In Love with Writing

I see my life in fragments, scattered like pages torn from a book. I gather them up, read them in no particular order, and the through-line is always there: writing.

I was a child in Sana’a when I first understood that the world would not save me. I watched my mother fight battles she was destined to lose. A woman, wanting a divorce, trapped inside the machinery of Yemeni law—an apparatus built by men, for men, where women are nothing but footnotes. The discriminatory laws against women hindered my mother from having her freedom from her abusive partner. There was no justice for her. We all suffered. There was no escape. So I made my own. I wrote. Writing was my escape.

At fourteen, my journal became my confessional, my shield, my secret doorway into another world. A world where I could name things as they were. A world where I was not powerless. I wrote feverishly, obsessively, as if my life depended on it. Maybe it did.

Later, when it was time for me to go to college, everyone around me tried to make me choose another life. A reasonable life. A job in a bank, a degree in commerce, something stable, something practical. But what they didn’t understand—what they never understood—was that writing was not something I did. Writing was something I was.

I became a journalist. I fought for it. I fought my family. I fought the expectations of my culture. I fought during the 2011 revolution. I wrote when they told me to be silent. I wrote when it meant writing would lead me to a life in exile. I wrote when it meant losing everything I had known.

Even in Sweden, I kept writing. Through war, through pandemic, through solitude so deep it felt like drowning, I wrote. The words carried me forward. They placed me in rooms and panel discussions with

people who had studied at Harvard and Oxford, men and women who had walked smooth, untroubled paths to success, while I was just me, a young lady with a humble background. But none of that mattered. Writing was the great equalizer. Writing was the only passport I ever needed.

They gave me an international award for it once, by the Committee to Protect Journalists in New York. A beautiful, weighty thing. Recognition. Proof that the words I wrote mattered. But awards mean nothing. Not really. People tell me I’m a star. They look at me with admiration, with awe, as if I’ve transcended something.

But Yemen is the star.

I do not write about fashion, about fleeting pleasures, about things meant to dazzle and distract. I write about a people whose suffering is infinite. A people who bleed, who grieve, who endure.

My identity—half Yemeni, half Ethiopian—was supposed to be a liability. Something to be hidden, something to erase. But I wrote it into existence. I turned it into a strength. I wrote about my mother’s cancer, about the pain that lived in my bones, about every truth I was told not to speak.

And in the end, it was always the same: writing was the center. The anchor. The compass.

Everything else changes. Everything else slips through my fingers.

But writing remains.

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*This article was first written for Yemen Platform in February 2025. 

From Revolution to Shadow: How has war redefined the existence of Yemeni women?

4 April - Jeem - The National Dialogue Conference (2012-2014) was a spark of light in the long night of women in Yemen. After the Yemeni revolution in 2011 and the popular movement advocating for the overthrow of President Ali Abdullah Saleh's regime and the establishment of a civil state with equal citizenship, women found themselves, for the first time, in front of an open door, albeit timidly. The 30 percent quota they secured allowed them a chance to sneak into the conference halls and negotiate the country's fate and the constitution with a boldness never before seen in the country.

This women’s quota—guaranteed seats for women—was an unprecedented step to ensure women's participation in the political process after their prominent role in the revolution.

Under the rule of former President Ali Abdullah Saleh, the women's quota was symbolically set at 15 percent, but the reality was very different; only two women were elected out of 301 members in parliament, instead of the 45 women that should have been elected according to this percentage. The 30 percent quota at the National Dialogue Conference was not a privilege women received automatically; it came as a result of continuous pressure from the Yemeni feminist movement, with support from the international community.

During the conference, and after intense discussions, a document was produced that included hundreds of recommendations, upon which the draft of the new constitution was based. Unlike previous constitutions, the proposed constitution recognized women's full citizenship and independent legal personality, and it stipulated a 30 percent quota for women in decision-making positions. This achievement would have placed Yemen second only to Tunisia in terms of the legal representation of women in power.

