All right, y'all, welcome to the Scott Horton Show.
I am the Director of the Libertarian Institute, Editorial Director of Antiwar.com, author of the book Fool's Errand, Time to End the War in Afghanistan, and I've recorded more than 5,000 interviews going back to 2003, all of which are available at scotthorton.org.
You can also sign up for the podcast feed.
The full archive is also available at youtube.com slash scotthorton show.
All right, you guys, introducing Giorgio Caffiero.
He is the CEO and founder of Gulf State Analytics, a geopolitical risk consultancy based in Washington D.C., and here he is writing for the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft.
This one's called COVID-19, Yemen's Unprecedented Calamity.
Welcome back to the show, Giorgio.
How are you doing?
Good, Scott.
Always good to be with you.
Thank you so much.
Yeah.
Happy to have you here.
Tell me, how bad does a calamity have to be to be unprecedented in Yemen?
The COVID-19 situation in Yemen is extremely disturbing to say the absolute least.
You know, a couple of years ago, the United Nations recognized Yemen as the most needy place on earth.
You know, to put that into context, about 80% of the population, so we're talking about 24 million people, require humanitarian aid.
There is widespread malnourishment, in fact, 2 million children in the country malnourished.
So when we consider all of the humanitarian crises that preceded COVID-19, it's extremely easy to understand how susceptible not only Yemenis, but also African migrants in Yemen are to the threat of this pandemic.
This health crisis has potential to kill more Yemenis than all the fighting since 2015 has.
All right, now, from the very beginning of the war, for the critics paying close attention anyway, the story has been, now wait a minute, this is an incredibly poor country and they're incredibly dependent on foreign imports for their food supplies.
And you plunge them into a war like this, you're going to put, you know, a million people on the brink of starvation in no time at all.
But that was five years ago and more.
The entire civilian infrastructure, certainly in the north of the country, has been bombed to smithereens quite deliberately by the American-led alliance.
I know they say Saudi-led, but we're more honest around here.
And so this coalition has reigned such devastation.
We know they've been through these major cholera epidemics and all of this already.
But I guess we don't really know.
Maybe we won't know till after the war and someone finally can do the excess death rate count.
How many people already have starved to death or been deprived to death in the war?
It's certainly more than a quarter million people have been killed, but it must be probably two or three times as much as that in terms of overall excess death rate and so forth, including cholera infections and other kinds of malnutrition-related deprivation or just basic medical deprivation where people are dying of diseases that otherwise are easily treatable that they otherwise would never die of, but they die anyway because they're already sick or already so hungry that a cold kills them off, this kind of thing.
But so yeah, now the COVID thing, I guess I just, I wonder how much do you know about how bad it is there?
How many people have it?
How badly it's outbreaking?
And maybe if you can talk a little bit about how hard it is to wash your hands when there is no clean water in the country because America bombed your water factory or waterworks there.
Yeah, you're absolutely right to point out that the past five years of conflict to what prior to the conflict was the Arab region's most impoverished country has left the people of Yemen in such a weak position in terms of being able to cope with the pandemic of the country's 3,500 medical facilities.
The war has damaged the majority of them.
At this point, when we're talking about how many ventilators exist per capita, let's look at Aden, the second largest city in the country, population around 800,018 ventilators and only 60 hospital beds for coronavirus patients.
So what was previously a chronically underfunded healthcare system in Yemen has been basically decimated by the past five years of armed conflict.
So it's truly nightmarish to think about how quickly coronavirus could spread like wildfire throughout this country.
There is, you know, on top of these healthcare problems, there have been flash floods earlier on in the country, which took down the power grid in Aden, other diseases, cholera among others, lack of access to potable water.
You know, the consequences of all of this is that the immunity systems of the Yemenis are so compromised that this makes them all the more vulnerable to COVID-19.
Around 25, 30% of the infected Yemenis, at least according to the authorities record, died from the pandemic.
That's about five times the global average.
So, you know, it's true that the pandemic does not know national boundaries and the pandemic is a threat to all societies in all countries worldwide.
There's no denying that the previous humanitarian disasters across Yemen and the reality of five years of brutal warfare make the Yemenis extremely vulnerable to this global health crisis.
And do you know how many infections we're talking about in total?
Well, the government, the Yemeni government says officially 429 deaths and 1,516 infections.
That was from they released those figures very recently.
But I mean, that's that's laughable.
Of course, the figures are way higher than that.
It's pretty much all experts agree.
