Is it so hard to end the war in Yemen?

In the part of the Arab Spring, which we have now left a decade behind, that faced Yemen, the popular uprising that began on 27 January 2011 against Ali Abdullah Saleh, who, like Egypt, Tunisia and Libya, had managed to stay in power for 30 years through sham elections, ended with Saleh's stepping down. The national dialogue processes that began immediately afterwards were expected to set a serious democratic process in motion in Yemen and ultimately to result in the establishment of a democratic order on which everyone could agree. In the first stage, Saleh's vice president and successor, Abdrabbuh Mansur Hadi, was elected the country's new President on 21 February 2012 in an election in which he ran as the sole candidate.

However, the security problems and vacuums created by the interim transition period also opened up a significant field of activity and expansion for the Iran-backed Houthis there.

Of course, this field of expansion was one provided entirely by the armed force they held, that is, by coercion and violence. In 2014 the Houthis seized Sanaa and thereby took over the government by force. Yet although it is a widespread perception and opinion that the Houthis are Iran-backed, it is known that the United Arab Emirates also had a very important share in their advancing as far as Sanaa and taking over the administration.

As could be expected, this coup completely halted the national dialogue process in Yemen. The Houthis' desire to seize the administration across all of Yemen, though they have very little representation there, stemmed from the claim, instilled in them by the Shiite vaccination, of being the only group entitled to rule. By its very nature this claim was not open to dialogue anyway. But it was not possible for such a small community to seize all of Yemen and to sustain its control there for a long time by its own means alone, or even with Iran's support.

Subsequently, a coalition led by Saudi Arabia and the UAE, joined by Bahrain and Egypt, launched a military intervention called Operation Decisive Storm against the Houthi coup. This operation, which began on 26 March 2015, is about to reach six years. Yet during this time the civil war in Yemen has become more intractable with each passing day.

During this time the lives of millions of people have been upended not only by the war but also by cholera, epidemic diseases and forced displacement arising from the lack of basic services such as clean water, food and health care caused by the war. The tragedy experienced in Yemen because of hunger and disease has been called "the world's largest humanitarian catastrophe" by the UN.

It is truly tragic that a war waged for six years against an armed organization that does not even make up five percent of the Yemeni people, instead of saving the country, has left it facing far greater problems. In fact, the tragic side of it is nothing other than the wrong approaches of those who came as saviors. Yemen's present situation is not one that can be explained merely by the Houthis being very strong and, equally, cruel, unfeeling or brutal.

Essentially, it is an indisputable fact that the Houthis are in the wrong. But it is not so true that they are that strong. Nor can the failure to deal with them be explained by the coalition forces being very inept or weak. Because the war and financial power the coalition forces possess, together with the noble people of Yemen, who, trusting them in the field, relied on their help, were strong enough to overcome the Houthi problem in a far shorter time and at far less cost.

At present, Yemen's native and legitimate forces would in fact be in a position to eliminate the Houthi threat with their own means, even if they were left entirely alone, even if they were not obstructed by the coalition forces in dealing with the Houthi threat. But according to clear information from the field, whenever Yemen's legitimate forces launch a determined operation against the Houthis, the main obstacle they face is the counter-operations of the coalition forces.

There have been countless cases of how many turning-point attacks against the Houthis have been blocked by the coalition forces themselves. Moreover, the legitimate government forces have been deprived of qualified weapons that would give them superiority particularly against the Houthis, so that it seems almost as if the situation of chaos and instability in Yemen is wanted to continue.

Why?

Why is there, as it were, a deliberate effort to make it so difficult when solving the problem is so simple?

Why, when it is possible to end a war in the neighbor's land easily, is it almost deliberately wanted to be prolonged this much?

The very question is so strange about this situation, isn't it? Believe me, the process that continues on the ground right now is that strange.