflict. Sort of set the stage for the context. And then I think bring in the US policy dilemmas. I should warn you that I teach a class on Yemen, and it's 13 weeks long. So I'm going to do my very best to give you the short version. First of all, thank you very much for this invitation and for being able to share the stage with someone who can give us the on-the-ground perspective. And also for bringing some more attention to the conflict in Yemen. About a year ago, I did a similar kind of conference. And somebody asked me why Yemen was the forgotten war. And I said, it's not forgotten because no one ever knew about it. You only forget what you once knew. It has been a conflict that has generated almost no attention here in the United States. And some of that is for obvious reasons. We have a presidential campaign that is sucking all the oxygen out of every conversation. And there is the very real conflict in Syria and Iraq. And that has been going on much longer and really does demand our attention. But I do think that we should be able to manage proper attention and proper thought and proper policy towards more than one crisis at a time. I would agree with you that it is primarily local. And it needs to be seen as a local civil war with an external player. I would also agree that the sectarian element is dramatically overblown and distorts the conversation about what is going on and why and what the possible outcomes can be. I think I heard you say that the US has only become a party to the conflict recently. And I would say that we have been a party to this conflict since day one. Our involvement has only become public fairly recently. But we were there at the beginning. And then finally I was involved with another war in the Middle East that had the tagline, no end in sight. So I hope that we're not revisiting that. I think most people do count this as starting on March 25, 2015, when the Saudi Air Campaign began. And in many ways, to really understand this conflict and the dynamics and also what drives US policy and how this conflict may end, we have to recognize that there is a very significant Saudi domestic component to what's going on. Yemen has always been considered a domestic political issue in Saudi Arabia, not a foreign policy issue. And at the same time, it is no secret that there is significant jockeying for position between Muhammad bin Naif and Muhammad bin Salman, the two crown princes. And I think that that has serious repercussions for what we're talking about. I should put in a disclaimer that I am not a part of the Saudi decision-making process. And I'm not part of the US decision-making process any longer. Just a very, very brief background. Yemen was hit by the Arab Spring, like many other countries in the region. Although its demonstrations were largely peaceful, and although it did end up with the president being deposed, it was primarily a negotiated transition transfer of power. He was not shot in a drainage pipe. It was followed the Constitution. It was followed by a remarkably representative, albeit not perfect, but a remarkably representative national dialogue conference that went on for many months as they were discussing what is the social contract and what is going to be the structure of the government. And I cannot imagine 565 Americans doing something comparable right now. But in September 2013, the process began to stall. The Constitution wasn't moving forward. The elections were delayed. And there started to be an increasing sense of frustration within Yemen. The Hadi government, which was a transition government. He had been the vice president. Wasn't taking major decisions. The economy was stalling. Everything was just drifting. And a year later, at the end of the extension of the Hadi government, the Houthi swept into Sana'a. The Houthi, by the way, are what my academic colleagues call a fictive kinship group. In other words, they are not a tribe, an ethnic group, a religion, a linguistic group. The more common phrase for a fictive kinship group is it's a bunch of guys. And they're held together by a vision of what they want to do. But they do not have an ideology, per se. They are not religious extremists. And so where you would put the, I don't know, you can't quite put them on a political spectrum. They just didn't like the way the government was going. And they had been part of Change Square. And they had been part of the national dialogue. They had demanded a more technocratic cabinet. The cabinet under the transition government was feckless, even by some Yemeni standards. And a very good technocratic cabinet came in. And there was a national partnership plan. Exactly how consensual it was on both sides, you know, it was open to debate. But there was some kind of a plan. And I will, sort of as a sidebar, that spring, the US government hosted a delegation of Yemenis here to sign a public-private partnership on development. And they had business people, the ruling party representatives, and some Houthis. And so there was a sense that this was awkward, imperfect, fragile, but maybe might actually work in the way that things do there. Unfortunately, by January it unraveled. I think one of the great questions that I don't know the answer to is exactly why in January it unraveled as badly as it did. And by March, the Hathi government or Hathi was in Aden in kind of an internal exile. And the Houthis were sweeping south. And I don't, I can't speak for the Houthis. First of all, they operated in sort of local groups. And so it, again, don't think of an organized, ideologically driven structure. But they got to Aden. And someone has described that as the dog that caught the mail truck. They suddenly had control of most of Yemen in a very, very short period of time without any structure, expertise, or anything else to run it. The Saudi action came very late in all of this. The Saudis were truly concerned about the Houthi and the Iranian influence. They had September of 2014 when the Houthis came into Sana'a. They had January when Hathi was put under house arrest. They had any number of times. I think this is where the Saudi dynamic comes in, is that in the middle of all of this, King Abdullah died in January. And when Abdullah died, King Salman came in. Yet one other son of Abdul Aziz was the first Crown Prince. But there was this very quick jockeying where the brother was forced out. And two cousins are now the two Crown Princes, first and second Crown Prince. And the second Crown Prince is the son of the king. And he's very young. He's very ambitious. He is not accountable to anybody but his father in many ways. And there is a sense that he needed to prove himself. And that Saudi Arabia needed a rally. And so the Saudis went in in late March. And it surprised everybody. I think it surprised the hell of a lot of us here. I think that they thought that they could go in with probably one of the most sophisticated air forces in the Arab world against one of the poorest, against the poorest country in the Arab world. And in two weeks of shock and awe, afraid some of you may recall, the Houthis who are just a ragtag bunch of insurgents would collapse and the Hadi government would come back. And everything would be right in Yemen and in the kingdom. It hasn't worked that way. The Saudis announced a coalition, which was more on paper than for real. The Emiratis have been very much there. But others have been less so. Let me just, before I quite get into this, one question I've been asked a number of times is, would everything be fine in Yemen if the Saudis had not come in? Counterfactuals are always very hard. I would say there probably would have been