Joe Biden looks to end the war in Yemen

FOR THE previous two American presidents, the war in Yemen seemed like an afterthought. Barack Obama backed the Saudi-led coalition fighting on behalf of Yemen’s government against the Houthi rebels. But it was a cynical decision meant to blunt Saudi anger over the nuclear deal he reached with Iran in 2015. Then came Donald Trump, who resisted calls to curtail American support for the war. Instead he signed huge arms deals with Saudi Arabia.Joe Biden has promised a different approach. In a wide-ranging speech at the State Department on February 4th, Mr Biden excoriated the “humanitarian and strategic catastrophe” of the war in Yemen, now in its seventh year. There was no hyperbole in his diagnosis. More than 112,000 people have been killed in the fighting. With the economy devastated, four out of five Yemenis rely on aid to survive. Collapsing health and sanitation systems caused a years-long cholera outbreak; the United Nations warns of incipient famine.