Topic: 2024-Situation in Yemen
Country: United States of America
Delegate Name: Thomas Stoffel
Topic: 2024-Situation in Yemen
Country: United States of America
Delegate Name: Thomas Stoffel
The United States of America
Greenhills School
4th Committee: Special Political and Decolonization Committee (SPECPOL)
The state of Yemen has been a theoretical thorn in the side of the United States since the civil war started. Due to its strategic position to the Red Sea and it’s proximity to the crucial Suez Canal,Yemen is crucial to have amicable relations with the United States to protect trade, as it is trade that connects the world/
The state of Yemen has been in a state of civil war for five years with the Houthi Rebels in the south and west of the nation. The Houthi rebels, backed by Iran, are rebelling due to cultural differences based on the sect of Islam that the north follows compared to the south. This being the Shia Sunni split along Yemen. The UN-backed constitutional government is in the south of the nation, backed by the Saudi Government with US intelligence and supplies to pacify the region.
There have been various attempts to garner cease-fires with varying degrees of success. In 2022, a ceasefire was garnered that fostered discussion between the two groups and the possibility of peace, with the first Houthi representative in Saudi Arabia since the war started. Since this ceasefire has expired, there has been minimal escalation in Yemen until the war in Israel and Gaza, in which attacks on USA merchant ships have increased, causing the United States to redesignate the Houthis as a terrorist organization after rescinding their classification following the ceasefire. We cannot have such a radical nation unfriendly to the United States at the mouth of one of the most crucial waterways in the world. The United States recognizes that this committee will not favor continuing another land war in Asia and proposes this as a solution. The primarily Shia districts of Yemen are given autonomous region status in Yemen but without access to a seaport. These regions will be administered separately but under the watchful eye of Yemen as well as an international council composed of Saudi Arabia, Iran, and the United States. This puts an end to the reason the war is happening in the first place, as well as stops the problem of a dangerous nation on the Red Sea. Yemen also has a problem with the foothold of Terrorist organizations that America has fought for years including Isis and Al Qaeda. The U.S suggests complete and utter extinction of these groups. It recommends a resolution to directly send UN peacekeepers into Yemen to root out the insurgents of these Islamist Fundamentalist groups. The US believes that this will be successful as, unlike the Shia cause in the north, there is no ethnic reason for these groups to have taken hold in Yemen, and they are simply there to take advantage of the situation.
Works Cited
“War in Yemen | Global Conflict Tracker.” Council on Foreign Relations, Council on Foreign Relations, www.cfr.org/global-conflict-tracker/conflict/war-yemen. Accessed 15 Feb. 2024.