However, as is often the case in the country, not many dreams are allowed. The coup of 2014 came like an arch breaking in a storm, and the Houthis pulled everything into darkness. Politics retreated, rights scattered, and what had been built in months crumbled in an instant, like a house of cards blown away by the wind.

Yemen, a country that has always known nothing but wars, entered another whirlpool: a civil war eating the souls of its people from the inside, and the war of the Arab coalition led by Saudi Arabia tearing apart what remained of its bare flesh. Between all this, there were the women. Women were always there, but now with heavier shadows and more brutal pain.

The war was not just a war; it was another lust for violence, adding more wounds on top of old ones. The men were not content with blood; they wanted more... more control and more power. Women not only lost the rights they were promised, but they also lost their space of existence. They lost the idea that they had a place in public or even in private; violence against them became another part of the chaos, a natural extension of the wreckage.

Here, unavoidable questions arise: Is this just another end to their long story of injustice? Or is it a turning point that will leave deep impacts on their choices, their role in society, and their space in both public and private life? Will they fade into silence? Or will they create a new path from the rubble?

These are fundamental questions about the future of women in Yemen, where revolutions rise from beneath the ruins.

Violence in the War Zones and Private Life

Amid the war, the parties involved in the conflict sought to gain further advantages at the expense of women, striving to suffocate them and impose strict restrictions on their active roles in resistance and in maintaining the social fabric.

Before the conflict, there were laws that acted as holes in the wall, swallowing women one by one. According to the Yemeni Personal Status Law (issued in 1992 and amended several times), women cannot marry without the permission of a male guardian, nor can they divorce without humiliation. They do not have the same rights as men in divorce, and they cannot retain custody of their children unless a man allows it.

Then came the Houthis, the Yemeni government, and the "Southern Transitional Council" supported by the UAE, tightening these restrictions. They decided that women could only move with permission and travel only with a male relative (a "mahram"). A woman needs written consent from her guardian to be allowed to travel—as if she were a commodity permitted to pass from one checkpoint to another. It is worth noting that the requirement for women to travel with or obtain permission from a male guardian was not imposed before the conflict began.

Young girls and minors, who barely understood the meaning of love and the nature of their own bodies, suddenly found themselves in the beds of men much older than them—by twenty, thirty, or even forty years. There is no minimum age for marriage in Yemen, and there never has been. But the war has made child marriages more widespread, more miserable, and more accepted by hungry families. Nothing protects a girl from poverty and famine except the possibility that a man older than her will bear her expenses.

There were threats, smear campaigns, beatings, and retaliatory detention. Yet, all of this was not enough for the parties to the conflict, who went further, ensuring that women were humiliated in prisons, subjected to sexual violence, and accused of prostitution and debauchery in degrading terms that left a social stigma on the victimized women.

As for the migrants from the Horn of Africa traveling to Saudi Arabia, they have another story. They leave countries ravaged by famine only to find another kind of hunger in Yemen—hunger for power and control. They are subjected to rape and torture at the hands of human traffickers. At the heart of this swamp, violence does not stop at the doors of the war zones; it sneaks into homes, bedrooms, and into the corners of kitchens where mothers cook meals for children who may later kill them.

In recent years, news of women being killed by their male relatives has become routine. A woman is burned in Lahj, another is slaughtered in Hodeidah by her ex-husband, a third is stabbed in Aden by her husband, and a fourth is suffocated with a poisoned needle because she said "no," and mothers are killed by their sons' hands. Death repeats itself like a hymn with new faces and names, all sharing the same fate.

We have seen justice take its course in only a few of these crimes. In February of this year, the Court of Appeal in Aden sentenced the accused, Mohsen Ahmed, to death after proving his involvement in the murder of the victim, Fatima Doman, in August 2023 inside a commercial center in Aden. The perpetrator stabbed his victim several times with a white weapon (a dagger), causing severe bleeding that led to her death.