a lot of fighting in Yemen. There probably would have been a civil war. The Houthis were not universally supported. There's a lot of regional tension in the country, a lot of divisions. But you may very well have had a civil war. It would not have been on the scale of the Saudi intervention because the Saudis brought in, again, this air force. The Saudis say that they are having a proxy war with Iran. They're very open about the fact this is a proxy war in Yemen. Interestingly, the Iranians are there. But the Iranians did not create the Houthis. The Houthis are not Iranian puppets. They are not a creation of Iran. And while Iran provides some support, it has been actually very minimal over the last 18 months. If the Iranians were really serious about this, they would have provided the Houthis with sophisticated surface-to-air weapons to balance out the Saudi air force. And they have not. There is kind of a circular firing squad going on in Yemen. And I'm not going to take you through all of the various players on all of the various sides. But it's an odd collection of allies on both sides of this fight that make almost no sense to those of us in Yemen. What is the US role in all of this? We have been part and parcel of this war since the beginning. We helped push through UN Security Council Resolution 2216, which is the one that is brought up all the time. And it's a rather odd, even for Security Council Resolutions, it's rather odd because it demands that the Houthis, as a precondition for negotiation, disarm and leave all the major cities. So basically, they're asked to capitulate before they get to the negotiating table. And whether or not whatever side you're on, negotiation 101 at any university is that it doesn't work that way. The US has supported the Saudis and the other coalition partners politically, publicly, diplomatically. Militarily, we are restocking the Saudis at a very lucrative rate. More importantly, we have people in the Saudi Air Force headquarters. And they say there, and I believe that when they say they're not providing actual targeting, but they have done, for example, do not hit list, which the Saudis don't seem to be reading very closely. We are actually flying, refueling for the Saudi Air Force. And that takes us to a level of complicity. We are not just, this is not a diplomatic issue for us. We are actively supporting this air campaign. At the same time, the State Department, Secretary Kerry and others, and increasingly up in the UN, are pushing very hard for a ceasefire, a cessation from April to August. There was a real effort at a peace agreement. And so we're working on two sides of this issue simultaneously. And it's rather confusing to everyone which one was going to work. We have our own particular interests. Not so much the Hadi government versus the Houthi. I think everyone agrees that Ali Abdullah Saleh should not come back. But I think, again, if you're looking at the timing, why did we support the Saudis so fully when they decided to go into Yemen? And I think we have to look at the Iran nuclear deal. The Iran nuclear deal in many ways is President Obama's foreign policy jewel in the crown. It is the most important agreement that I think he's made. And that has to be preserved. And I think the initial thinking was that we would support the Saudis. The president said when he announced the deal that he had assured King Salman that we would support their security interests. And I think this is how we got into this. We need the Saudis for the Iran deal. Nobody anticipated this would last 18 months. No one anticipated the level of carnage. And now we are complicit in a fragile state being turned into a shattered state. The end game is going to have to be political. There is going to have to be power sharing. The question is, what can the Saudis settle for beyond just border security? What is the role of Hadi, the transition president? Who is actually going to rebuild this country? It's going to, in the last spring, the World Bank estimated it would be $100 billion. And that was last spring. The X factor in any deal is going to be what happens to Ali Abbasala. You can't leave him there because he's politically too smart. He probably won't go into exile. And no one will talk about what often sees with that. So we have, the Saudis have a quagmire. And we have mud all over us. That, I think your work's cut out for you. Faria, let me take us back to the headline of this panel. I mean, you've been following this country. It's your country. Is there an end in sight? I mean, do you see any movement toward resolution among the combatants, among regional powers? I mean, the short answer to that is no. And we can save your time and mine. But I think there are few things. If being done, we can see a peace happening. But these Fs are among the biggest Fs in the world right now. But let me go back a bit and step to redefine, I think, when is the time this war started? While many people argue it's March 25, and that is true in the sense that it became regional by that time, I think it goes back much before that. Some would argue that it goes back to September 21st when the Horties took the capital by force, and that is highly true. But I think there were two milestones before that, that ultimately that September 21st and March 25th were only a natural consequences of these two points. One point was June 2013, when the government removed the oil subsidies by a strong recommendation from IMF and World Bank. For some reason, I think some international organizations don't realize that sometimes subsidies are better than wars, at least sometimes. That's a good line. That's a very good line. And that was, there was a very unthoughtful decision to remove oil subsidies and to give more money to a corrupt government, a government that, according to foreign policy, the level of corruption would make Hamid Karazai blush. But before that, there was another step, which was, I think, the GCC did by itself. The GCC did by itself was kind of a practical move forward, but it has one component that it would not take a rocket scientist to realize that it will be a problematic very soon. And that was the immunity. And it was not the idea of the immunity itself, because you might be a practical and say, we needed to move forward and so on. But it was the idea of an unconditional immunity. It's set up for the legacy to do whatever you want, as long as to do whatever you want without being held accountable. What you had with the immunity and the GCC deal is, the whole GCC deal, I think, was an idea that delayed Yemeni civil wars rather than actually ended it. In many ways, it actually fueled it. And that was a huge problematic deal. It had tried to trade justice for security and it ended up losing both. And that was a huge problem with that. Then, you know, Saleh did not transfer power. He transferred the presidency. Yes. And there is a quite difference between the two of them in a country like Yemen. He handed over presidency, but he never really handed over power. Added to that is you had a very incapable new leadership, you know, very fragile, pearly. I mean, you would count into, and that was a leadership of the Hadi government and everyone else that was so obsessed with how the internationals look into them more than what Yemen is. At one point, during the three years of Hadi to power, he met, I think, one time or twice with his party. And sometimes he would meet four times with the Jitan ambassador in Sana'a. It was not a Yemeni-led problem or a Yemeni-led, you know, something focused on Yemen. So that was the beginning of the issue. But it was a political process. You