Peter Gelling

It's been three weeks since Saudi Arabia decided to launch airstrikes against Houthi rebels in Yemen. In that time, the rebels have not lost ground. They have not stopped fighting. The Saudi- and US-backed Yemeni government remains essentially in exile in its own country.

The airstrikes — there have been more than a thousand of them — instead have had an impact of another kind: hundreds of civilians have been killed, more than a hundred thousand displaced, and access to food, water and electricity has been disrupted for millions. From the perspective of many Yemenis, Saudi Arabia is the worst aggressor of them all.

On top of that, the intervention by Saudi Arabia is ramping up the sectarian nature of the conflict. Here is basically what's happening: the Houthi rebels are Shia. The Yemeni government — which is almost entirely ineffectual even when there's peace — is aligned with Saudi Arabia, which is Sunni. Saudi Arabia wants things to stay that way because it's paranoid about the geopolitical resurgence of Shia Iran. The United States fits into this because it needs a friendly government willing to let it fight Al Qaeda in Yemen with its drones. (A US drone killed a top Al Qaeda cleric just this week.)

Now Iraq is wading into it. During a trip to Washington yesterday, Iraq's prime minister criticized the Saudi military campaign in Yemen. He said it had gone “too far” and feared it could spark a wider sectarian conflict. That's rich coming from the Iraqi government, which is mostly Shia. Its poor treatment of Sunni populations at home has helped feed the ranks of the Islamic State.

The situation is a mess. It's so bad, in fact, that the UN envoy to Yemen quit — a decision he announced on Facebook. It's likely he was asked to quit. Both Saudi Arabia and the Yemeni government itself have expressed disappointment with the envoy's ability to negotiate peace between, well, anyone.

The envoy's departure will not affect the delivery of UN aid packages to Yemen, which are vital for one of the world's poorest and most hungry nations.

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