Editor’s Note: Every Monday, Managing Editor Frederick Deknatel highlights a major unfolding story in the Middle East, while curating some of the best news and analysis from the region. Subscribers can adjust their newsletter settings to receive Middle East Memo by email every week.
“This war has to end,” Joe Biden declared in his first foreign policy address as president last week, when he announced a halt to “all American support for offensive operations” in the Saudi-led military campaign in Yemen against Houthi rebels. But cutting off U.S. arms for the disastrous Saudi air war, which Biden also called a “humanitarian and strategic catastrophe,” won’t really end the conflict.
“It is not like the operations are going to be suspended tomorrow because of this,” Farea Al-Muslimi, a Yemeni analyst who is an associate fellow at Chatham House, told The New York Times. “The Gulf countries already have a lot of weapons, so the decision is symbolic in a lot of ways.”