{"id":244356,"date":"2016-05-18T11:42:42","date_gmt":"2016-05-18T11:42:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/newswire\/yemen-a-major-blot-on-obamas-foreign-policy-record\/"},"modified":"2016-05-18T20:19:56","modified_gmt":"2016-05-18T20:19:56","slug":"yemen-a-major-blot-on-obamas-foreign-policy-record","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/latest-news\/yemen-a-major-blot-on-obamas-foreign-policy-record\/","title":{"rendered":"Yemen a Major Blot on Obama\u2019s Foreign Policy Record"},"content":{"rendered":"<div>\n<div id=\"attachment_31526\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"width: 732px;\">\n<p class=\"wp-caption-text\">The United States doesn\u2019t seem to have a clear understanding of what it is doing in Yemen. Pictured: Yemen\u2019s capital, Sanaa. (Photo: Richard Messenger \/ Flickr Commons)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p>At the end of March the White House announced that it is providing logistical and intelligence support to Saudi Arabia\u2019s military operations in Yemen. The main purposes seem to be to limit Iranian influence via the Houthis and deny Al Qaeda a refuge. Writes <a href=\"http:\/\/foreignpolicy.com\/2015\/03\/30\/make-no-mistake-the-united-states-is-at-war-in-yemen-saudi-arabia-iran\/\">Micah Zenko in <em>Foreign Policy<\/em><\/a>, \u201cmake no mistake, the United States is a combatant in this intervention.\u201d<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>U.S.-operated drones are supplying targeting intelligence to Saudi forces in Yemen, which goes well beyond the definition of logistics and intelligence, writes Zenko. In addition the U.S. is providing aerial refueling for Saudi fighter aircraft.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>And<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>The manner and speed with which the Obama administration decided to wholly back one side in Yemen\u2019s latest proxy civil war \u2013 with no clear outcome \u2013 should be alarming.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Ominously, Zenko concludes:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>To see Yemen exlusively through the lens of U.S. counterterrorism goals, and thus deem it a foreign-policy \u201csuccess,\u201d is not only insensitive to the chaos Yemenis are experiencing, it is incredibly shortsighted \u2013 if not downright disingenuous.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Not to mention cruel: as always, it\u2019s the civilians who bear the brunt of U.S. efforts to keep Iran in its place.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p>This piece was reprinted from <a href=\"http:\/\/fpif.org\/yemen-major-blot-obamas-foreign-policy-record\/\">Foreign Policy In Focus<\/a> by <a href=\"http:\/\/rinf.com\">RINF Alternative News<\/a> with permission.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The United States doesn\u2019t seem to have a clear understanding of what it is doing in Yemen. Pictured: Yemen\u2019s capital, Sanaa. (Photo: Richard Messenger \/ Flickr Commons) At the end of March the White House announced that it is providing logistical and intelligence support to Saudi Arabia\u2019s military operations in Yemen. The main purposes seem [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":244357,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[519,18],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-244356","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-newswire","8":"category-latest-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/244356","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=244356"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/244356\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/244357"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=244356"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=244356"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=244356"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}