know, it was a fraud political process, but it was a political process, ultimately. Then comes 21st of September. And that ended the political path, whether it was a fraud or right, but it basically ended it. And then people changed the kumbiliti the way they understand power in Yemen. You know, before that was, how can we change the division of regions? How can we, you know, have better government? How can we increase things or decrease things? But post-21st of September, the whole question that was redefined is, are we still a republic? We went back to basics in so many ways. Everything that was there just went going much, much, much back forward. The political process also that was happening under the support of the United Nations was one that did not condition political decadence for leaving weapons. So you had a group like the Houthis, you know, they had, you know, they were with their right hand, they were doing politics, and with their left hand, they were getting an AK-47. And they were left handed. And it's something no one really realized. And if there is one thing that this group is actually at, is good at, and it's actually worse. And that's why I think that the Saudis will never be able to fight the Houthis the hour. There is one simple thing that the Houthis are good at, it's fighting. And if there is one thing they will always win, it's actually war. And this is a group since its emergence, it has done nothing more than wars. But that was, I think, the beginning of it. In March 21st, you know, many would argue that probably the Saudis had to go into Yemen. You know, they were humiliated by that folders. But I think they were triggered not mostly by Saleh, by the Houthi-Iran alliances as much as they were triggered by the Saleh-Iran alliances. They are more angry about that than they are actually angry about the Houthi-Iranian relationship. Now, some would argue that probably they had no choice by that time except to go into war. But no one can argue that the way they have been conducting this war is the right way. Not even close to that. You know, basically the whole campaign of the Saudis is more of bombing the forest to get the snake out. And the forest is full of 25 million people. Very unthoughtful decision and very unthoughtful way of doing that. Today, I mean, 18 months later, you know, Yemen is a fragmented, destroyed, we have one of the biggest human catastrophe on earth. And it's a human-made humanitarian crisis. We have more than 21 million people are in the need of humanitarian aid. But more importantly is the Houthis are not weaker. And Iran is not less essential to the Houthis actually. In fact, it is much more essential to them than it was in the past. And there has been always this exaggeration. I think, you know, it's completely ridiculous to dismiss the Houthi-Iranian alliances, but it is another ridiculous to completely exaggerate it. And if to put this in context, if Iran tomorrow ditches Houthis completely, how long do they have in power? Maybe a year, maybe two. If Saudi ditches Hadi, how long does he have in power? That's four hours. Yeah, four hours. That is the essentiality of this, huh? But anyway, what led into that was a combination of a fraud-political process that was obsessed by the US and by the UN. There was, you know, everyone, especially the international community, failed in Syria, failed in Libya. There was obsession to look for a makeup homework in Arab-Spurring countries. And Yemen was the easy case for that. We will agree and we will come, even the Russians and the US, the UN Security Council would argue and fight a lot about Syria, but in Yemen it was something like that. It was our makeup homework. And there was a consensus about that in too many ways. But there were other things. There was incapable government, and there was something post-Arab-Spurring is also the Muslim Brotherhood. They came to power with a very expensive revolutionary invoice. They wanted jobs, they wanted power, they wanted everything that had been not getting as much as they wanted. There was, whether you speak of the Haris or of the Slah or of these folks around, there was, you know, they didn't want to share power or divide power between them. They wanted to divide the state between them. There is a big difference between that. Therefore, they started cutting the state instead of cutting the power foundation. That was very dangerous, I think, into that. Now, you know, 18 months into the war, it's obviously devastating. Clearly, the Saudis did not do their homework before going into Yemen. They thought that this was a Sunday thing. We're gonna go and we're gonna get out and somebody like that. Sometimes I feel they were set up. I do not know. But beyond that, even with this whole crisis that had been happening since then, there has been few things. One, and I think they are more dangerous than the war itself. The one is the last step done by the government abroad which is the reallocation of the central bank from Sana'a into Aden. This step is more dangerous than the war itself. That was the last functioning state institution in Yemen. It was the one thing that is actually keeping this place together. It used to pay salaries in Aden, in Sana'a. It used to pay salaries for both sides of the conflict. It used to, and this was a problem is you're not really destroying the Houthi as much as you're destroying Yemen. And that is probably the biggest thing happening or the worst thing I think happening right now. We're already in a famine in many ways. We're already in a huge radicalization happening in the country due to the war. And this is, I mean, short words, and probably America knows this from Iraq. Short words are changed regimes, but long words change societies. And this is the most dangerous thing in Yemen right now. It's changing the whole idea of the whole concept Yemen is re-identified with each other. Beyond that, it's making them more radical. So you have, you know, the Muslim Brotherhoods are now Salafis. The Salafis are now part-time Qaeda. The Qaeda are now ISIS. And then, you know, those who were with Salih are Houthis. And then those who were socialists in the North are, you know, hardcore separatists. And that's the problem that is happening. Obviously, since the beginning of the war, it was Yemen was almost like a tip or a makeup thing given by the Obama administration to the Saudis to maintain, as you said, very correctly, the Iran deal. It was more of, you know, daddy is talking to Iran to play with Yemen until I'm done. It was this whole set of mind. It's an easy country. It's a low cost. And it's even a low cost for Iran. Iran would be the throw one cent in Yemen. The Saudis would throw one million dollars. What a best way. It got really nothing to lose. Contrary to the Saudis who have a lot to lose in Yemen and who has been, for decades, sometimes have been more influential than the Yemeni government itself. The most problematic of this, you know, and all of these aspects was against Salih. But Salih was not alone. Even since post-2011, he still was supported by some DCCB countries. And he was still getting money. Some of his people were still getting money. And even the Houthis, there was this regional rise, you know, of fear of the Muslim Brotherhoods that let many regional countries, if I wouldn't say facilitate, but even cheer up the takeover of Sana'a by the Houthis. It was very naive short-term thinking. They think they will go get rid of the Muslim Brotherhoods and they will go back to Sa'ada. Easier said than actually done. Something that would have never happened. Since then and before then, and in fact, and if you step back