Thus, the violence against women was not confined to the war zones; it also extended to private life. Domestic violence escalated dangerously as economic and social pressures increased, making women more vulnerable to being killed by family members. In light of the collapse of livelihoods, some men resorted to violence as a means of control and venting their frustration—a behavior that no circumstance can justify. Instead of addressing the real causes of the crisis, violence is directed at women, reflecting the entrenchment of a culture of impunity and the use of force to impose control in the midst of chaos and economic collapse.

In an interview with women’s rights defenders inside Yemen, they confirmed that divorce rates are on the rise, along with increased physical violence against women and children, including continuous beatings and harm. Thus, homes, which should be a safe haven, have turned into other arenas of violence and oppression. Despite this, Yemen still lacks a clear law to protect women from domestic violence.

The Legacy of Violence

Despite all of this, women in Yemeni society hold a special place, rooted in traditions and customs that grant them social respect within the family and community, making the contrast between this respect and the oppressive laws and the painful reality of women’s lives more evident. The duality in how women are treated—between social esteem and legal marginalization—stems from a complex intersection of customs, traditions, and legal structures derived from religious and tribal interpretations.

On one hand, women are seen as the backbone of the family, surrounded by respect and care, but this respect is conditional upon their adherence to strictly defined traditional roles. On the other hand, this view is translated into laws that reinforce male control over their lives, seeing this control as part of “protecting” them, rather than diminishing their rights.

The violence that has increased during the war against women is not just a physical blow to their bodies, but a deep crack in the fabric of society. Women have become the focal point of political and military conflict through systemic violence, including killing, detention, torture, and forced marriages as a means of survival amidst economic collapse.

The restrictions on freedom of movement, such as the "mahram" (male guardian) requirement for travel, are not merely regulatory measures but tools to enforce the control of armed groups over both public and private spheres, thereby strengthening traditional masculine authority in an even more repressive context.

Violence against women has not only erased the limited space for their political and social participation but has also turned their mere presence in public spaces into a direct threat. The targeting of activists and human rights defenders—through threats, slander, and assassinations—further isolates them from the public sphere, reinforcing that the repression of women is not merely a consequence of war, but an integral part of control strategies.

The psychological trauma, with the escalation of violence and systemic repression, has transformed into a daily legacy, with women carrying invisible scars in their bodies and memories, scars that are as painful as physical wounds. However, excessive repression often generates reactions that the perpetrators do not anticipate.

For example, many women have had to rearrange their personal priorities, not based on their desires or ambitions, but according to the harsh necessities imposed by the war.

Although there are no precise statistics on women's participation in the labor market, indicators suggest an increase in their involvement in the workforce in recent years. Some women have even started to take on jobs that were once considered reserved for men. For instance, women never drove taxis before the war; this was the exclusive domain of male drivers. However, young Ghadeer Al-Kholani launched the "Mashwari Hawa" app in Sana’a a year and a half ago to enable women to drive taxis for transporting women and children. The app started with five female drivers and has expanded to include 20 drivers today.

It is widely believed that the years of armed conflict have contributed to a relative increase in women’s employment, with many men losing their income sources or dying, being detained, or injured in the war. As a result, women found themselves forced to take on new roles as breadwinners for their families. While this development may be seen as a positive step, it has been driven by necessity, not as part of an economic liberation planned by the women themselves. There is always the danger of economic exploitation, low wages, and increasing risks to their lives accompanying this step.

In the context of war, the available choices for women are no longer built on desires or dreams; they have become constrained by the harsh realities and the ongoing state of emergency. Priorities have shifted to survival and securing the bare minimum of life, rather than achieving personal fulfillment or ambition.

When Will Change Happen?

