Why Saudi Arabia is Hammering Yemen

Matt Purple

Security, Middle East

Riyadh hopes to put the Shia Awakening to bed.

When Saudi Arabia began bombing Yemen last year, many observers speculated that it was sending a message to its neighbors. Now, as the violence drags on, the Saudi campaign is calling to mind another country, one half a continent away.

The war, intended to stop the progress of local Houthi militias, is being waged by Prince Mohammed bin Salman, Saudi Arabia’s powerful and precocious defense minister, and whispers have been circulating for months that Yemen is his Vietnam. It wouldn’t be the first time. During the 1960s, Egyptian president Gamal Abdel Nasser intervened in the North Yemen Civil War to stop a dethroned imam from reclaiming power, and quickly found himself trapped in a quagmire. Afghanistan may be the “Graveyard of Empires,” but Yemen has also bogged down its share of foreign invaders.

Military metaphors aside, the real problem now is that Yemen is starving to death. Already the poorest country in the Middle East, Yemen has for months been subjected to a Saudi blockade, creating shortages of essential goods, including food. This has, not surprisingly, bred hostility—Riyadh is now losing the battle of hearts and minds, as it were. So why would the Saudis do this? Why pulverize a country to stop the Houthis? Given the devastation that’s been wrought, it seems like squashing a fly with a sledgehammer.

Part of the reason is that Yemen sits on Saudi Arabia’s back doorstep, and a hostile government there could put southern Saudi communities in danger. But the campaign in Yemen has actually worsened Saudi security, as Houthi militants retaliate by firing rockets at Saudi villages and staging border raids. And while Al Qaeda has menaced Saudi Arabia in the past, its presence in Yemen has never elicited a major military mobilization—that’s been left to the United States. So why intervene now?