Yemeni-Saudi escalation: The core problem and key solution

TEHRAN – The Yemeni equation is based on escalation in response to escalation and pressure in response to pressure, to compel Saudi Arabia to fulfill the obligations of peace and end the aggression and blockade.

The “escalation for escalation” equation adopted by the government in Sanaa did not emerge out of nowhere. Rather, it took shape over many years of Saudi aggression, an unjust blockade, and severe economic and humanitarian pressure.

From Sanaa’s perspective, the international community has failed to address the root causes that have kept Yemen facing crises, and has often been more preoccupied with condemning Yemeni reactions than with addressing the root causes behind them.

For this reason, the Yemeni Armed Forces (YAF) have come to view military pressure as a means of imposing a corresponding equation: blockade for blockade, pressure for pressure, and escalation for escalation. This also includes preemptively striking Saudi troop and military build-ups before they can be deployed in support of the Saudi-backed forces inside Yemen.

The stated aim of all these equations is to push Saudi Arabia to fulfill the obligations of peace, end the ongoing aggression and blockade, and address all outstanding issues arising from the war.

The most striking paradox is that many international and Arab positions detach Yemeni operations from their context and treat them as the starting point. At the same time, they ignore the circumstances that produced them. When the YAF responds to the blockade, escalation, or Saudi military build-ups, statements of condemnation follow, along with warnings about threats to “security,” “peace,” and “navigation,” while the underlying reasons that prompted the YAF to respond receive nothing like the same attention.

This double standard places the victim in an unfair equation. Sanaa is repeatedly asked to stop its response, while the same pressure is not brought to bear on the Saudi Kingdom, which bears primary responsibility for the aggression and blockade and for the humanitarian and economic catastrophe they have produced.

The continuation of this regional and international double standard also reflects an attempt to establish a narrative in which the Yemeni response is the problem, while the causes of that response are not open to discussion, or, when they are, they are presented in a manner deeply unfair to Yemen and Yemenis.

Whenever the YAF applies pressure to secure their rights, they are falsely accused of “serving the Iranian agenda,” followed by waves of condemnation and denunciation.

Instead of addressing the roots of the problem and fulfilling the obligations of peace, Riyadh has moved toward widening the circle of escalation and forming countless alliances and coalitions that serve no purpose other than prolonging the crisis without resolving it.

Saudi Arabia continues its efforts to expand its network of “defensive” alliances, even though historically it has been in the position of attacking and waging aggression rather than defending itself, including its agreements with Turkey and Pakistan.

From Riyadh’s perspective, these moves are an attempt to strengthen deterrence and reshape the regional balance of power. Sanaa, however, maintains that bringing additional regional parties into the conflict will neither create deterrence nor change the essence of the problem.

The YAF, it says, will not be deterred or halt its operations, drawing on the grievances of an entire people, an unprecedented mandate, and recent experience with the “Prosperity Guardian,” the “U.S.-Israeli alliance,” and others against Yemen.

This means that expanding military alliances cannot deter the Yemenis or dissuade them from continuing legitimate actions aimed at restoring their just and rightful rights.

Should these alliances pave the way for escalation, they will not be able to impose a new reality that the Americans, British, and the Israeli regime failed to impose. Instead, they will push Sanaa to develop broader, more consequential, and more painful equations of response and deterrence.

Saudi Arabia should reconsider its calculations and study previous experiences, which have demonstrated that military force and pressure have failed to break the will of the Yemenis. They have also shown that increased pressure may, in turn, produce an increased response rather than surrender. Events have demonstrated this, and it has been reaffirmed at various levels of the leadership in Sanaa.

About a month of Saudi measures included comprehensive escalation through aggression, blockade, and military mobilization in Marib, Mokha, Hadramout, and elsewhere. This was met with Yemeni retaliatory operations targeting ships and Saudi oil facilities, as well as military build-ups in Mokha, Marib, and Hadramout.

The UN Special Envoy for Yemen, Hans Grundberg, delivered a briefing that appeared aligned with the Saudi-American narrative.

In his latest briefing to the Security Council, his focus was on the outcome, which Sanaa says is a legitimate Yemeni response to a “threat,” while failing to name or even refer to Saudi Arabia. Nor did the briefing give the causes and underlying factors the space and attention they warranted. Instead, it appeared to seek to grant the Saudi Kingdom a certificate of absolution and innocence for its aggression and blockade against Yemen, along with their consequences and the responsibilities and obligations arising from them.

As if to avoid criticism, the briefing relegated humanitarian and economic issues, foremost among them the airport, port, salaries, and roads, to the margins, presenting them as negotiable issues subject to bargaining, procrastination, and delay that could last even longer than the war itself. Yet for millions of Yemenis, these are fundamental obligations that can no longer tolerate further stalling after four years of de-escalation.

The result is that such a briefing and such an approach do little to address the essence of the problem. Instead, they attempt to contain its consequences, condemn the Yemeni response, warn of its “risks,” and then call on the parties, without naming Saudi Arabia as a principal party, to negotiate, without establishing a clear end to the causes that produced the escalation in the first place.

It is mistaken to interpret Yemeni operations as an end in themselves or to link them to other contexts in the region and the world. The Yemeni struggle was shaped over 12 years of aggression, blockade, and extreme economic and humanitarian pressure. Sanaa ultimately became convinced that the use of force was a necessary option to compel the Saudis to fulfill the obligations of peace under the roadmap produced through Omani mediation and UN sponsorship, or to make Riyadh bear the cost of continuing its aggression and blockade.

Sanaa stresses that the operations will not end through the announcement of more alliances and threats, but by ending the causes that prompted them. If Saudi aggression and blockade end, pressure on border crossings, the economy, and resources ceases, and the outstanding humanitarian and economic issues are resolved, Sanaa says it will halt its operations against Saudi Arabia.

In practical terms, Riyadh has several options, foremost among them two: either continue its policy of pressure and military alliances, a course that has already proven its failure and futility and will raise the cost of confrontation for Saudi Arabia without achieving its objectives, or return to de-escalation understandings, fulfill the required obligations, address the roots and causes of the problem, and resolve the outstanding issues of the war.

The latter is the most realistic, most beneficial, and least costly option, because the cost of war will remain higher than the cost of peace, and experience has demonstrated this.