The current conflict in Yemen did not create discrimination against women, but it has amplified it and given it new legitimacy, whether through restrictive laws or systemic violence. The war not only erased the few gains women had made since 2011, but it has completely redefined their existence—from active participants to marginalized individuals, from political claimants to victims of escalating violence. The war was also a revelation of the extent of injustice, the depth of exclusion, and the ferocity of those who fear that women might have a voice and a place.


Despite all this repression, there are signs that these forced changes may, in the future, create the impetus for a more radical feminist movement, drawing on the harsh experiences women have endured in the war. With the increasing number of women entering the workforce and becoming self-reliant, and with the growing awareness of different forms of oppression, a new feminist consciousness could emerge, one capable of challenging this reality, whether through human rights struggles or by reconstructing social roles after the war ends. History shows that major crises often serve as a precursor to radical transformations. The question here is not whether change will happen, but when, and what its features will look like.

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*This essay was first written in Arabic for Jeem website (source: here). 

Ten Years After Saudi Arabia's Intervention in Yemen, There Is Only Irreparable Loss

DAWN - "Keep Yemen weak," King Abdulaziz Al Saud, the founder of modern Saudi Arabia, is said to have told his sons on his deathbed. Whether those words were apocryphal or not, the sentiment behind them aligns with Saudi Arabia's long-standing geopolitical strategy toward its southern neighbor. Historically, Saudi policy has sought to maintain a balance of power in Yemen—strong enough to prevent total collapse and regional instability but weak enough to prevent it from becoming a powerful, independent state that could challenge Saudi influence. This approach was evident in past Saudi interventions in Yemen, such as its support in the 1960s for Yemeni royalists against republicans backed by Egypt under Gamal Abdel Nasser.

Yet, exactly 10 years ago, just after midnight on March 26, 2015, Saudi Arabia broke with its traditional approach to Yemen when it launched heavy airstrikes on the capital, Sanaa. The Saudi aim, leading a military coalition that included other Gulf states, was to drive Houthi rebels out of Sanaa after they had effectively ousted the Yemeni government of then-President Abdrabbuh Mansur Hadi. The Saudi-led military intervention, including its aerial bombing campaign that alone killed some 24,000 Yemenis, was not "limited in nature," as the Saudis promised, nor did it "protect the people of Yemen."

Instead, Saudi Arabia's disastrous intervention further fragmented Yemen. Control of the country today is still split between the Houthis, who are much stronger than they were in 2015 and have become the dominant force across northern Yemen; the weak internationally recognized government, mostly confined to Aden; and the separatist Southern Transitional Council (STC) backed by the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia's one-time partner in its military coalition against the Houthis.

Ten years after the airstrikes began, the Saudi-led war against the Houthis has left Yemen in ruins, with no clear winners, only devastation. Every faction involved, from the Houthis to the Saudi-led coalition and their local allies to the coalition's Western backers, has contributed to the suffering. When the Houthis seized Sana'a in 2014, they set the stage for a long, unresolved war that risked drawing in outside powers. In another era, perhaps Saudi Arabia would have been more cautious, but with Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman assuming more power under his father, King Salman, the prince pushed for what was widely seen by observers as "his war"—what quickly became "Saudi Arabia's Vietnam."

Every side in Yemen's war has been credibly accused of committing grave human rights violations and war crimes, contributing to the country's descent into hell. The use of starvation as a weapon of war—by both the Houthis and the Saudi-led coalition—further underlined the brutality of this conflict. Every horror of war you can name has been carried out in Yemen. The United Nations estimated in 2020 that nearly a quarter of a million people had died directly or indirectly from the conflict, though most believe the toll is much higher. The warring parties have all failed to uphold even the most basic principles of international humanitarian law.

The Saudi-led intervention in Yemen had one main objective: reversing the Houthi takeover of Sana'a. It unequivocally failed in that mission. Instead, Saudi military adventurism entrenched Yemeni divisions, exacerbated humanitarian suffering across the country and left Yemen broken as a state. The consequences of this failure extend beyond the battlefield, shaping Yemen's political future and regional dynamics in ways that will be difficult to reverse. Saudi Arabia's failure isn't just military or political; it's a failure of logic and reason.

