Houthis must now come to the table to solve Yemen impasse

It is too soon to speak of fast and comprehensive change in the strategic landscape following the Arab alliance's continuing success in Yemen, columnist George Semaan wrote in the pan-Arab daily Al Hayat on Monday. However, the dynamic that has been set in motion by the Saudi-led airstikes will not stop any time soon.

Eventually, it will help create a new balance of power, he said. It will entrench the role of Arab countries in general – and especially the Gulf Cooperation Council countries – in overseeing security and protecting their vital mutual interests.

“Operation Decisive Storm has accomplished its first objective – destroying the larger part of the Houthis’ war machine,” Semaan said.

The Houthis can no longer threaten towns in the south, east and centre of Yemen or proceed to impose their control on the entire country. Their missile arsenal is no longer a serious threat to Saudi Arabia and other Gulf countries, and the Houthis can’t threaten international navigation passageways in the Red Sea or close the Strait of Bab el Mandeb.

“On the other hand, Operation Restoring Hope hasn’t so far succeeded in pushing the relevant parties to implement all the clauses of [the United Nations Security Council’s] resolution 2216, particularly the resumption of political dialogue,” he added.

The various parties’ conditions for dialogue seem to be the insurmountable obstacle at the moment.

On one hand, president Abdrabu Mansur Hadi and his government insist that the Houthis and former president Ali Abdullah Saleh’s proponents implement the terms of the resolution by withdrawing from all the positions they have taken over recently and return all the weapons they have looted from military posts.

On the other hand, the former president and the Houthi leader, Abdulmalek Al Houthi, demand that air strikes be halted first. The Houthis also refuse to accept Mr Hadi as the legitimate president.

Meanwhile, the coalition needs to be increasingly vigilant because Houthi groups are waiting for any opportunity to undercut the legitimate government’s authority, Semaan concluded.

For his part, the Saudi columnist Abdul Rahman Al Rashid used a column in the London-based daily Ahsarq Al Awsat on the weekend to shed light on Yemen's continuing humanitarian plight.

“The people of Yemen are living in dire poverty, famine and underdevelopment unequalled in most of the world. It is a silent humanitarian crisis that the world doesn’t know about,” he wrote.

Yemen’s main problem isn’t the lack of stability. In fact, most of its history is strewn with lturmoil, even after the emergence of Al Qaeda and the recent US drone attacks. The real problem is the lack of any form of development, the writer said.

Yemen was plunged into terrible poverty following Mr Saleh’s accession to power. For decades, the country has been denied development and now it is classified as one of the world’s least literate and most impoverished countries. Education, health care and other services are all but absent.

“This miserable situation dates back nearly five decades. It is a situation far more serious and grave than the political clashes we see today,” Al Rashid noted.

He concluded that the misfortune of Yemenis will continue as long as remnants of the old regime survive.

Translated by Racha Makarem