You mentioned that was down in Aden, I mean, which is an entirely separate system and government than in the capital city, Sinan, up to the north from there, right?
Yeah.
And this is an important point, too.
Yemen is divided between three major power centers.
There's the Houthi proto states in the north that is receiving support from Iran.
And then in Aden, in southern Yemen, you have a UAE supported faction called the STC, Southern Transitional Council.
That's the power center in the south.
And then nestled in between the two is the Saudi backed in U.S. recognized government led by President Hadi.
So there's no central authority in Yemen as the country is divided between the Houthis, the Hadi government and the STC.
So this has also made it extremely difficult for the people of Yemen to devise and implement any sort of nationwide policy aimed at coping with coronavirus.
Yeah, which, you know, might be for the better.
If you look at some of the policies we've had here, like the governor has decided we're sending all the infected people back to their nursing homes or anyway, it's amazing to think what would happen if you put the Americans literally in charge of the people of Yemen, the rest of them be dead before the end of the year.
Anyway, so and now what about in the north?
Are there reports out of Sanaa?
And what about in the Sada province, you know, all the way up in Houthi territory, home territory up near the Saudi border and all that?
Are there outbreaks up there?
I guess there must be by now.
Absolutely.
It's a problem within all three of these areas that these different administrations have control over.
You know, in an ideal set of circumstances, the Houthis who have power in the north would work with the Hadi government and the STC and these three power centers would put political differences and political problems on the side in the interest of battling COVID-19 as Yemenis.
But what's very unfortunate is that this pandemic did not result in the beginning of some sort of cooperation or cooling down of tensions.
It actually just sort of heightened the tension between the different sides of the Yemeni civil war.
And there have been many accusations, such as what the Hadi government is accusing the Houthis of withholding COVID-19 aid for political purposes, and that the Houthis are also making their accusations too.
So there's been a lot of finger pointing, a lot of blaming, but we're not seeing any sort of improvement in the relationship between these warring factions.
Yeah, it's just terrible.
I mean, and who could have seen it come?
It's just the same as all the rest of this, like the famine in Somalia.
And there's been a couple of different ones and how, well, the same drought hits Kenya and Ethiopia and Eritrea.
But in Somalia, it means a quarter of a million dead civilians because the U.S.'s war there and, well, and their enemy's side of it too.
But because of all the fighting and all the disruption of the economy means that all the distribution for the most important items for human survival are completely shattered.
And so why should this be any different, right?
Like if there's going to be a place in the world where you have the world's worst outbreak of this stuff, it seems like Yemen would be a pretty good candidate.
Like if I was the virus, I would probably take a pretty good bet on Yemen, you know, that I could get away with murder there.
The different COVID strands are saying to each other.
Well, you're absolutely right that it's going to be much easier for this virus to spread in Yemen than who knows, possibly any place else on earth, given all the factors we've been discussing.
And I certainly agree with you that when we're talking about the humanitarian disasters in the humanitarian crises in Yemen, we have to, of course, consider the role of U.S. foreign policy in this given Washington's role, not only when Trump was in the Oval Office, but also when Obama was in the Oval Office, which was when the Saudi campaign began back in 2015.
And again, we clearly cannot discuss the horrendous situation in Yemen without considering America's role in the country.
A QR code commodity disc as my gift to you.
It's a one ounce silver disc with a QR code on the back.
You take a picture of it with your phone and it gives you the instant spot price and lets you know what that silver, that ounce of silver is worth on the market in Federal Reserve notes in real time.
It's the future of currency in the past too.
Commoditydiscs.com or just go to scotthorton.org slash donate.
Hey guys, Scott Horton here for expanddesigns.com.
Harley Abbott and his crew do an outstanding job designing, building and maintaining my sites and they'll do great work for you.
You need a new website?
Go to expanddesigns.com slash Scott and save 500 bucks.
Now, you mentioned that Iran is friendly with the government in Sana'a, the Houthi government there.
And of course, that's the excuse for the whole war, really.
But I wonder to what degree do you really know that that's true?
And, you know, like, for example, is it enough to make a difference when Nikki Haley, for example, falsely accused Iran of supplying them with mid-range missiles, which, you know, was a joke, but would have been meaningful.
I don't know how meaningful, but it would have been something if it had been true.
So I just wonder where on that, you know, grayscale of Iranian intervention, you know, did you put your actual estimate of their involvement here?
Yeah, this is an important question because there's a lot of propaganda or at least exaggerations that we hear in Washington when it comes to these discussions about Iran's influence in Yemen and the actual relationship between the Islamic Republic and the Houthi rebels.