In the early days of the war in 2015, Saudi diplomats claimed to U.S. officials that they could defeat the Houthis in six weeks—a prediction that not only foreshadowed military disaster but political miscalculation. Rather than strengthening the Yemeni government as their intervention claimed to, the UAE, Saudi Arabia's main coalition partner, undermined stated Saudi objectives by backing rival Yemeni militias like the STC, which wants to secede and reestablish an independent South Yemen. This lack of a unified strategy turned the anti-Houthi bloc into competing power centers, weakening the coalition and prolonging the war—turning Yemen into a battleground of fragmented allegiances and an increasingly fractious, multi-front, multi-sided war.

Saudi Arabia's efforts to unify the anti-Houthi camp—through the Riyadh Agreement in 2019 and the Presidential Leadership Council that the Saudis engineered in 2022—faltered due to these deep internal rivalries and conflicting agendas, particularly between Saudi-backed Yemeni factions and UAE-supported forces like the STC. Instead of forging a cohesive front, Saudi machinations deepened existing divisions, with internal clashes persisting within the Riyadh-based Presidential Leadership Council. Competing Saudi and Emirati interests and the absence of any centralized command turned the Presidential Leadership Council into another battleground for power struggles within the anti-Houthi bloc.

But most importantly, on the ground in Yemen, the Saudi-led coalition's military failure was rooted in both strategic miscalculations and structural weaknesses. The initial assumption that air power and military superiority could swiftly defeat the Houthis underestimated their resilience and ability to adapt through asymmetric warfare, including drone strikes and other guerrilla tactics developed through years of insurgency in Yemen's northern highlands. The Houthis exploited every Saudi misstep, expanding their reach in Yemen and then launching sustained attacks deep into Saudi territory.

The Saudi-led coalition's failure to achieve its objectives, despite substantial military expenditures, has exposed deep vulnerabilities in Saudi Arabia's military capabilities, draining resources and raising questions about the kingdom's long-term economic stability. The protracted war has left Saudi Arabia vulnerable, which explains why Riyadh abruptly shifted to diplomacy over the past two years, in what has amounted to a significant retreat. Yemen's fragmentation, in a state of de facto partition, has made any cohesive political resolution increasingly elusive, reinforcing Yemen's instability and underscoring the risks Saudi Arabia created through its military intervention.

Instead of trying to reshape Yemen's political landscape, the Saudis are now focused on smaller issues, like border security. From its 2023 agreement restoring diplomatic ties with Iran, brokered by China, to the surprising visit in April 2023 by the Saudi ambassador to Sanaa, where he met with Houthi leaders, Riyadh has moved into damage-control mode. Saudi officials have been forced to adjust their approach, from bellicose rhetoric about driving the Houthis out of power to more modest aims of containing threats to the kingdom. This about-face reflects a recognition that military intervention alone cannot resolve the stalemate in Yemen.

The Houthi strikes in the Red Sea, targeting international shipping, U.S. naval ships and Israeli targets, in declared solidarity with Gaza, highlight the missteps of the Saudi war, which ended up elevating the Houthis as a regional actor. Once only a tribal insurgency with aims on northern Yemen, the Houthis now have global clout. The fact that both the Biden administration and Trump administration have ordered U.S. airstrikes against them only plays into Houthi narratives that they are leading the armed resistance to both the U.S. and Israel. But the Houthis' survival still ultimately depends on negotiation, not endless war. Despite the failed Saudi intervention, the Houthis have not won the war in Yemen, even if they have emerged stronger.

