Made it a year before the voices forced me back to rant here. So unsurprisingly, it's going to be a long one.
First to open with a couple caveats. The minor one - I
only knew a little bit about Yemen before the Houthis started blockading
Israeli ships coming through the Red Sea - while I've "done my own
research" since then - this is by no means anything close to representing
a decent amateur's understanding, let alone an expert's. More important caveat
- the previous one doesn't matter. The only important opinions on what happens
to Yemen are Yemeni - which I am not.
Okay - the main issue is that Yemen is one of the poorest countries in the world, despite having substantial oil deposits and a strategic location on one of the world's most important shipping routes. That poverty is mostly inflicted by external forces. 100% due to external forces putting the nation under blockade and a decade of bombing runs. And split responsibility (but mostly foreign influenced) for a decade long civil war mostly fueled by those same external forces.
Yemen is an ancient civilization, and a proud one, and as we are coming to learn, an incredibly resilient one. The nation has been subject to crazy waves of imperialist colonization, all broken by the many factors which make it ungovernable. I've identified the brutal terrain and the fragmented tribal groups and resulting complex network of relationships therein - but again - not even a decent amateur's understanding of the country, so there are likely more. It's resisted the Ottomans, the British, and the Russians. It's currently got Saudi and Emirati meddling - neither of which are going to last - although they have caused immense damage tied to that decade long civil war.
And yet despite it all, the Yemenis have resisted - although they have been forced into deeply fundamentalist nationalist groups for survival and to push out the colonizers, earning it the nickname "Graveyard of Empires". Sound familiar? Kind of reminiscent of Afghanistan if you ask me. And that should serve as a big flashing warning sign to the international community - we're creating a new Taliban here. And both Ansar Allah and Al Islah aren't that far off already.
More importantly though, even after a brutal civil war claiming hundreds of thousands of lives, both these groups still identify as Yemeni. The Yemeni national identity is real and incredibly durable - also not unlike Afghanistan.
It's a nation that has taken what imperialist colonial empires can throw at it and still remains strong today. Strong enough to enforce a blockade on global trade that has real and meaningful effects - despite being one of the poorest countries in the world. So what needs to happen is that instead of meddling, foreign powers (and domestic ones too) have to recognize that "owning" Yemen is impossible. Many empires tried and they all failed. And more importantly, an "owned" Yemen - some sort of colony forced to pay tribute - this is less beneficial not only for the Yemenis but for whichever sucker empire wants to pout untold resources and lives into the impossible task of pacifying the locals. Far better to support and foster an independent Yemen, one that rebuilds with its oil wealth and then cements its place in the global community with its maintenance of one of the world's most important trade routes.