again to 2011, the Saudis are not the first one to bomb Yemen. They are just following the legacy of the United States of America. And even right now, when you argue with Saudis, they will say, well, we're not the first one to bomb Yemen. The Americans have been doing it, you know, since the big group. They've been doing it since 2001, 2002, you know, very correctly, and it has been a path that has been set by the United States and by the Western countries. I said, if it's not equivalent. Yeah, yeah, I mean, it's something, I just speak the same language, at least we're neighbors, you know. Why, if America is to bomb Yemen, why shouldn't we bomb it in many ways? The U.S. continues to say that Yemen is not a blank check, but it apparently is actually, unfortunately. And I think even the current announcement to revise or to review the whole support of the Saudis is actually just more of an attempt to wash, you know, the U.S. hands off rather than to really review it. Because it's like whatever is already being given or done to the Saudis to do the war in Yemen is already there and it's not something that's gonna go any time soon or gonna be changed soon. There are, I think, however, few things that could have been done or could been done even today that would help, you know, taking Yemen toward peace in a way or another. First, the country should be, the Yemen war should be separate from all other wars in the region. It should not be a part of the regional complex of Syria or Libya, you know. It should be stayed out. This is a conflict that's not sectarian. It is getting sectarian slowly, but it's not Syria, it's not Libya, and it must be dealt with differently. No one can afford that. Beyond that, if we go back a little bit to the unconditional immunity that was given to Saleh and the legacy of unaccountability that was given in Yemen, also inspired by Bashar's ability in Syria to stay in power even on a very bloody cost that actually inspired Saleh a lot. Even, you know, these problems that we're building on in the matter of unaccountability were added into last year when the U.S., the U.K. blocked the creation of an international community to investigate human rights in Geneva. You know, you cannot basically claim you're supporting the legitimacy of Yemen and you blocked an investigative committee to human rights. This is problematic because you're not really defending the Saudis, you're not really defending yourself, but you're actually giving more reasons to the Houthis and to Saleh to do whatever they want. They have done brutal attacks in Yemen, especially the Houthis in time. It's coming through a huge siege, huh? And this is a group that has no accountability, that has no sense of responsibility and that basically whatever it wants to get power. And what when you do, when you block an international committee to investigate human rights, you're not really supporting or protecting the Saudis as much as you are protecting the Houthis. And that is something that must be let go or must be let happen. Even today, despite the war, you know, despite the fact that theoretically the U.S. is in a war with the Houthis and Saleh, it is still have a huge contact with them in many ways. And it is still actually have an leverage over the Houthis actually, contrary to what's being said publicly or what's being assumed. There is communication between Saleh and the Americans right now and that they can use actually to leverage obviously in addition to that with the Saudis. Most importantly is I think we need to worry that the coalition itself will collapse if it stays for long time in the war in Yemen. UAE has a very different agenda in Yemen than the Saudis. So you know, and that if the war continues, they will not just have a different agendas but they will have a very different priorities. One last thing I would say is, and I think this is not just in Yemen, this is in Syria, this is in Libya and everywhere in the region is we're really running out of brokers. In 2011, one of the reasons why the GCC deal was or came into reality is because the Saudis and the whole Gulf countries had a leverage over everyone in Yemen. And I still think they do it to a certain point. Today they are part of the problems. There is no more dealers, there is no more brokers and that's dangerous. There is one country that I think that can play more into it, into peace in Yemen and that the United States should support more which is Oman. 18 months later into the war in Yemen, it is clearer more than ever that the road to peace in Yemen goes through most parts. I mean I would stop by there and then I'm done. Okay, thank you, that was wonderful. So we're going to turn it over to questions. We'll take three at a time. Please introduce yourself when you ask a question. Hello, thank you for this important discussion. My name is Sumea Nijthub. I'm a grad student at George Washington University. You mentioned the question of the republic. So do you think that Yemen is heading towards separation north and the south? I think the- We're going to take three at a time, just so we save time. That's much better. Yeah, yeah. So I can get that way also with questions I don't like. Thank you very much for a very interesting briefing. Benjamin Iskaya from the Embassy of Sweden. I would like to ask the question. You touched upon that during your presentation but what duty hooties really want? Hmm. I think that's for us at least key in understanding, you know, if we're going to try to fire away forward, we need to know that answer. Thank you. Are they not, for example, the danger here or- On the separation question, let me ask you that because you mentioned social contracting here. Right. And where is this heading? Is it going to dissolve or- Yeah. That's, there is a, I think my, there is a problem. There is always a possibility that the state could fracture. One of the issues is what would be the line? Where would it be? The old 1990 line was highly artificial. It was the only one that truly was. If you're looking at sectarian issues, you know, most of the shoppies actually live north of the line. The south, you know, the south was a very strange combination of a British crown colony and 19th century sultanates. So if it were going to divide, the question is where would be the lines? And that's not clear at all. The idea that it would go back to the 1990 lines I don't really think is viable. And I don't think it would solve the problem. So if, you know, if you started to get a north-south split somewhere, then what happens to the Hadramal? You know, there's too many while it wasn't, it wasn't well done. And as part of the slide towards chaos, the discussion on the super-regionals at the end of the national dialogue, where they came up with five super-regionals, which is a odd idea, but one of the problems was that nobody could even figure out where you would divide it up if you did it five different ways. One of the ironies is that it was always considered that if the state did break up that the conventional traditional legitimate government would be in Sana'a and then whatever broke away would be based in Aden. And the way it's actually looking now is that you could actually, and if it did split into, you would end up with the Houthis in Sana'a and what's left of the Hadi government in the south. So it's a flip-flop of what everyone thought. I guess personally, I don't think it will divide that this is essentially a power struggle. It is a struggle, basically, there are Southerners who want this to see, but I'm gonna put them aside. It is basically a struggle for who controls the country and you don't really have, as I said, the Houthis are not a linguistic or anything else group. So I think that this is a struggle for all of Yemen and however the peace is finally agreed to, it's still going to be very fragile. There are gonna be deep regional differences and deep regional rivalries, but I personally don't see it actually fragmented. If it were to do that, we would end up with a collection of very failed states and a lot of the average Yemeni would be that much worse. What do the Houthis want? I don't think I know and I don't think they know themselves. There has been something everyone have been trying to figure for a long time. I will lie if I say I really know, I really have no idea. I mean the Houthis are a pretty problematic group that finds a lot of comfort zone and a lot of peace in wars. It is the one thing they can do and it is the one thing that they have been doing for a long time. However, I do think that the Houthis would have not come to power have we had an effective government. I don't think that we would have been taken, the capital have we had a president who wakes up before noon for the last three years. These are all combination of issues that came into that. But there is, and this goes back to your question about the Republic. I think there is overall fear that for poor centuries Yemen was ruled by the center, Azadi monarchy and a lot of Yemenis have recently fear that the Houthis are some sort of a new update version of that. Don't think that's exactly true, but it has some elements of concern by the rest of the country. When it comes to two Yemenis, I think the biggest problem right now is what was a nightmare is now a dream. Two Yemenis is probably one of the best thing that can happen in many ways. I don't think it will be the lines of 1990, but it will be different visions. The Yemen we know is gone. I mean, I was born in 1990 and I don't know how it was before, but I think the one we knew is gone actually, in that structure, in that format. The problem is that could have been saved via a thoughtful division of freedomism, but the division of freedomism, the freedomism. But it was a pretty hush, pretty Russia process that was done by three, in three days or in third days in the president, you do not divide the supermarket in one week, let alone a country. And it had the sectarian element within it. You would put the Zaidis all in Azal in one region, something like that. And this is a group who has a lot of guns. You don't corner a cat with a bomb in the corner. And that was what happened actually with the divisions of regions for some time. Why Iran is not giving the Houthis missiles? I'm not sure they are not, I don't know. But one thing I want to think about it is also Iran, I think, is trying to use the Houthis actually more than it actually likes them. It's not happy with a non-twelfth Shi'at power in the Arab world. That's not completely its version. It is by the overall association with it, a group that is pro Iran and so on. But at the same time, I don't think it would really like to see the Houthis as a strong Yemeni entity as they started. And it used them more than it supported them. At the same time, if you're in a country like Yemen where the Gulf and the U.S. as part of the counterterrorism have given you a lot of guns and a lot of missiles for the last 30 years, why would you need guns from Iran? There are 68 million weapons right now in Yemen, the AK-47s, before this last war started. That's three guns for every child, three guns for every man, three guns for every woman. It wouldn't be that in the need of that sense. If I can just jump in on the Iranian thing, because I think I agree that domestically with what he said. And there has not been a great deal of empirical evidence of major weapons systems going in. I think for the Iranians, this is a, from a strategic point of view, this is fabulous soil. Because to the extent that this, particularly the Saudis are tied down in Yemen, most of their military bandwidth is going there, a lot of their political bandwidth is going there, a lot of their money, huge amounts of money are going there. To the extent that the Saudis are facing south with everything that they've got, they're not really as engaged in Syria as we would like them to be. And so I agree that the Houthis go back to 2004 and they were not an Iranian idea. They are Fivers and not Twelvers, which some of you will understand, but it's not sectarian. They came very late to this. And I think a lot of the Iranian boogeyman is as much in Riyadh's eyes as it was, in fact, on the ground. It is becoming sectarianized, but it is not sectarian the way we know it in Lebanon or Syria or Iraq. And that is an optic that I very much try to get people to take out of the Yemeni equation. And even today, I think the main difference in Yemen between Shafi'is and Saudis is these shoes cut in the right and those shoes cut in the left. It's not as in Syria that deeply that's rooted in many ways. At the same time also, and again, this adds into the idea of how low-cost Yemen for Iran is, until recently it was not really involved directly with the Houthis as much as it actually offshored them to Hezbollah. And in fact, to a huge point what they spent, sometimes in few Lebanese politicians is so much more than they spend on all of their allies in Yemen, including the Houthis actually. Kerry Diner with Mercy Corps. My question is around the movement of the central bank. I think it's safe to say that as a humanitarian organization, we're seeing the movement of the bank and the collapse of the bank as one of the biggest challenges to our programming right now. It affects every aspect of our work. What we're struggling with are some recommendations that we can carry forward, and I'm interested in your perspectives on that. What do you mean exactly? Well, I mean. Now that it's moved, what's next? I mean, I- We'll take two. Okay, sorry, absolutely. Hi, Edward Prado, Samadist. I'd like to know if you could both comment on given the regional realities and alliances of what the US role should be in this conflict. Hi, I'm Tim McKeddy with Conflict Armament Research. You mentioned the motivations of the UAE differ from the Saudis. I was wondering if you could, in your opinion, what are the key motivating factors, the objectives and interests that the MRIs have in the South and the country as a whole? Movement of the central bank. I mean, we're both very fascinating. I mean, I recall the conference that we were at where there were many of your colleagues from other organizations before the move and the very real crippling effect that the blockade of funds going into the central bank was already causing aid agencies, Yemeni civil servants, and was actually driving the famine as much as the destruction in the blockade of the ports. And when they did finally move it to Aden, I know that many people who were watching what was going on both in the government and outside really did see this as a further crippling of both the Haudy government and our ability to address the humanitarian. I don't know quite what can and is being done. I know that it was a decision by Haudy that got an awful lot of attention, none of it positive. I don't know what the steps are, but I think there is a very deep recognition that unless funds can flow through Yemen again, our ability to do anything is going to be severely crippled. Yeah, I mean, on the central bank, there was so many issues with removing it first of all, and most basic is security. If Aden is so safe to have a central bank in it, how about we first move the president from Riyadh? How about we move individuals before we move in institutions? So it was