For Yemenis, the past decade has been a cascade of wasted years, shattered hopes and unimaginable suffering. The youngest generation has known nothing but the horrors of this brutal conflict. In gatherings today, people recount everything they have had to endure. A mother points to her 9-year-old son: "I gave birth to my son in a hospital while coalition bombs fell on the funeral hall. Remember that day? That's when he was born." Another father calmly describes how he lost his teenage son to a bullet fired by a Houthi sniper in Taiz. Yemenis joke darkly that by the time there is any real redress for all the war's destruction, it won't be enough to just rebuild. They would need these lost 10 years given back to them—an impossible demand for an irreparable loss.

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This article was first written for and published on the DAWN website. 

A Decade after the Saudi Military Intervention in Yemen: An Assessment

The Arab Center in DC - Exactly a decade ago, Saudi Arabia announced the launch of a military intervention in Yemen, promising to lead a coalition of more than 10 nations—although some would later end their participation—against the Houthi armed group, officially known as Ansar Allah, that had taken over power from President Abdrabbuh Mansur Hadi. Backed by the United States, Britain, and other Western states with arms and shared intelligence, on March 26, 2015, the Saudi coalition commenced airstrikes on Houthi-controlled areas, initiating a conflict that would drag on for years. Riyadh’s initial expectation of a swift, six-week military operation to defeat the Houthis became a prolonged and costly entanglement that has tested Saudi Arabia’s ability to impose its will on its neighbor and to force the Houthis to give up their control over a large part of Yemen.

Intervention Inception

Saudi Arabia’s rationale for intervention shifted over time as the conflict unfolded. At the outset, it cast the intervention as a direct response to President Hadi’s urgent appeal to the Gulf states and their international allies that he conveyed in a letter to the UN Security Council in March 2015. Hadi called for states “to provide immediate support in every form and take the necessary measures, including military intervention, to protect Yemen and its people from the ongoing Houthi aggression.” The Saudis initially conceived of the intervention as a decisive effort to reinstate Yemen’s legitimate government in the capital Sanaa. As the situation progressed, Saudi Arabia reframed its objective as restoring Yemen’s political process within the framework of the Gulf Cooperation Council Initiative, which in 2011-2012 facilitated the transfer of power from former President Ali Abdullah Saleh to Hadi.

The core rationale behind Saudi Arabia’s intervention, however, stemmed from its perception of the Houthis as an Iranian proxy on the kingdom’s border. Riyadh feared that Iran’s influence through the Houthis posed a direct threat to the kingdom’s regional dominance and interests. The kingdom saw the Houthi takeover of Sanaa not just as a challenge to Yemen’s stability but as a potential game changer in the broader Middle East power dynamics. In this context, Saudi Arabia framed its military intervention as a necessary response to protect its own security and regional influence.

But while Saudi Arabia believed Iran to be the principal force behind the Houthi takeover, the extent of Iranian influence over the group at the time was, in fact, relatively limited. Although the Houthis depended on Iranian military and logistical support, particularly for weaponry and strategic advice, they were not fully under Iran’s control. Iran, while capable of advising the Houthis on strategic and policy matters, lacked the leverage to dictate their actions. Rather, local factors such as longstanding tribal rivalries in Yemen, the Houthis’ longtime opposition to the central government, and their pursuit of greater political power, were more influential in shaping the Houthis’ behavior. The Houthi alliances with former President Saleh and certain factions of the Yemeni military also played a crucial role in the group’s rise. In other words, Iran’s influence was significant, but it was not all-encompassing, as the Houthis had their own political and strategic goals. Nonetheless, Riyadh persisted in portraying the Houthis as a tool of Iranian expansionism. Paradoxically, Saudi Arabia’s prolonged antagonism may have ultimately strengthened Iran’s influence, as it pushed the Houthi armed group to deepen its reliance on Iranian military and logistical support.

Successes and Failures

The Saudi-led intervention produced limited successes but was largely marked by strategic and operational failures. One notable achievement was the halting of the Houthi-Saleh alliance’s territorial expansion, particularly its advance into southern Yemen. By mid-2015, coalition-backed forces had managed to retake Aden and surrounding areas, reversing the Houthis’ gains in the south. Additionally, the coalition succeeded in 2016 in reclaiming Mukalla in the east after it had fallen under the control of al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula for nearly a year.

