Biden has merely rebranded the brutal war against Yemen

One year ago this month, President Joe Biden made Yemen the focus of his first foreign-policy speech, in which he declared, “this war has to end.”

Naturally, headlines declared the end of US military operations in Yemen, but I couldn’t help but be skeptical of Biden’s intentions. I questioned why he followed that declaration with, “we are ending all American support for offensive operations in the war in Yemen, including relevant arms sales.”

When civilians are being killed in airstrikes during weddings and funerals with US-supplied weapons, aren’t all arms sales to countries dropping the bombs relevant? How can modern-day siege warfare in the form of a naval, land, and aerial blockade not be considered “offensive”?

Clearly, this seemingly arbitrary distinction between “relevant” vs. “irrelevant” arms sales and “offensive” vs. “defensive” military operations amounts to a rebranding of the war on Yemen.

This year marks the seventh year since Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates formed a coalition that began bombing my country of birth, ostensibly to restore Yemen’s internationally-recognized president to power — with the support of the Obama White House.

The result of this collaboration soon became catastrophic, with the UN describing Yemen as undergoing the world’s worst humanitarian crisis.

By the end of 2021, an estimated 377,000 Yemenis have either been starved to death or were killed in the violence. The same cannot be said about either Saudi Arabia or the UAE, who have largely been unscathed by this asymmetrical war.