Three months after the beginning of a bombing campaign in Yemen against Houthi rebels and forces loyal to former President Ali Abdullah Saleh by Saudi Arabia and its allies, there is still no sign that peace will be coming in the near future. The Saudis, seeking to reinstall President Abd Rabbuh Mansour Hadi, currently living in exile in Saudi Arabia, to power in the Yemeni capital of Sanaa have found their efforts frustrated by unwavering Houthi resistance.

Talks in Geneva last week failed to establish even a temporary ceasefire, and fighting continues around the country. Over 2,700 have died in the conflict so far, and strict controls on air and maritime traffic into Yemen by the Saudis have caused an already serious humanitarian crisis to grow even worse.

Houthi forces remain as dominant as ever. They have even taken time out from attacking their Yemeni opponents, among them pro-Hadi forces and South Yemeni secessionists from the Southern Movement, to attack Saudi and other Gulf Arab forces stationed along the border. At least one SCUD missile was launched on June 6th at the King Khalid Air Base, headquarters of the air campaign. The same day saw reports come out describing fierce fighting as a result of Houthi attacks in Saudi Arabia’s Jizan province on the Yemeni border that left four dead, according to Saudi state media. One attack on June 25th left three Saudi soldiers and one Emirati soldier dead.

A War Going Nowhere

The Saudis have never been all that adept at warfare. Part of the reason is because they have always been so successful in using their money and oil to avoid having to do their own fighting. However, they have had on occasion to actually use their military, and that generally does not go well. For all of the money they lavish on defense spending, the Saudis do not have a whole lot to show for it. When messianic Sunni terrorists took over the Grand Mosque in Mecca, the Saudis couldn’t finish the job themselves, finding it necessary to turn to the French and Pakistanis to finally root out the terrorists holed up at Islam’s holiest site. During the Battle of Khafji in 1991 during the First Gulf War, the Saudis performed poorly again, requiring significant American assistance to finally beat back the Iraqi thrust onto their territory. The Saudi military (and its leadership) were decidedly mediocre during the conflict as a whole.

The most glaring recent example of the Saudis inability to effectively use military force was in Yemen in 2009 against the same Houthi opponents they are facing now. The name of the operation, Scorched Earth, turned out to be quite ironic. Instead of delivering punishing blows to the Houthis (or scorching any earth, for that matter), the Saudis found themselves dealing with embarrassing cross-border attacks by the Houthis. Again, the Saudis needed to be backed up by outside help, this time in the form of Jordanian and Moroccan special operations forces.

Damage from an aistrike by the Saudi-led coalition in Saada (Hussain Albukhaiti)

If only the Saudi military was able to live up to the names given to their operations. The first phase of the current air campaign in Yemen, called Operation Decisive Storm, proved neither decisive nor a storm. The Houthis continued their advance, and the only ones really suffering were Yemeni civilians. Operation Restoring Hope, which followed Decisive Storm, has been similarly unsuccessful in living up to its name. Far from restoring hope, the humanitarian crisis in Yemen continues, and the civilian death toll continues to grow as the Saudi-led air campaign shows no signs of ending.

It is unclear what the Saudis were thinking when they first conceived of the intervention in Yemen. The answer seems to be that their own shock and awe campaign would send the Houthis scurrying for cover and ready to agree to President Hadi’s return to power. They have gotten themselves into Yemen, and now are finding it tremendously difficult to get out. Meanwhile, their air war only turns more Yemenis, regardless of where they fall on the sectarian divide, against the Saudis, who they blame for exacerbating the political and humanitarian situation.

Costly investments, and not much to show for it. Saudi Arabia is paying a heavy price to look tough against Iran.