Still, Saudi Arabia’s military campaign has largely failed to achieve its stated objectives, instead drawing global criticism for the immense toll that it has taken on civilian lives. The war has caused more than 375,000 deaths (most due to hunger resulting from the Saudi-led naval blockade) and the widespread destruction of Yemen’s infrastructure, exacerbating the country’s humanitarian crisis. Meanwhile, the Houthi movement has maintained its grip on Yemen’s northern highlands, home to a majority of the country’s population. At the same time, the current internationally recognized government, operating under the Presidential Leadership Council (PLC) headed by Mohammed al-Alimi, has struggled to assert its authority due to a combination of internal divisions, regional interventions, and the emergence of autonomous armed groups, operates primarily from its temporary capital in the south, Aden, while its members spend much of their time in exile in Riyadh, underscoring the Council’s political and military weaknesses.

Diverging agendas between allies also weakened the anti-Houthi coalition. In particular, the United Arab Emirates (UAE), which other than Saudi Arabia was the actor most heavily invested in the conflict, often pursued divergent goals and tactics.

While Saudi Arabia primarily waged war on Yemen through airstrikes, financial and logistical support for anti-Houthi forces, and a comprehensive air, land, and sea blockade of Houthi-controlled areas, the UAE concentrated its efforts on southern and central Yemen. The UAE deployed ground troops and trained local Yemeni forces such as the Security Belt, the Elite Forces, and others, allowing it to exert indirect control over southern territories—an arrangement that former President Hadi once had likened to a sort of occupation. UAE’s proxy forces continue to control Yemen’s UNESCO-World-Heritage-Site Socotra island. Despite the UAE declaring in 2019 the withdrawal of its troops from Yemen, it continues to play a significant role. Crucially, Abu Dhabi’s hostility toward the Muslim Brotherhood led it to sideline Yemen’s Islamist Islah Party, instead aligning with the Southern Transitional Council (STC) and various Salafi militias. These alliances not only weakened the PLC but also contributed to the increasing fragmentation of Yemen, as areas nominally under government control are in fact under STC influence.

Whether or not the Saudi-led intervention was warranted, most assessments indicate that it lacked a legitimate foundation, as the conflict in Yemen originated as an internal struggle that should have been resolved by Yemenis themselves. The intervention internationalized the war, introducing power dynamics and external dependencies to Yemen that undermined prospects for a sustainable political settlement. By expanding and prolonging the conflict, the intervention eroded Yemen’s already weak sovereignty and deepened internal divisions, complicating efforts to restore national cohesion. Moreover, the intervention’s failure has weakened Saudi Arabia’s strategic position and strengthened the Houthis, allowing them to entrench their control over northern Yemen, to enhance their military capabilities, and to strength their political legitimacy. The prolonged military campaign has allowed the group to consolidate power, making a negotiated resolution increasingly difficult.

Saudi Arabia’s Strategic Recalibration

After several years of the intervention, Saudi Arabia’s approach in Yemen underwent a significant transformation due to a combination of pivotal events, including Saudi operatives’ 2018 murder of dissident journalist Jamal Khashoggi, the 2023 China-brokered agreement between Saudi Arabia and Iran to restore diplomatic relations, and Israel’s war on Gaza.

The assassination of Washington Post columnist Khashoggi in Istanbul severely damaged Saudi Arabia’s international reputation, particularly in the West, and provoked heightened criticism of its policies, including the war in Yemen. Germany and Denmark imposed arms embargoes on Saudi Arabia, citing the Khashoggi murder and the Kingdom’s actions in Yemen as central reasons. Faced with growing domestic and international pressure, Riyadh had no choice but to recalibrate its approach toward the Yemen conflict, shifting from military intervention to diplomacy. A recognition that its aggressive foreign policy risked alienating critical allies, particularly the United States which was under mounting domestic political pressure to curb arms sales to the kingdom, motivated the change. In this context, Riyadh’s move was about preserving vital geopolitical relationships rather than rethinking its regional ambitions.

