ADEN, YEMEN — Winston Churchill supposedly quibbled that Americans always do the right thing, but only after trying everything else first. Democrats were for Saudi airstrikes before they were against them. President Donald Trump preferred sanctions and designating the Houthis as terrorists, only to have President Joe Biden reverse course. In his second term, Trump tried bombing the Houthis and then agreed to a unilateral ceasefire with them. None of it has worked.
The United Nations, meanwhile, prefers illusions over solutions in Yemen. Security Council members Russia and China would rather empower the Houthis against the West than allow effective action. But with the Houthis again threatening Americans, striking at international shipping, and launching drones and ballistic missiles at Israel, the United States’s policy toward Yemen and the Houthis needs a reset.
To learn what Yemenis say, I traveled to the country to ask what it might take to restore stability and make anti-Houthi efforts effective. The Yemenis suggested common sense colored by reality rather than wishful thinking from diplomats based hundreds of miles away. Secretary of State Marco Rubio, like Antony Blinken, Mike Pompeo, and John Kerry before him, refuses to maintain a U.S. Embassy in Aden’s stable and secure city, preferring to base its embassy in Saudi Arabia instead. This is a decision analogous to placing the U.S. Embassy to Ukraine in Belarus, if not Russia, given how Saudi Arabia seeks a separate deal for itself that would see the Houthis survive in exchange for quiet on its border.
But the international community needs to get serious about stopping Houthi resupply. The 2018 Stockholm Agreement to prevent Houthis from capitalizing on control of the Port of Hudaydah did not prevent weapons smuggling; it provided cover for it. Starving Houthis of weapons shipments requires closing Hudaydah permanently, perhaps even destroying the port. In 2018, the Houthis leveraged image-obsessed diplomats and useful idiots in the human rights community to warn that the disruption caused by any attempt by anti-Houthi forces to take Hudaydah would cause starvation throughout the country. The result was the Stockholm Agreement, imposed by the United Nations and major powers, to create a fig leaf of international inspections and control, all the while leaving the Houthis in control of operations. It was the triumph of illusion over reality.
The United States and the United Nations must immediately channel all aid through Aden, a port from which the international community can distribute it as needed.
It is also necessary to end the Frankenstein Monster of the Presidential Leadership Council, at least in its current form. Islah—Yemen’s Muslim Brotherhood branch—acts as a Trojan Horse for both the Houthis and Al Qaeda. Rubio should stop the fiction that Islah is a partner and designate it a Foreign Terror Organization, given its well-documented links. Success requires calibrating policy to reality rather than appeasing the feelings of Turkey, Qatar, and Oman.
Northern Yemeni parties prefer to undermine Southerners rather than defeat the Houthis. This dampens development and causes salaries to go unpaid. Meanwhile, pretend ministers like Minister of Information Moammar Al Eryani and Minister of Interior Ibrahim Haidan suck up the budget while living in Egypt or Saudi Arabia rather than in Yemen itself.
Instead, it is time to embrace a simple reality: Yemen will only be stable when Yemenis from any particular province or region govern themselves. The Southern Transitional Council should run South Yemen; northern Yemenis might be guests in the area, but they should not interfere in its governance. Ideally, northern Yemen can form its own government in Marib or another northern town and focus on liberating its areas rather than undermining others.
A SENSIBLE LOOK AT THE STATE DEPARTMENT CUTS
If South Yemen eventually chooses independence, so be it. Unity might be more destabilizing than separation, especially given South Yemen’s history of independence and its separate culture.
Finally, success requires understanding that Iran is not the only country helping the Houthis; Oman supports the group as a lever against southern Yemeni rivals, while Saudi Arabia would rather keep Yemen boiling than have Riyadh’s Emirati rivals benefit. It is time to call out both Oman and Saudi Arabia until they again put the Houthis’ defeat first.
Michael Rubin is director of analysis at the Middle East Forum and a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute.