Daily Times

The Saudi-led coalition’s latest misstep in Yemen resulted in the deaths of some 29 children when an airstrike hit a local bus. Houthi sources say the toll is even higher: 40 children killed out of a total of 51.

The international community has responded as it always does in cases where its involvement in military warfare precipitates devastating ‘collateral damage’. For to be clear, the West is deeply entrenched in the Yemen conflict; not least by way of arms sales to one side and its loaded narrative that paints this as a just war. Towards this end, the UNSC has called for a credible — not independent — probe into the airstrike. This, regrettably, is where the tough talking begins and ends. Indeed, it was left to left to non-permanent Council members to raise the issue in the first place.

Bluntly put, the above amounts to little more than the politics of deflection. For what should top the international agenda is how a proxy war has been allowed to continue for three long years in one of the world’s poorest nations; prompting the worst-ever humanitarian disaster.

The war games played out in Yemen are becoming increasingly murky. That the country has long been home to Al Qaeda in the Arab Peninsula (AQAP) is understood. In fact, the US had at one time run parallel drone programmes to flush out its members. Yet fast-forward to the present, however, and it appears that Saudi Arabia — the Americans’ BFF in the region — has been cutting deals with the very same terrorists. If true, it is unthinkable that this could have happened without Riyadh’s western backers being in the know.

A recent investigative report by The Associated Press (AP) details how the Saudi-led coalition battling the Houthi in Yemen have, in a bid to win this proxy battle against Iran, spent the last two years recruiting members of Al Qaeda; effectively putting the latter on the payroll. None of this should come as a surprise. After all, the US has been known to momentarily turn foes into strategic allies in a bid to ‘get the job done’. Britain, too, has most recently done something not entirely dissimilar in Libya. And so, the beat goes on.

Yet what remains blatantly clear is that neither the most powerful western countries, nor, in this instance, Riyadh, have learned the lessons of the past. Namely, that when such ill-advised and illegitimate military intervention is followed by opportunistic and ad hoc policymaking of this kind — the only possible outcome is never-ending chaos.

It is therefore hoped that the International Criminal Court (ICC) will take notice of this matter in the same way that it is endeavouring to do so vis-à-vis the US-led war in Afghanistan. Yet even if it finds it enjoys the necessary remit to do so, justice will be an awfully long time coming. And that is something that the Yemeni people literally cannot afford.

Here at home, Pakistan would do well to revisit, at least in the interim, its participation in the Saudi-led Islamic Military Alliance (IMA). Similarly, the incoming set-up should keep the AP report in mind as it tentatively seeks the role of honest broker in the Middle East. For these regional flames have no chance of being put out any time soon. Sadly.  *

Also read Combative Saudi foreign policy stirs international ire

Published in Daily Times, August 12^th 2018.