The United States has played a major role in fomenting violence across Yemen, backing the Saudi and United Arab Emirates-led forces attacking the country while also conducting a direct war against al-Qa‘ida in the Arabian Peninsula under the guise of counterterrorism. However, while it is understandable that US involvement is the top focus for the American left, understanding the war in Yemen requires a much broader analysis. The Yemeni conflict not only includes multiple outside actors but also multiple groups of Yemenis pursuing different outcomes, rooted in a complex history that few outside of Yemen understand. Explaining that context is what this show, in partnership with the Middle East Research and Information Project (MERIP), is all about. This special episode includes two interviews with contributors to Middle East Report, MERIP's print publication. First, up is Yemeni journalist Afrah Nasser and political scientist Stacey Philbrick Yadav; and then, Dan, host of The Dig, speaks with political-economist Adam Hanieh.
Daniel Denvir is the host of The Dig, a podcast from Jacobin magazine, and a fellow at Brown University's Watson Institute for International and Public Affairs. His book All-American Nativism is forthcoming from Verso.
Adam Hanieh teaches in the development studies department at SOAS, University of London and contributed an article entitled "Ambitions of a Global Gulf" to the latest Middle East Report. His current research looks at changing forms of class and capital accumulation within the global economy, with a particular focus on the Middle East. His latest book, Money Markets, and Monarchies: The Gulf Cooperation Council and the Political Economy of the Contemporary Middle East was published late last year with Cambridge University Press.
Afrah Nasser is an independent Yemeni journalist, editor in chief of the Sanaa Review, and the recipient of the Committee to Protect Journalists’ 2017 International Press Freedom Award; her latest piece in Middle East Report is "Yemen’s Women Confront War’s Marginalization."
[This podcast was originally published on The Dig's website here.]