The Trump administration should attempt to end tensions in Yemen by seeking a settlement to end the civil war, wrote Chad Kunkle in The National Interest.org website.
Kunkle , a 2024 Marcellus Policy Fellow at the John Quincy Adams Society, where he focused on the Red Sea crisis, added that The Trump administration has made great use of its leverage in the region to secure several notable agreements. And its interactions with groups like Hamas and the Houthis themselves have already broken taboos on dealing with unsociable groups.
He suggested that the administration should build on its diplomatic momentum and begin discussions with the relevant actors in Yemen to determine what could bring them to an understanding.
It also needs to convey America’s interests: an agreement to end the civil war, the release of the Houthis’ hostages, and the continued safe passage for American ships through the Red Sea.
The statement on the situation by the U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio last week set a good precedent, emphasizing “restraint and continued diplomacy.” But with Saudi Arabia and the UAE now coming to blows, a more direct diplomatic engagement is warranted.
The result may be a fractured Yemen, but as others have pointed out, the modern state of Yemen was a defective enterprise from the beginning, and it may be time to come to terms with that reality.
While success is not guaranteed, Kunkle concluded, an imperfect peace in Yemen would benefit stability in the Middle East far more than a renewed conflict, and it would suit the Trump administration to take pre-emptive diplomatic action.
The peace process in Gaza is more likely to succeed when missiles and drones aren’t flying, or when two of its key players aren’t engaged in a proxy war against each other. Let the Yemen civil war be the next conflict that the “president of peace” ends.
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