US, UN playing ‘destructive role’ in Yemen war: Analyst

The United Nations, along with the administration of US President Donald Trump and his predecessor Barack Obama, have “played a destructive role” in Saudi Arabia’s war against the people of Yemen, an American writer and retired professor says.

“I don’t see any possibility of the US under Trump, as it was under Obama, of playing a positive role because they are tied to the most reactionary and medieval, terrorist regime in the Middle East,” said James Petras, who has several books on Middle Eastern political issues.

“Given the fact that you have Trump and Saudi Arabia, backed the British and French governments, you have very few prospects of an end to this type of war against a whole people,” Petras told Press TV on Tuesday.

“The UN has been playing a very destructive role by allowing Saudi Arabia, with the backing of the United States, England, France and other countries in the European Union, from waging a genocidal war against the Yemeni people,” he added.

US Defense Secretary James Mattis said Tuesday that the conflict in Yemen needs to be resolved "as quickly as possible” through UN-brokered peace negotiations.

"Our aim is that this crisis can be handed to a team of negotiators under the aegis of the United Nations that can try to find a political solution as quickly as possible," Mattis told reporters as he flew to Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.

We will work with our allies, with our partners to try to get it to the UN-brokered negotiating table," the Pentagon chief said.

Saudi Arabia launched its deadly campaign against Yemen in March 2015 with the alleged goal of pushing back the Houthi Ansarullah movement from the capital, Sana’a, and to reinstate the regime of Yemen's former president, Abd Rabbuh Mansur Hadi, who is a staunch ally of Riyadh.

Some officials in the Trump administration have called for more American military support for the Saudi-led coalition.

In late January, US special forces carried out an attack against a purported position of al-Qaeda militants in the central Yemeni province of Bayda, killing about 30 civilians.

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