News Analysis: Political solutions only best hope for Yemen crisis

Saudi-led coalition has been bombing the Shiite Houthi fighters in Yemen for about three weeks, and experts believe that the military offensive would head nowhere if political solutions are left untried.

The operation aims to restore the rule by absent President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi and his government, and to at least slow down Houthi militants' march towards the total control of the whole nation.

It is a message to armed factions so that they abandon violence and then come back to dialogue under the Gulf Initiative for power transition, spokesperson for the Arab coalition, Ahmed Asiri, said.

For the Gulf nations, especially the Saudis, they fear that if they leave the Iran-backed Houthis' quest for power unchecked, then their strategic interests in the region could be eclipsed by the expansion of Tehran's spheres of influence.

However, the past several weeks have proved that, without ground offensives, air raids alone have been proved largely ineffective in thwarting the Houthis' ultimate goal of ruling the country.

Abdul Salam Muhammad, head of the ABAAD studies and research center, said military action is not a solution to the crisis in Yemen, which rather requires a political breakthrough.

"I think even Saudi Arabia did not see the military action as the solution," he said, adding that Riyadh is trying to bomb the Houthi fighters back to the negotiation table.

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Right now, even the Saudis are not sure how much longer would the air campaign still have to continue amid growing skepticism over its actual effectiveness to restore peace and stability in its southern neighbor.

According to the coalition, the operation, code-name Decisive Storm, will not stop until the Hadi's government is reinstated, and the Houthi militants give up fight and weapons. Considering the current situation on the ground, the talks of achieving these goals are at best intangible.

Nabil Albukiri, head of the Arab center for political development and studies, admitted that it is still unclear on how to bring Mr. Hadi back to Yemen, and ensure his comfortable rule.

The Arab coalition needs to address the issue of time for the operation, and end the crisis in shorter period of time and with less losses, Albukiri said.

"The coalition should work on it militarily and politically at the same time," he said.

He also warned that if the Saudi-led coalition continues to brag about the military successes through media, while putting off the chances to solve the crisis politically, then the operation would lead to disasters in the end.

HUMANITARIAN DISASTER

Weeks of Saudi-headed bombings and continuous ground battles between the Houthis and pro-Hadi forces have already killed over 600 people, and displaced 100,000 others.

According to Johannes van der Klauwe, UN Humanitarian Coordinator for Yemen, 16 million people, almost two-thirds of the population, needed humanitarian aids even before the start of the crisis.

He cautioned that the humanitarian situation in Yemen is getting worse by the hour.

The UN Secretary-General has also warned of the rapidly deteriorating security and humanitarian crises inflamed by the flaring violence in the Sun-blasted tip of the Arabian Peninsula.

"Countless civilians are being willfully abandoned to misery," in Yemen, Ban Ki-moon told reporters at United Nations Headquarters on Friday, adding "The crisis has only multiplied in recent days."

"Even before the latest crisis, Yemen's overall humanitarian needs were on a scale similar to all nine countries of the Sahel region combined," he said.

He added that the number of severely food insecure people in Yemen had almost been doubled.

Experts believe that as the humanitarian crisis deepens, the international community would eventually lose its patience over Saudis' no-time frame air campaign, and pressure Riyadh to pause the bombings and to start to talk.

Thus, for the Saudis and all other warring sides, if the peace talks are inevitable, why not change the strategy as fast as the situation permits? Endit