hugely problematic. And I mean, right now it's already happened. I'm not sure we can do much about it, except three things. One, there must be an offshore account outside Yemen that is under the control of neither, just so it continues supporting the wheat, rice, and fuel, and medicine. And that is essential, and it's essential for the Haudhis also to even very unhappily to work with the central bank in Aden, both banks in Aden and in Sana'a have very different capabilities and they cannot work alone. Neither the Aden, neither the Sana'a. The Haudhis must refrain from trying to have their own version of bank because they will starve the North more than it is already. Ultimately, the international staff stuck with legitimate government. But most importantly is there needs right now. I mean, there needs to be more investment, especially support of the social welfare from the international into that bank account. And now we have 1.3 million Yemenis waiting for their salaries, which really was supposed to be paid by the central bank. It's not paid. That must be paid. You break it, you own it. You know, the Saudis and the Yemeni president have supported this move of the reallocation of the bank, but there are 1.3 million people whom at least five million people depend on them that have not had salaries for three months. That must be paid, and that must be changed in many ways. What can the US do? It's much easier to say what it should not do. You know, because it has been most of its intervention in Yemen has been problematic. If I would call it, for some reason, people tend to think that Bush administration was worse, at least to Yemen, and that's not the opposite. Obama did the drone strikes eight times than Bush actually did in Yemen. And in fact, the last functioning even of scholarship programs in Yemen are now cut by the Obama administration, even though they were working in Yemen. How about we start moving from there, actually? That's very things that we basically can do, even the very small things. And then the UAE and the Gulf. Look, this was one of the most problematic part of the conflict is that everyone has their own different agenda for the war or reasons for the war, whether domestically or regionally. And just to give you a glimpse, UAE is willing to go into a peace with Saleh, never with the Houthis. Saudis are willing to go into peace with the Houthis, never with Saleh. And then even more problematically, the UAE is actually have more problems with their alliances right now, with the Muslim Brotherhood than they will ever have with Saleh, quite a mess in many ways. And then just Bahrain is just there because all their brother have said so. And then Kuwait, they're just because they want to be left behind and it's, everyone has their own agenda. And that's why the only way for this for the better of the Gulf and for Yemen is to end this war. It's already gotten the ugliest out of Yemen and it's gonna get the ugliest out of the Gulf if it continues. Everyone is losing command and control. And that is probably the most dangerous thing from a security point of view. On the U.S. role, let me just add something. Where do you see this review of arms going? And then the other broader question is, how much leverage do we really have with security assistance? And given what you said that for Saudi Arabia, this is a profoundly domestic issue, political issue rooted in royal politics. What tools do you have? Yeah, this is exactly I think the problem that the administration is facing. I do think that the statement by the White House after they hit on the funeral hall that no blank check and it should have actually said no longer a blank check, but I'll take that. The review is ongoing. There isn't a simple answer to do a full and complete arms cut off on one level that would be great. I would personally support that, but I don't think it's realistic. We have to unfortunately understand that we don't need, we don't want Saudi Arabia to fail and we don't want it to go, to lose all leverage that any leverage that we have by a full arms cut off. How we can moderate that? How can we, I think one of the things that we'll be looked at is the degree and type of support that we give to the Saudi Air Force. The Saudi Air Force really cannot fly without our help. And so that is one area short of a full arms cut off that we could do. I think some of it is gonna have to be diplomacy and really working with those elements within the Saudi government that understand the tremendous cost that this war causes Saudi Arabia. It is financially draining them very badly. An 18 month war at this level of intensity is extremely expensive. But more importantly, and I've heard the Saudis talk about that one of the reasons, one thing that they find important is their international standing. Well, this is corroding their international standing. It doesn't get very much traction in our media for reasons we talked about, but in Europe it is far more of an issue. The UK is the other major supplier and this is, there's been some very good BBC documentaries, there's been debates in parliament. The Dutch are the ones who went to the Human Rights Commission, on the Human Rights Council. It's starting to build in terms of truly diminishing Saudi Arabia's status. And it hasn't fully taken effect, but I think this would be one of the talking points is that your relationship with Western Europe, your potentially your relationship with us, we have an anti-Saudi element on Congress. They just passed a piece of legislation. And so reminding the Saudis that their position, their international position is precarious and that this is corroding it. One practical step that I would like us to see us do is to really focus on this humanitarian catastrophe. A 72 hour ceasefire is utterly meaningless. Most of the people live up in the highlands, many of the roads and the infrastructure have been destroyed by the Saudis and by the Houthis. 72 hours is not enough time to get a ship into port, get it offloaded, get it on trucks and get it up over the mountains to where the people are. It just is physically impossible. It would be hard to do if the port was not damaged and the roads were not damaged. And what I think we should be pushing for short of a resumption of the peace talks and a real political solution is we need something almost like a Berlin airlift into Sana'a, into other major cities, bringing in the food, bringing in the medicine and allowing that to happen. I mean, if we cannot address the political issue, we need to address the humanitarian issue. And that would be a short-term step that we could take. But our political leverage is circumscribed by our relationship with Saudi Arabia. But I mean, just to add into the review process, I don't think it's serious as much as it is washing hands off of the whole things that have been doing the last two years. Let's not forget that despite the fact that the funeral bombing that happened recently, it is not the first one. It is not the worst one. There has been so many funerals bombed, so many weddings, so many hospitals, and that did not call into any review. In fact, it seems more of a black wedding to Saudi or more of washing the gloves off rather than actually a commitment to review the process of it. There are one simple thing that, for example, can be done and it's not been done. Look to the last funeral strike that happened in Sana'a. There was three crimes or three war crimes in one line. Bombing a funeral, double striking as soon as ambulance arrived, but most importantly, even right now, the Sana'a airport is closed. There are hundreds of people who needs to be taken out of the country, and that simple step has not been taken. So there is a serious commitment to review. Just not ask for that, let's just ask for opening the airport for civilian flights, just like what was happening in the last months of the war. It passes by Saudi, it checks the airplane and it gets out. But something as simple as that has not even happened. And therefore, I mean, it makes me question the whole idea behind the review. 