The March 2023 agreement between Saudi Arabia and Iran, brokered by China, heralded Riyadh’s strategic pivot from confrontation with the Islamic Republic to containment. In the deal, Iran agreed to significantly reduce its support for the Houthis. For Riyadh, its priorities evolved, as the political costs of the war began to outweigh its strategic benefits, prompting a shift toward de-escalation. This led to an unprecedented visit in April 2023 by the kingdom’s ambassador to Sanaa, Mohammed al-Jaber—who had been recalled from the Yemeni capital years earlier—where he met with Houthi leaders. With the Saudi leadership now focused on domestic economic transformation under Vision 2030, the political cost of the war outweighed its potential strategic gains, pushing Riyadh to seek an exit rather than a military victory.

The Gaza war that began in October 2023 led Saudi Arabia to further recalibrate its calculus in Yemen, compelling Riyadh to avoid actions that might provoke retaliation from the Houthis. Saudi Arabia’s non-participation in Operation Prosperity Guardian—the US-led military campaign to safeguard the maritime trade routes in the southern Red Sea from Houthi attacks—along with its hesitancy toward US-UK military strikes on Houthi positions, underlines a broader shift. Riyadh no longer sees Yemen as a strategic battleground for confrontation. Instead, its primary concern now is de-escalation, fearing that renewed hostilities could undo its diplomatic progress with Iran and jeopardize its domestic and regional ambitions.

Yemen’s Complex Landscape

Over the past decade, Yemen’s political landscape has become more complex, marked by fragmentation, a persistent political deadlock, and a worsening humanitarian crisis. Initially a domestic player in Yemen’s internal power struggles, the Houthis have become a regional actor, evident in their strikes on Red Sea shipping, US warships, and Israeli targets in solidarity with Gaza. Today, with Iran’s regional influence waning, the Houthis are diversifying their alliances, courting support from Iraq, Russia, and even al-Shabaab in Somalia.

The Saudi-Iranian rapprochement has led to reduced Iranian oversight over the Houthis and led the group to become more autonomous, with more independent military capabilities. A 2024 report from the United Nations Panel of Experts on Yemen describes the Houthis’ efforts to cultivate a direct network of allies, bypassing Iran’s traditional intermediary role. Saudi Arabia’s greater flexibility in its dealings with the Houthis, driven by the rapprochement, has helped the Houthis to consolidate power.

As the Houthis have strengthened their position, the evolving dynamics on the ground have influenced broader regional and international strategies. The latest US airstrikes in Yemen mark a more aggressive American military strategy by directly targeting Houthi leaders rather than only their military assets. In addition, in contrast to the Biden administration’s generally more private pressure on Iran to stop supporting the Houthis, President Donald Trump has publicly and directly linked Iran to the actions of Yemen’s Houthi rebels, stating that “every shot fired by the Houthis will be looked upon… as being a shot fired from the weapons and leadership of Iran, and Iran will be held responsible.” This attribution may serve as a strategic pretext for American escalation against Tehran.

Yet the Houthis’ deeply entrenched military position, combined with Yemen’s challenging geography, diminishes the likelihood of Trump’s new campaign achieving a decisive military outcome. To address the growing Houthi threat most effectively, a comprehensive approach is required. Strengthening Yemen’s internationally recognized government and unifying its factions is crucial to offering a viable alternative to exclusive Houthi control. By consolidating political authority and addressing the underlying causes of the conflict, Yemen can present a united front and reduce Houthi influence.

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This policy analysis was first written for and published in the website of the Arab Center in DC. 

US air strikes against Houthis continue, rebel group say | BBC News