Not Just Bombs but Economic Warfare

On the podcast: How a Saudi-led campaign has starved Yemen’s children.

By , the executive editor for podcasts at Foreign Policy.
A 10-year-old Yemeni boy, Ghazi Ali bin Ali, who suffers from severe malnutrition, rests on a bed at a hospital in Jabal Habashi on the outskirts of Taiz on Oct. 30. (Ahmad Al-Basha/AFP/Getty Images)
A 10-year-old Yemeni boy, Ghazi Ali bin Ali, who suffers from severe malnutrition, rests on a bed at a hospital in Jabal Habashi on the outskirts of Taiz on Oct. 30. (Ahmad Al-Basha/AFP/Getty Images)
A 10-year-old Yemeni boy, Ghazi Ali bin Ali, who suffers from severe malnutrition, rests on a bed at a hospital in Jabal Habashi on the outskirts of Taiz on Oct. 30. (Ahmad Al-Basha/AFP/Getty Images)

For three years now, the United States has supported the Saudi-led war in Yemen with arms sales, intelligence assistance, and refueling operations. But this past week, senior officials signaled a possible shift in the U.S. position. Defense Secretary James Mattis and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo both called for a cease-fire within 30 days. Other Washington insiders speculated that the results of the midterm elections in Congress could move the United States further from the Saudi Arabia—in part because of the killing of Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi at the Saudi consulate in Istanbul last month.

For three years now, the United States has supported the Saudi-led war in Yemen with arms sales, intelligence assistance, and refueling operations. But this past week, senior officials signaled a possible shift in the U.S. position. Defense Secretary James Mattis and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo both called for a cease-fire within 30 days. Other Washington insiders speculated that the results of the midterm elections in Congress could move the United States further from the Saudi Arabia—in part because of the killing of Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi at the Saudi consulate in Istanbul last month.

The war has killed thousands of Yemeni civilians, collapsed the country’s economy, and created one of the world’s worst humanitarian crises.

On the podcast, we talk to journalist Iona Craig, who lived in Yemen for years and still makes regular reporting from her home in the United Kingdom.

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