Brookings experts on Yemen

The Center for Middle East Policy (CMEP) recently hosted an event titled “Yemen and Libya: The Middle East’s Other Civil Wars.” The event brought together a panel of experts on Yemen, Libya, and the broader region to discuss the rising violence and chaos in those two countries. Listen to what they had to say or read a transcript of the conversation here.

Pakistan is listed as one of the non-GCC countries that has joined in the coalition against the Houthis in Yemen. Bruce Riedel, director of The Intelligence Project at Brookings, wrote a piece for Al-Monitor explaining Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif’s decision less than two weeks ago not to send troops to Saudi Arabia to help the Kingdom confront the rising Houthi threat on its southwestern border.

In February, Markaz featured a post from Riedel analyzing the likely Saudi response to the stunning Houthi seizure of the Yemeni capital city of Sana’a. 

And following the death of Saudi Arabia’s King Abdullah earlier this year, which came on the heels of the resignation of Yemeni president Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi, Riedel declared in an op-ed in Al-Monitor that Yemen would be the “first priority for Saudi’s new King Salman.”  

In January, Kenneth M. Pollack, senior fellow at CMEP, and Barbara F. Walter of U.C. San Diego argued that the real threat Yemen posed to the United States came not from terrorism, but from Yemen’s potential to destabilize Saudi Arabia—presciently warning that “the Saudis are obsessed with Yemen and have found it impossible to resist meddling in Yemeni affairs.” Earlier this week, Pollack testified to the Senate Armed Services Committee, and he addressed the civil war in Yemen, as well as broader regional turmoil.

Ibrahim Sharqieh, deputy director of the Brookings Doha Center, outlined how U.S. counterterrorism efforts in Yemen, and specifically its use of drones to target al-Qa’ida-linked terrorists, has contributed to Yemen’s instability in a recent interview on NPR.