So, you know, when the Houthis first began their uprising back in 2004, Iran had basically no links with this group in Yemen.
However, as tensions between Saudi Arabia and Iran increased, the Iranians established a partnership with the Houthis that was really based on Tehran's interest in creating major problems for Saudi Arabia in Yemen.
It did not have to do with the actual interests of the Yemeni people themselves, but more it was really a geopolitical opportunity for Iran to make it increasingly costly for the Saudis to be intervening in Yemen.
Now, over the years, Iran has stepped up its support for the Houthis.
We've seen sophisticated drone and missile attacks that the Houthis have carried out against Saudi Arabia.
These are not indigenously produced weapons.
Are you sure about that?
Yes.
There is definitely direct Iranian support to the Houthis that have strengthened the Houthi position against Saudi Arabia.
But I think it's important to note that just because a group accepts support from Iran, it does not make them an Iranian proxy.
We always hear this term proxy when people describe the Houthis' relationship to Tehran.
I would say that the Houthis are a partner of Iran, but not an Iranian proxy, as one could argue is a better way to describe certain Iranian-backed groups in Iraq.
But again, I don't think we can use that term for the Houthis.
There's a great article in Foreign Policy called the Houthis are not Hezbollah that explain, you know, really the discrepancy here.
A little bit of support is one thing, whereas Hezbollah is pretty fairly called Iran's 51st state.
You know, not that they're completely controlled by Iran, but it's sort of like an independent state in the Iranian Union in a way, which you just could never say about the Houthis.
I completely agree.
Yeah.
And, you know, there's the real expert on Yemen too is Michael Horton, no relation to me, who is a regular source or semi-regular source, at least for expert commentary for the great Pentagon reporter, Mark Perry, and some others.
He's written for the American Conservative Magazine and so forth.
And he did tell me in the past too that he thought that it was true that Iran provided the Houthis with, you know, some money and some limited material support.
But of course, they're under blockade.
So it's not like they can do much more than PayPal them some money.
You know, they're not really in a position to, you know, deliver a bunch of weapons.
Where are they going to deliver them to?
The Port of Hodeidah or the Sana'a Airport?
I mean, all these things are completely blockaded and under enemy control.
And even the drones.
Yemenis can make drones.
I don't know exactly why they got to be Iranian ones.
I mean, maybe there is real evidence that they came from Iran.
But all I ever heard was assumptions so far, you know, I think.
My understanding is that the level of sophistication of these drones indicated they were Iran produced.
There is definitely evidence that Iran has been giving support to the Houthis when it comes to drones and missiles, even if many in Washington for various purposes have an interest in always exaggerating Iran's hand in the country.
Well, of course, that's true.
I mean, what a great way to humiliate Saudi Arabia for pennies on the dollar, right?
To just, you know.
Yes, this is a very important point, too, is that the gains are so high for Iran.
And this has cost the Islamic Republic such a small amount of money, especially when you compare this to the amount of money that the Saudis have been spending in Yemen.
A couple of years ago, that figure was at six billion U.S. dollars a month.
And then when we're talking about a war that goes on for five years, even if you're Saudi Arabia, that is not chump change.
Right.
Especially now, the oil price crash and everything else.
Operation Decisive Storm has lasted as long as, I think you could probably expect it to, once you heard they named it that.
Good five years.
And no end in sight.
As frustrated as they are and as many signals as they've given that they're considering figuring out a way out of there, the bombs keep falling.
We got headlines today, antiwar.com, 15 civilians killed.
Day before that, 10 civilians killed.
And as Doug Bondo says, it's our spotlight story today on antiwar.com.
This is America's war, too.
It ain't just the Saudis.
This is the USA doing this.
Washington's support for the Saudi-led coalition has been critical.
And, you know, it's, we're at a point right now where the Saudis want to get out of the Yemen war, but they also do not want to do it in a way in which they feel humiliated or they don't feel as though they can end the war in a dignified manner.
So there is definitely pressure coming on the Saudi leadership from multiple directions.
I think what one could optimistically hope for is that if there is a new U.S. administration taking power next year, led by Joe Biden, there could possibly be some boundaries that the U.S. establishes with Saudi Arabia, perhaps putting Yemen war on the table and using U.S. leverage over Riyadh to, you know, put significant pressure on the Saudis to halt their military operations.
Is there a reason to think that?
Or you're just saying, you know, hopefully with a new government, there'd be a change?