72 hours ceasefire and all of the decrease of hostilities is more or less an apology of a real ceasefire and it is an apology of a real decrease of hostilities in Yemen. Would Salih accept that the food is controlled by percent of the population? Other side sees it, and the Saudis and the Emirates that of the food sees as an existential threat. And yesterday, the Yemeni and the UAE ambassadors said that they would not see the point other side is talking about. Thank you. Well, I mean, that's- It wasn't our, no? Oh, we got it. Yeah, the question was about, I believe, power sharing in Sana'a with the Houthis and then the Gulf perception that this is an existential threat on their border. I think it's a valid point that you raised. We'll take, yeah. They have a legitimate border, a border, yeah. Okay, in the back there. Thank you. I'm Theo Wilson from Freedom House. My question has to do with local civil society in Yemen. We know that they really have lost so much capacity and are really at a point at which they were, you know, well, they're far less capacitated now than when the conflict began. We know that they're highly stratified and politicized. My question is, what role can international organizations play in helping increase the capacity of local civil society organizations, but more importantly, help them rebuild consensus? Far back there. That's fine. Thank you. Michael Hudson from Georgetown University. These points have been touched upon, but I wondered if Fari'el Muslimi could say a little bit more about the nature of civil society and the overall national identity coherence or incoherence of Yemen after all this has happened. Assume for a moment that there is a power sharing agreement in the short run, but in the long run, are you really saying that two Yemens would be better than one and maybe five Yemens would be better than two? You're a representative from the civil society sector, and we know that there are other actors in Yemen besides the three that are always talked about who are the Houthis, Asala and Hadi. Is there any possibility and any constituency for some kind of a third force to develop, to keep Yemen from falling into several different pieces? Why don't we take that one first? I mean, I'll leave the Saudi one for you. No, thank you. I was... I mean, in Yemen, there's so many little I can get away with talking about the goals. But I mean, the Houthis, Asala, the relationship in a way are essential, but also weird. I mean, not suggesting they're the same, but in a matter of dynamics, it's the same formula between ISIS and Al-Qaeda. They kind of coordinate, but they also compete. They kind of see some similarities between them. There is this geographical, sectarian, central aspect that unifies the Houthi and Saleh, the center of Yemen that has been taken the whole of Yemen for decades. And that's a similar high lander. I think you can... There is this... How do you call it? It's similar to the Maronite dominance in... or attempt to dominance in Lebanon, similar to the Alawite in Syria. There is this idea that the mountain should dominate the sea in a way or another. It's weird anthropological slash economic slash personal geographical aspect that makes them one force in a way. But on the long term, this conflict is... If this war has not happened, they will have already been fighting each other. They were already planning to attack each other before the Saudis entered. So in a way, they partner right now and there is some probably sectarian, regional alliances between them, but on the long term, they're more of a threat to each other actually than they are as actually a complementary in many ways. What can international organizations do in Yemen? I think the only thing that can be done right now is push up, push toward the end of the war. Everything else is really irrelevant in so many ways. As long as this war continues, it will be very... There will be very little to do as an organization, as a civic society, as many other things. There are so many work can be done on the Aida front, but beyond that, I really think... I would like to give you an answer and say, do this and that, but I don't really think that there is anything that can be done except to end this war and to push that. When that happens, then all of these questions that we think are big questions will be very small and will answer themselves by themselves. But right now, for a civic society to emerge and for a civic society to continue, this war needs to be ended. Over the last two years, what we have seen is almost a seasonal immigration to guns, seasonal immigration to weapons. Everyone has stepped back to their pre-state identity, their pre-Yemeni identity, whether that's a civic society or that's individuals or that's a third voice or that's whoever. And for that to exist, there will only be, there needs to be an end of the war. Now the issue is, even if you bring a share of power sharing agreement, that's not gonna solve really much in Yemen. You know what was the number one danger I think is facing Yemen? It's not the Huitiz, it's not the Qaeda, it's not Salah, it's not Saudis, it's water. That is the most serious problem facing this country. That Salah is the first capital on earth that is actually gonna run out of water. And no water, no peace, don't even dream about it. And so as soon as you end with this war, or as soon as you will have so much problem ahead of you, to the point that all of the power sharing, all of this sort of that we're seeing are relevant and stupid, at best described. That being said, the problems that also led to this conflict and also that led even to the rise of the Huitiz are problems that has nothing to do with power. They have with the functioning government, other things are basic services, basic strong, even local states. And these things will have to be solved if we want peace in Yemen. The problem is not so many people I meet in Yemen really are fans of Salah or the Huitiz, but it is the only two groups that is dominating this, that is dominating the whole narrative of the conflict. You have right now two sides, one is obviously legitimate, at least theoretically speaking, and one is not other not, but they're both equally harmful to Yemenis, whether that's Harry or that's the Huitiz in Sana'a and Salah and the ground. That only, and as soon as this war can be over then, there will be a chance for the third voice, there will be a chance for civil society. But that cannot exist, and I think any attempt to request a quota or to even push for a third voice at the moment is ineffective in many ways, because you can have a third bath right now is a third bath of guns, that's the only thing. We need to give back politics, the meaning it has. The fear right now in Yemen is people have lost, especially with the Huitiz, this was the most dangerous thing the Huitiz did when they took power in Yemen, is they made people believe less in politics. It became a boring, inefficient, and the whole struggle that would take ages and that would take a long time was seen as an ineffective tool. And as long as the war continues, that same bath will be continued. And there isn't much to be honest, I mean, at least I think that can be done at the