In February 2015, the U.S. State Department evacuated its embassy in Sana’a, Yemen, and relocated essential staff to Saudi Arabia. For the past decade, the U.S. embassy to Yemen has operated from Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. There is precedent for such arrangements. The U.S. Embassy to Libya, for example, operates out of the U.S. Embassy in neighboring Tunisia. For years, the U.S. Embassy to Somalia operated out of Kenya.
For the past decade, the U.S. embassy to Yemen has operated from Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.
For several years, though, there has been no reason for the U.S. embassy to remain in Riyadh, accept perhaps for the comfort of the American diplomats assigned there. On July 17, 2015, the Southern Resistance Forces captured Aden, driving the Houthis from the city. In the decade since, the Southern Transitional Council has secured the city. The airport operates several flights per day to both domestic and international destinations. The port operates. Yemenis stroll the streets, picnic on the corniche, and visit various restaurants and coffee houses. Life is normal.
The idea of basing the embassy in Riyadh was always counterproductive, for two reasons. First, the job of an embassy is to engage. Basing the locus of engagement in Saudi Arabia meant Saudi authorities could screen those with whom American officials could meet. Certainly, U.S. authorities might meet established Yemeni contacts elsewhere but, Yemenis in exile slowly lose touch with the ground truth inside Yemen. Unfortunately, these are the men and women to whom American officials limit themselves. Yemenis more recently departed have little ability to access U.S. officials if Saudi authorities will not allow them to enter the Kingdom or travel within it.
Basing Yemen operations in Riyadh was counterproductive for another reason. For too long, the international community has propped up a nominal government whose officials and ministers prefer to live in Cairo, Amman, Riyadh, and Abu Dhabi, rather than in Yemen itself. This undermines the already tenuous authority of Yemeni politicians. Indeed, only Tareq Saleh, the Mocha-based nephew of the late President Ali Abdullah Saleh and Aidarus al-Zoubaidi, the head of the Southern Transitional Council, have the legitimacy of controlling and governing territory. By preferring to remain outside Yemen, American diplomats hemorrhage authority to demand Yemeni officials act responsibly and base themselves in the country they claim to serve.
The region does not need another Sudan, but that appears to be Saudi Arabia’s goal.
Saudi Arabia’s recent actions make the need for the State Department’s Yemen team to depart the Kingdom more acute. By bombing Southern Forces—the chief bulwark against Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula—and by seeking to promote Islah, a Muslim Brotherhood group involved in terrorism and weapons smuggling to the Houthis, Saudi Arabia has disqualified itself from any future role as mediator or broker. To maintain an embassy in Saudi Arabia at a time when Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman would condemn Yemen to chaos in pursuit of his own rivalry with Emirati President Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed is to endorse Saudi actions. The region does not need another Sudan, but that appears to be Saudi Arabia’s goal. Indeed, while Mohammed bin Salman’s bombing of Mukalla did not receive much attention in the West, it was perhaps his most counterproductive and bizarre decision since his alleged order to dismember and dissolve in acid former intelligence officer-turned-dissident Jamal Khashoggi.
Put simply, Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s decision to maintain the U.S. Embassy to Yemen in Saudi Arabia is to undermine Yemeni stability and encourage an order in which the Muslim Brotherhood, Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, and the Houthis rebound.
Saudi Arabia may be a U.S. ally in a number of spheres, but its recent Yemen actions are an insult to the United States, and those Middle Eastern states that seek order rather than perpetual chaos. Perhaps, though, the silver lining would be spurring the return of the U.S. Embassy to Yemen, where it belongs.