If we wanted to be very optimistic, I think we could hope for that happening.
Certainly is possible.
At the same time, I don't want to be naive about Biden, who has a very hawkish record.
There certainly, you know, there needs to be a distinction between what gets said on the campaign trail and what we can know for sure will happen once one's in office.
But if his campaign rhetoric is to be taken seriously, he has spoken out against the Yemen war and talked about how he would turn Saudi Arabia into, quote, a pariah state.
He would expose the Saudis as a, quote, unquote, pariah state and end American support for the Yemen war.
Oh, what would Netanyahu ever say about that?
Yeah, right.
And of course, he was vice president when the war broke out.
I want to hear his story about how he did everything he could to stop Barack Obama.
He even threatened to resign.
But then he didn't.
Yeah, right.
He didn't do anything at all to stop the war from starting.
So maybe he did advise against it, but he sure didn't, you know, stomp his feet.
He was the vice president of the US administration in power when this coalition entered Yemen.
So there certainly is a degree of responsibility that Biden himself has for the Yemen situation.
Yeah.
I mean, I guess I wouldn't care if he ever admitted that if he actually did something about it.
But anyway, I'm not too hopeful.
I expect for his government, as he put it, nothing much is going to change.
Hey, if nothing changed from Bush to Obama or Obama to Trump, why would it change from Trump back to Obama, you know?
Well, you know, what's interesting about the Trump era is that for many Democrats, they've started looking at foreign policy issues through more partisan lens than what we saw before Trump stepped into the Oval Office.
For example, the criticism the Democrats make of US support for the Saudi coalition in Yemen began after Trump entered the Oval Office, and it became an issue to go after Trump on.
And because Trump became so close to the Saudi leadership, we've heard more Democrats in a partisan manner speak out against Trump's willingness to always give Mohammed bin Salman the benefit of the doubt in almost every instance.
So one could think that maybe, and I emphasize maybe, if the Democrats take over, you could see some changes in US-Saudi relations that would not be insignificant.
Yeah, well, it sure would be nice to see.
It's clear now that for any reason that anybody could have come up with in the past, we just don't need them.
That whoever is the hegemon of the Middle East, or if there isn't a hegemon at all, it doesn't really make any difference in the price of gas or tea in China or a damn thing for the average American.
I was thinking the other day about, remember all the threats?
Saddam's going to invade Saudi Arabia if we don't stop him.
And they knew they were lying.
They just, you know, they had satellite pictures that proved that they were lying, that Saddam's tanks were lining up in the desert preparing to invade Saudi.
But anyway, just think of what would have happened if that had happened and America hadn't done anything about it, and Saddam Hussein had proceeded to rule Kuwait and Saudi.
So effing what?
Right?
They would have instituted secularism over Wahhabism for one thing.
That sounds like an improvement.
And, you know, in all the fighting, it wouldn't have been much fighting because the Saudis military is mostly ceremonial when they're not using it to, you know, wage this air war against the people of Yemen.
They certainly don't know how to use it in an emergency.
But what difference would it have made?
Hey, Saddam Hussein would be done writing his romance novel by now, right?
Oh no, he was going to be like the new Hitler and take over the whole world or something like that.
You know, looking back on that, again, they were bluffing.
They knew Saddam Hussein wouldn't have dared to attack Riyadh, you know, Kuwait being one thing where he'd ask permission first, Riyadh being an entire other project.
But even if the worst case scenario had broken out back in 1990, who would have cared?
What difference would that have made for the average American?
None.
Or for anybody else in the world for that matter?
None.
Well, in the Gulf region, ever since that conflict, the countries have been very dependent on the U.S. for their own security.
You know, Kuwait learned very quickly and in a very harsh way that just being a member of the GCC and having an alliance with Saudi Arabia was not going to guarantee protection from the foreign invasion.
So, these countries all became very close to the United States.
But today in 2020, there's more doubt than ever before among Arabs in the Gulf region about the extent to which Washington is actually committed to the region's security.
And it's definitely, there's more doubt about it and many are questioning America's long term commitment and it's forcing, it's putting a lot of pressure on these Arab Gulf countries to begin looking to other countries to sort of diversify their defense and security arrangements.
Yep.
And the only other excuse is so that they'll get along with Israel.
But I don't care about that either.
And the Israelis can work out their own peace agreements.
If they can get along with Saudi Arabia under American influence, then they can get along with Saudi Arabia without American influence.
Yeah.
They can tilt back and forth toward Iran at their own discretion.
