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Friday marks the seventh anniversary of the Saudi-led military intervention against Yemen, and thanks to Saudi Arabia’s escalation with U.S. assistance, the violence seemingly gets worse everyday.

On the sixth anniversary, Biden’s recent inauguration inspired hope that the U.S. might successfully encourage the warring parties towards a ceasefire. Yet over the course of the past year, it became clear that the Biden administration supported Saudi and Emirati objectives in Yemen almost as actively as the Trump administration, although they veiled their preference for the Saudi-led coalition in a veneer of diplomacy.

A new brief from the Quincy Institute highlights ongoing U.S. assistance for the Saudi-led military intervention, despite Biden’s declaration that he would “end all American support for offensive operations in the war in Yemen, including relevant arms sales.” The administration paused two arms deals, but later proceeded with over a billion dollars in new sales to the kingdom. It characterized these weapons as defensive, yet as the brief argues, defensive capability converts directly to offensive advantage. By assisting Saudi Arabia and the UAE with defense, the U.S. allows these countries to attack Yemen with greater impunity. Further, both Saudi Arabia and the UAE already possess hundreds of billions of dollars in offensive weapons, mostly purchased from the United States, which they continue to use against Yemen.

Biden administration officials frequently condemn Houthi transborder attacks, yet fail to condemn Saudi air strikes. On February 10, 2021, State Department spokesperson Ned Price described the Houthis as “continually demonstrat[ing] a desire to prolong the war by attacking Saudi Arabia, including endangering civilians.” In August 2021, Secretary of State Antony Blinken stated that since the beginning of the year, Saudi Arabia “has endured more than 240 attacks by the Houthis.” On January 24, 2022, Tim Lenderking, the special envoy, emphasized “the U.S. government’s condemnation of the recent Houthi attacks against the UAE and Saudi Arabia that killed civilians.”

The problem with these statements is one of proportion. The administration’s narrative consistently blames the Houthis and stresses their transborder attacks as particularly dangerous, yet transborder attacks on Yemen carried out by the Saudi-led coalition far outnumber them and have been magnitudes more destructive.

Houthi transborder attacks never surpass and rarely even approach the number of coalition air raids conducted on Yemen each month. Crucially, with the help of U.S.–made defense systems, Saudi Arabia successfully deflects 90 percent of the Houthis’ transborder attacks.

The Saudi-led coalition has carried out more than 24,800 air raids since 2015, an average of almost 10 each day. Coalition air raids have killed almost 9,000 civilians and wounded more than 10,000.

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