JUDY WOODRUFF: The war in the
Middle Eastern country Yemen
grinds on well into its third
year.
Houthi rebels control
much of the country's
northwest, including the
capital, Sanaa, while
a Saudi-backed government and
al-Qaida hold sway elsewhere.
William Brangham has
the latest on the U.S.
role in this conflict.
WILLIAM BRANGHAM: In December
alone, according to the U.N.,
136 civilians were killed in
airstrikes by the U.S.-backed
Saudi-led coalition.
One airstrike cost this man
in Northwest Yemen dearly.
MEGAHED GASSAR, Yemen (through
translator): They targeted
my house while there were 18
to 20 guests.
The whole family was inside,
as well as all our cattle.
Everything is gone.
There's nothing left.
WILLIAM BRANGHAM: And
on Tuesday, the Houthi
rebels, whom the Saudis
are fighting, fired
another ballistic missile
from Yemen towards the
Saudi capital of Riyadh.
The missile was intercepted
by the kingdom's air defenses,
and the Saudis claim it was
manufactured by Iran, which
is backing the Houthis.
This was the second failed
attack on Riyadh by the
Houthis in as many months.
The Trump administration has
also repeatedly called out Iran
about its involvement in the
conflict, a point driven home
dramatically by U.N. Ambassador
Nikki Haley last week.
NIKKI HALEY, U.S. Ambassador
to the United Nations: These
are the recovered pieces of
a missile fired by
Houthi militants from
Yemen into Saudi Arabia.
The weapons might as
well have had "Made in
Iran" stickers all over.
WILLIAM BRANGHAM:
Meanwhile, the Yemeni
people continue to suffer.
This week, according to the Red
Cross, the country registered
its one-millionth case
of cholera.
Health officials say it
is the fastest spreading
cholera epidemic in history.
And at the same time, millions
of Yemenis also live on the
brink of famine, a crisis
that's been worsened
by the Saudi blockade
of ports and border
crossings, which has limited
food and humanitarian supplies.
On Wednesday, the
Saudi-led coalition
announced it would keep the
Houthi-controlled port of
Hudaydah open for a month to
allow aid into the country.
The port had been closed
for most of November.
Yesterday, Deputy Assistant
Secretary Of State Tim
Lenderking welcomed the news.
TIM LENDERKING, U.S.
Deputy Secretary of State:
The first thing we want
to see is ships actually
moving into Hudaydah port,
off-loading, providing
fuel, water, supplies
for the Yemeni people,
filling the hospitals
with fuel, so that medical
supplies can be dispensed.
Four U.S. cranes will
be on their way very
shortly to Hudaydah.
We want to see them installed.
We want to see them
playing a central role
here in off-loading ships.
WILLIAM BRANGHAM: While the U.S.
is the largest donor of aid to
Yemen, U.S. arms manufacturers,
with approval from the U.S.
government, also supply the
Saudi-led coalition with bombs,
and U.S. military jets
refuel those coalition
bombers and fighter jets.
On Thursday, U.S. Central
Command announced that it had
also carried out multiple ground
operations and more than
120 airstrikes in Yemen this
year, those attacks apparently
against al-Qaida leaders.
Last summer, the Trump
administration announced
the potential for
billions of dollars of new
arms sales to Saudi Arabia,
arms that will no doubt add to
the civilian death toll, which,
according to the U.N., is
over 5,000 and growing.
For the "PBS NewsHour,"
I'm William Brangham.
JUDY WOODRUFF: To help explain
the complex situation in
Yemen, I'm joined now by James
Jeffrey.
He served in several senior
positions during his 35-year
career as a diplomat, including
U.S. ambassador to Turkey
and to Iraq, and as President
George W. Bush's deputy national
security adviser.
He's now at the Washington
Institute for Near East Policy.
And Stephen Seche, he was deputy
assistant secretary in the
Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs
at the State Department,
responsible for U.S. relations
with the Gulf states and Yemen.
He served as U.S. ambassador
to Yemen from 2007 to 2010.
He is now at the Arab
Gulf States Institute
here in Washington.
And we welcome both
of you to the program.
Ambassador Seche, I
will start with you.
Why has this war
dragged on and on?
What is driving it?
STEPHEN SECHE, Former U.S.
Ambassador to Yemen: To a large
extent, the reason why the war
continued in this fashion is
because it sits in a corner of
the globe which has not produced
the kind of migration
into Europe which
the war in Syria has.
So, therefore, the alarm that
is raised about the war in Yemen
is far diminished from that
that we see given the
conflict in Syria.
So, that being away from the
public eye and not creating
that sense of threat that is
really prolonged and very
protracted has worked
to a disadvantage of
all the people of Yemen
who have suffered on the back
pages of our newspapers, and
not as much coverage on our
television.
JUDY WOODRUFF: Ambassador
Jeffrey, is this a war between
the factions inside Yemen, or
is it a proxy war between
Saudi Arabia and Iran?
JAMES JEFFREY, Former U.S.
Ambassador to Iraq: It's both.
Only about five non-Yemenis,
including, unfortunately,
Ambassador Seche,
understand what's going
on in the many groups inside
of Yemen, but rather like
Syria, rather like Lebanon and
Iraq, this is part of an
overall conflict in the region
between Iran on the one hand
and Saudi Arabia, the U.S.,
Israel and most of the rest
of the region on the other.
JUDY WOODRUFF: And what's
the main grievance,
Ambassador Seche?
The Saudis are saying Iran
is threatening the region.
The Iranians are doing what
they're trying to do through
the Houthis, who are also Shia,
the Shia militia there.
Who has the upper
hand in this argument?
STEPHEN SECHE: Well, I think
it's important to start with
the fact that the Houthis, who
are a part of Yemen's fabric
of society, have serious,
longstanding grievous with their
government and with the
Saudis, for that matter, too.
So this is kind of where
the Houthis are coming from.
And they're trying to
grab their part of Yemen
and its power structure.
Now, the Saudis feel very
alarmed, and with reason, by
the fact the Houthis have taken
over a lot of the military
weapons in Yemen, a lot
of the territory, and
now control basically
- - and exercise a real
threat that Saudi Arabia
finds intolerable.
And I agree with them.
It probably is.
JUDY WOODRUFF: And so it started
as something more internal,
Ambassador Jeffrey, but it
has grown to be this
more regional war.
JAMES JEFFREY: Right, but, I
mean, you have to point fingers.
The main reason it's grown to
be that is the Iranian strategy
to infiltrate into failed
states -- and this is a good
example of it - - Lebanon was
in the 1980s -- find groups,
typically, but not always, Shia
groups, that it can support,
and then create sub-governments
and sub-militias within
societies -- and I saw that very
personally in Iraq -- that are
more loyal to Tehran than they
are to their own capitals of
Beirut, of Damascus, or Baghdad
or Sanaa.
JUDY WOODRUFF: Ambassador Seche,
are the Iranians, do they pose
the threat that the Saudis and
others say they
do in the region?
STEPHEN SECHE: I'm not as
persuaded as Ambassador
Jeffrey is that the
Iranians are the ones
that -- engineers behind this.
This is a homegrown revolt
on the part of the Houthis.
The Iranians no doubt have
gotten more and more involved,
as the Saudis have gotten more
and more involved.
So, now I think each
of these two rivals are
seeing Yemen as an arena
in which their interests
can be served.
But I also think that a lot
of what we see now, a lot of
the humanitarian issue that's
emerged, is a direct
result of three years of
protracted Saudi airstrikes.
I saw data today from the Yemen
Data Project 15,000 airstrikes
have been conducted over
Yemen, a country smaller
than the state of Texas,
over a three-year period.
JUDY WOODRUFF: Why has this
grown to be the humanitarian
crisis that it is, Ambassador
Jeffrey?
It's one thing for two sides
to be fighting each other,
but the civilians are the ones
who have taken the
hit, for the most part.
JAMES JEFFREY: In almost every
conflict I have seen in the
Middle East, the conflicts
are actually fought out
not in the desert, but
in the populated areas.
And all sides use unrestricted
airstrikes to make up for
typically a lack of infantry
troops.
The Saudis in these airstrikes
have killed, according to the
U.N. report in October, some
3,000 civilians.
That's a big number, but it's
not all that different than
what we have killed in the
conflict against ISIS
in Iraq and Syria over
the past three years.
JUDY WOODRUFF: But the U.S.
is -- not but - - or the U.S.
is part of this coalition with
the Saudis that has helped lead
to these civilian casualties.
JAMES JEFFREY: Right, and the
reason for that, though, is the
Saudis and the U.S. fear -- the
two sides aren't equal,
Iran and Saudi Arabia.
Yemen borders on Saudi Arabia.
It doesn't border on Iran.
It is a long way from Iran.
More importantly, the
Saudis have been seen this
movie before in Lebanon.
The Shia group there, Hezbollah,
had their own legitimate
grievances against Israel and
against their own
governments, but they
became a front for Iran.
They have over 100,000 missiles
right now aimed at Israel.
It's an existential threat.
The Saudis fear, for good
reason, the same thing in Yemen.
JUDY WOODRUFF: But you're saying
that that fear is overblown?
STEPHEN SECHE: I think
the fear is genuine.
I do think it is not quite the
fact that Iran has come in here
to try to become the archenemy
- - they are already -- of Saudi
Arabia, but the Houthis need to
be dealt with as a nationalist
movement on their own.
The ironies are taking
advantage of this.
They're exploiting a situation
which has been created to their
benefit, very low investment
and very high reward
for the Iranians here.
So, I think what the Saudis need
to do is figure out what they
can do to extract themselves,
because they're getting
dug deeper and deeper
in the muck of this war.
And they have a lot of other
items on their agenda that
need their attention and their
resources.
JUDY WOODRUFF: Do you believe
the Saudis will see a way
to extract themselves?
STEPHEN SECHE: They haven't
demonstrated that interest as
yet, nor have the Houthis for
that matter.
So, I think both sides, they
need to realize at this point
that the only way they Gates
have any of their interests
served is by sitting down and
negotiating a way out of this.
There is no military victory.
The Saudis cannot win this
war, certainly not the way
they have been fighting it for
three year . And the Houthis
don't need to win it.
They just need not to lose it.
JUDY WOODRUFF: Do you agree
the Saudis can't win this?
JAMES JEFFREY: Absolutely.
Steve has the right way forward.
The only problem is, the Saudis
can't do this if they're going
to face a future with hundreds
of thousands or at least tens
of thousands of long-range
missiles in the hands of the
Houthis, and with Iran
aiming at capital, Riyadh.
JUDY WOODRUFF: Well, where
do you see this going then?
JAMES JEFFREY: I see the United
States finally coming up, which
we haven't yet, with a real
policy of trying to deal
with Iran in the region.
And that's the whole region,
not just in Yemen or Syria.
Then telling the Saudis,
look, we have a program.
We understand that any solution
has to exclude keeping a lot
of Iranian missiles, i.e., a
repeat of what we have in
Southern Lebanon today, but as
a quid pro quo for that, you
have got to deal with
the Houthis, just as
Ambassador Seche said.
JUDY WOODRUFF: But that would
involve, Ambassador Seche, the
U.S. coming down hard -- harder
on Iran.
STEPHEN SECHE: On Iran
and also on Saudi Arabia.
And I think we have seen
recently that the White House
and the State Department have
become a real strenuous campaign
of putting some pressure
on Riyadh, which has paid a
lot.
The Saudis just announced
they're going to reopen the port
or allow the port in Hudaydah
to be reopened and they're going
to let the cranes come in there.
So, I think this demonstrates
that if the U.S. does get
aggressive, this will apply
the pressure.
The Saudis will respond.
At the same time, Iran needs
to be brought into this in some
way, because they are playing
a role in this.
And I think we
can't ignore that.
We need to find a way to
constructively engage all of the
parties who have an interest in
this, and bring them
to the table together.
JUDY WOODRUFF: Ambassador
Stephen Seche, Ambassador
James Jeffrey, it's
good to have you both.
Very tough subject.
Thank you.
JAMES JEFFREY: Thank you, Judy.