Again, it's not like they're actually in danger or anything silly like that.
So, why does America need a Middle East policy at all at this point or even for the last 30 years?
Certainly.
Well, you do make, you allude to a very important point that if the United States would one day be removed from the Persian Gulf, these Arab countries of the Arabian Peninsula would really have no choice but to engage Iran and try to figure out an arrangement that could lead to lasting peace and security.
And you see some in the GCC, such as Qatar and Oman, who view Iran as their permanent neighbor and always, well, generally, they're always trying to find ways to accommodate Iran and reach understandings with the Iranians and try to find a way to coexist in a harmonious manner with the Islamic Republic, realizing that the U.S. is not going to necessarily be in the Persian Gulf forever, given that it exists over 10,000 miles away.
On the other hand, you have certain Arab Gulf states like Saudi Arabia, UAE and Bahrain, whose posture toward Iran is more confrontational.
And that is based on their very, very close defense relationships with the U.S. that they see as empowering them geopolitically against Iran.
But even they have to have concerns about how they could maintain such a position against Iran in a future whereby the U.S. is not their security guarantor.
If they are going to become much closer to China and Russia, they will have to contend with the fact that China and Russia do not share their stringently anti-Iranian views.
And in that sort of setting, with that sort of balance of power in which they're more dependent on China and Russia, they will probably have to become more accommodating of Iran.
Yet remember a year ago during the tanker conflict there when Trump backed down and didn't attack Iran in revenge over the shoot down of the drone, that right after that, Mohammed bin Zayed from UAE got on a plane straight to Tehran and said, you know where we've been fighting against their friends, the Houthis in Yemen, right?
Go straight to Tehran and says, you know, let's talk.
Maybe we, maybe let's not fight after all.
If the Americans, as you say, if they're indicating that they might flinch when it comes down to it, then that's not such a sure thing.
And if you're the UAE, picking on Iran when America has your back is one thing.
Picking it on Iran when America doesn't have your back is an entirely different question.
And so, and, and yeah, they're still going to be there when the North American empire falls apart.
They got to be neighbors from now on still.
So.
Absolutely.
You know, it is interesting to note though, that the Emiratis definitely lobbied the U.S. and the Trump administration to move ahead with maximum pressure against Iran.
And the UAE was one of only four countries worldwide to publicly support Trump's decision to pull America out of the Iranian nuclear deal in 2018.
But at the same time, the Emirati leadership is very pragmatic and they fully understand that if maximum pressure would ever spiral out of control and there would be a military confrontation in the Persian Gulf that involves Iran, it could be extremely devastating consequences for the UAE and the other smaller GCC states.
I mean, if you just look at a map and you see where the smaller GCC states exist, they have absolutely no strategic depth in relation to Iran.
So it's, it's very pragmatic for Abu Dhabi to be trying to mitigate the risks of the conflict with Iran, given what that would mean for the Emirates.
Yeah.
All right.
So here, I already kept you over time, but I just want to make sure that we end back on the civilians of Yemen because they're not really just caught in the middle here.
They are the target of this war.
And the strategy is clearly, as has been proven, to target the civilian population, to make them so miserable that they'll take care of the Houthi regime for us or some kind of inanity along those lines.
And the people are dying by the hundreds of thousands.
And so I just want to make sure to give you the last word on that subject so that people understand, you know, the way you end this article, when you say that there's no denying that Yemen's current situation is a stain on humanity, but that's also on the USA and the name of this country and the people of this country from now on.
This is something that we sort of, certainly our government and with Americans' acquiescence by omission, if nothing else, that, you know, these people are suffering at our hands.
And so not to be too collectivist about it, but you understand what I mean.
And so, you know, people should at least have to bear witness a little bit and we should try to give them an opportunity to really understand what it is that these people are going through that we're complaining about so much here.
Yes, I certainly agree with your points.
And once again, you know, as American citizens, there certainly is a level of responsibility that we have when it comes to anything related to Yemen in this current period.
The U.S. has been the top source of arms for Saudi Arabia throughout this conflict that began when the Saudi-led coalition entered in March of 2015.
The extent to which coronavirus will be capable of spreading throughout Yemen has a lot to do with the direct outcomes of this war that's been going on for over five years.
You know, it's also not one-sided.
There have also been crimes committed by the Houthis, as well as a whole host of other actors in Yemen.
So I don't want to put all of the blame on Saudi Arabia and the U.S., although much of it certainly does belong on these two countries.