moment in that specific regard. You just repeat the question since it was the first question. Absolutely, I think the notion of- The core. Sorry? The core of the question. Yeah, the Saudi perception of threat, that this is an existential threat. And I'm actually reminded of something that my colleague, Karim Sajapur, quoted. He quoted a Saudi columnist who was telling the US, imagine during the height of the Cold War, if you had a Soviet train militia take over Mexico. And is that a valid analogy? No. Save time, no. First, I want to just do a small tangent. I want to build off of something else that was said. I agree that the time is not yet for civil society and certainly the water issue. But I think that there's, even if we walked out of here and for some reason there had been a complete amicable, just lasting and meaningful peace in Yemen, it would still be an extremely fragile state. Before the war, before all of this started, it had a rudimentary infrastructure. Rudimentary roads, rudimentary water treatment, rudimentary electricity. It was food dependent, it was medicine dependent, it was foreign assistance dependent. And a demographic triangle that's about like this, extraordinarily young, with very few job prospects and very few economic prospects. So even if you solved all the political problems, the stressors on the state and the stressors on the government and the stressors on society will still be there in more shape than they were before. And so one thing that the international community has to be very careful that it doesn't do as it's done in so many other instances is declare peace and go home. Declare that a government has been formed and go home. But that's what they did in 2011. Yeah. But what I'm saying is that this, if you really wanna know what the international community needs to do is that it needs to be there two, three, five days after to rebuild. In terms of how the Saudis see Yemen, the Saudis have always seen Yemen well before this as an existential threat. I've been working on the region since I was a junior officer and I was always baffled by the Saudi paranoia about all things Yemeni. And to see it as an existential threat when I personally don't see it. There are legitimate border issues, certainly up in the North. And I think any kind of final resolution is going to have to give the Saudis a good sense of security along that Northwest corner. But the paranoia about things Yemeni is much deeper. And that's one of the reasons that it's always been a domestic issue, not a foreign policy issue. And it's, I would say that the Saudi view of Yemen is closer to the Trump view of Mexico. And they have actually built a wall. So, and I think if we try to reduce this to very simple straightforward geostrategic calculations, we're missing some almost primordial question. And so, again, looking long term, whatever comes out of the resolution of this, the Saudis are going to have to be comfortable with the government. And if they try to create a public government, a government in their own image and likeness, it simply will not work in Yemeni society. The Yemenis will not accept that. So the Saudis are going to have to come to terms with what constitutes a neutral state on their border, as opposed to necessarily a friendly state on the border. And the Houthis probably are going to have to be part of some power sharing, but they will not dominate. But it is more than just the border. It is a deep primordial fear of Yemen that, as I said, has always baffled me, but it's real. And it doesn't matter if it's based in empirical evidence, it's how they see it. I wouldn't call it the fear of Yemen specifically, but think about it this way. Arabian Venezuela is a club of monarchies. And in the back there is a republic. That's not the most comfortable country to have. Around you in the back. And this has been gone even in history when the South Yemen tried to influence revolution and Oman in the past and many other countries. It's not the most comfortable system. Even in the 60s, actually the Saudis fought again with sectarian difference, which was the Houthis at the Zaidi by that time, just to make sure that they maintain the monarchy. Even religion was completely irrelevant when it came to preserving the monarchy system in Yemen. That was something. And then I'm just, mm. Yeah, but let me, again, it's very true and it's ironic that the Saudis actually supported the Zaidi imami during the revolution. But the Saudis also lived tolerably after the founding of the republic. And with Zaidi, I mean, the governments were almost always dominated by the Zaidis. The Zaidis dominate the North. And so that accommodation lasted from the late 60s all the way to 2015. The Saudi policy towards Yemen over the decades has always been one of strong enough not to be a threat and weak enough not to be a threat. And they liked a Yemen that kind of muddled along and it didn't cause them problems going one way or the other. And I think one of the things that, again, why they didn't respond in September 14th, why did they wait till March 15th, is in September 14th the Houthis were only as far as Sana'a. By spring, they were in Aden. And all of a sudden they saw, they had control of what is the heartland of the country from Sana'a through Sana'a to Aden. And that was a threat. One of the stranger periods in Saudi Yemeni policy was the Saudi very strong support for if not encouragement of the 1994 Civil War. And I very much remember that, you know, we were talking to the Saudis, is to explain to us again, why are you supporting the Marxist Leninists? You know, if you don't like this sort of non-monarchy on your border, why are you supporting the Marxist Leninists who are even less supportive of monarchies? And it was more that they didn't, they were uncomfortable with the unification. Yemen suddenly was three times larger than it had been. I think the Saudis would love it if Yemen would subdivide because that would be very much in their interest. Controlling two or three or four failed states is very much the Saudis would adore that. They were very uncomfortable with the unification, with the sheer size of Yemen at that point, to the point that they were very happy to support Marxist Leninists in a revolution. And I think that that speaks to this concern about what is Yemen and is it going to threaten us? And so I think that when they're starting to look at what comes out of this, are you willing to help a Yemen rebuild to the point of at least where it was in 2011 or 2013 politically? But they operate in this sense of we need to keep Yemen weak enough not to threaten us and but strong enough not to be a failed state. And that's a very difficult game to play. But I mean, just to echo the Mexico metaphor, there has been always this tendency to keep Yemen as Mexico of the Gulf. But in a way it is also, there has been also this tendency by the Saudis and by the Gulf to punish Yemenis for what their leaders do. In 1990, Salih sided with Saddam. And instead of punishing Salih, second day Saudi kicked off 800,000 Yemeni labor so we're working on Saudi. The most destructive economy is again in the history of Yemen. And if we go back today to track back to that time, it was the moment that when Yemen completely started collapsing since that time. So I mean, it's the same thing right now, upset with Salih Houthis. You end up bombing the whole rest of the country and in many ways. Unfortunately, we are out of time. Lots more questions. This is a testament to the richness of your insights. I learned a lot. Please join me in thanking our panelists for a very, very good talk. Thank you. Thank you very much.