I think, unfortunately, the outlook for Yemen when it comes to COVID-19 is very gloomy.
If the Yemenis want to be able to find a way to cope with this pandemic, a ceasefire is going to be absolutely necessary.
It would, of course, be great for a comprehensive peace deal to be implemented, but realistically that would probably come after a ceasefire or numerous ceasefires have been tested.
As long as this conflict is going on, it's not going to be possible for Yemenis, as well as outsiders, to take necessary actions for dealing with the spread of this disease.
All of these points that we have gone over about widespread malnourishment, the impact of the floods, cholera, of a collapsed health care system, of so many Yemenis lacking access to potable water and medicine.
The people in this country, again, that includes Yemenis and also many African migrants who are in Yemen at this period, are just incredibly vulnerable to the spread of this disease.
And even before the COVID-19 crisis started, there was every reason for decent people in the world to want to see the crisis in Yemen come to an end.
But now, more than ever, there is a real need to resolve this nightmarish conflict that unfortunately continues as we speak today.
Yeah.
All right.
And now, I know that this sounds a lot of times, you know, ridiculous.
And it is.
It's just a marginal thing.
It's not everything.
But Congress is taking this back up right now because Representative Ro Khanna from California is insisting on it.
And so, for what it's worth, it's got to be worth it to write an email, to make a phone call, maybe even write a letter and print it out and send it to them so it exists in time and space in their office.
That people care about this and that even, you know, just because TV says it isn't a political issue or an important political issue that you think it is and you'd be willing to support or oppose a congressman based on something like this.
Something, anything.
Because again, it is being debated, right?
Like, if you had a magic wish, it would be, would Congress please fight about this?
Well, you got that much.
So let's all of us do our part for what little it's worth to make our voices heard in the Congress that, hey, you know what?
Let them discuss among each other that our phone is ringing.
People do care about this.
They have our back on this.
This might be something that we can fight against Trump with or fight for Trump with or something, you know, whatever it is.
And so I just wanted to make sure and point that out that it's, it's not going completely unremarked upon in DC.
There are a couple of good congressmen who insist on bringing this thing up over and over again.
And so, you know, and senators too.
Everybody call Sanders and tell them it's time again to reintroduce your, your bill, whatever it is, to defund, to invoke the War Powers Resolution or whichever it is.
And there are a few good Republican senators on it too.
Mike Lee and Rand Paul, and I think a couple others voted for it last time.
And so it ain't nothing.
And it's an election year.
What if the American people with the help of Ro Khanna or vice versa could make this a real political issue this year that the TV's forced to discuss?
Of course, they lie about it, but still.
And what if the candidates really have to accuse each other?
What if Trump says, well, Obama's the one who made me do it.
I didn't know.
And it was Biden.
Biden's the one who started the war.
And then let Biden say, no, I tried to stop Obama and, and I swear to God, I'll stop it now if you vote for me and make them fight, you know, and make this thing an issue.
Because as we're discussing, it is the most important thing.
Whether the TV news anchors realize that or not, you know?
So anyway, you're doing it.
You're doing the work.
Let's all do the work like Giorgio's doing to bring this up, to make sure that this is part of the discussion despite them and their consensus.
Well, thank you.
And I appreciate those kind words.
And I would say that it took a while to get to this point.
When the Saudi-led coalition went into Yemen in 2015 and Republicans as well as Democrats would talk about the conflict in Yemen, the Saudi narrative was very popular on both sides of the aisle.
And you heard a lot of comments from politicians of both parties saying, well, we are, you know, concerned about the spread of Iranian influence in Yemen and the Houthis are a dire threat to the Saudi kingdom's security and we are trying to help our Arab allies defend themselves.
Fast forward a number of years and today that narrative is not popular among Democrats.
And I'm not just talking about so-called left-wing or progressive Democrats like AOC or Ilhan Omar.
Among the Democratic elite establishment, there is really no more support for the U.S.-backed Saudi campaign in Yemen.
And one of the reasons why that changed had to do with discourse.
And this is important to note that before we change policies, you have to change discourse.
And the discourse in Washington has changed with respect to the conflict in Yemen.
And I think that that is possibly a positive and hopeful note to end on.
Yep, absolutely.
All right.
Well, thanks so much for your time on the show.
I really do appreciate it very much.
The pleasure is all mine.
Thank you.
All right, you guys, that is Giorgio Caffiero.
You can find him here at the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft.
This one is called COVID-19, Yemen's Unprecedented Calamity.
