Yemen and the Sixty-Year War: An Important Study by the American Researcher and Diplomat Gerald Firestein
Yemenat
Hamid Oqabi
The study “Yemen: The Sixty-Year War” by the American researcher and diplomat Gerald Firestein is considered one of the important contemporary analytical studies that attempts to read the Yemeni war as a deep historical crisis that goes beyond daily military events and temporary political divisions. The study was published in 2019 by the Middle East Institute in Washington, a U.S.
research center specializing in Middle Eastern affairs. The significance of this study stems from the fact that its author is a former American diplomat who served as the U.S. ambassador to Yemen. He worked for many years on Gulf and Yemen-related files, which gives his analysis a character that combines political experience with field-based knowledge.
The Yemeni Problem Is Not a Crisis of Individuals but a Crisis of State Structure
Firestein proceeds from a highly important foundational idea: the current war in Yemen is not merely a conflict between the Houthis and the legitimate government, nor is it simply a proxy war between Saudi Arabia and Iran. Rather, it is the result of a long accumulation of failures in building the Yemeni state since the 1960s. For this reason, the author describes Yemen as having lived for more than six decades inside a recurring cycle of wars, coups, assassinations, and internal divisions, due to the inability of political elites to establish a just state capable of accommodating social, regional, and sectarian diversity.
The study rejects simplistic narratives that attempt to reduce the crisis to a single party or a single event. Firestein does not place sole responsibility for the collapse on the Houthis, nor does he absolve the regime of Ali Abdullah Saleh, traditional forces, or even the Yemeni opposition.
He argues that most Yemeni political forces are corrupt and have been implicated to varying degrees, reproducing a rentier system based on patronage, regional dominance, and the use of the state as a source of plunder rather than as a national institution.
The author traces the analysis back to the 1962 revolution against the Zaydi Imamate in North Yemen, arguing that it did not establish a modern republic so much as it transferred influence from one elite to another. Instead of the rule of Zaydi sayyids, new alliances emerged between tribal sheikhs and military and political elites, especially in the northwestern highlands. Over time, the republican system itself became based on tribal balances, personal loyalties, and a rentier economy.
Firestein further explains that Yemeni unification in 1990 was not built on strong institutional foundations, as it came as a fragile political agreement between two fundamentally different regimes. After the 1994 war, many southerners felt that unity had turned into a form of northern domination, particularly with land seizures, the exclusion of southern cadres from the military and administration, and the concentration of power and wealth in the hands of elites linked to Sana’a. From here, the author interprets the later rise of the Southern Movement as a result of accumulated feelings of marginalization rather than as a sudden separatist project.
In the north, Firestein explains the emergence of the Houthis as a direct result of the state’s failure to achieve justice and equality, rather than merely an extension of the Iranian project, as some Gulf and media narratives suggest. He clarifies that the areas of Saada and the Zaydi north experienced long-term economic, political, and religious marginalization, and that the Houthi movement initially emerged from this local context before later expanding its relationship with Iran.
One of the important points in the study is the author’s rejection of the simplistic sectarian interpretation of the Yemeni war. He argues that Yemen’s divisions are more complex than a Sunni–Shia binary, and that the roots of the crisis are tied to power, wealth, identity, centralization, and social deprivation more than to religious doctrine alone.
Firestein gives significant attention to the National Dialogue Conference held after the 2011 protests. He views this conference as one of the most important modern Yemeni attempts and opportunities to address the crisis comprehensively, as it brought together a broad spectrum of political and social forces, including women, youth, and civil society. The conference produced around 1,800 recommendations covering issues of governance, decentralization, federalism, military reform, and the fair distribution of wealth and development.
However, the author notes that the problem was not the absence of solutions or the weakness of political vision, but rather the failure of implementation. According to his analysis, Yemeni elites were accustomed to signing agreements and then quickly reverting to the use of military force. For this reason, the author reiterates a central idea in the study: “The Yemeni failure is not a failure of vision, but a failure of political will.”
The study also presents an important critique of regional and international roles. Firestein argues that Saudi Arabia has often viewed Yemen through the lens of border security and the prevention of the emergence of an independent Yemeni power that could pose a regional threat. For this reason, over decades it supported networks of tribal and political influence that contributed to weakening the Yemeni state. He also notes that the United Arab Emirates entered the war with objectives that went beyond the Saudi framework, particularly through its support for the Southern Transitional Council and the building of local military formations affiliated with it.
As for Iran, although the author acknowledges the expansion of its support for the Houthis after 2014, he emphasizes that the Houthis were not a purely Iranian creation, and that the roots of their movement are fundamentally Yemeni. In doing so, he deconstructs the narrative that presents the war as merely a direct confrontation between Riyadh and Tehran.
Firestein also offers clear criticism of the United States, which has long dealt with Yemen primarily through the lens of counterterrorism, especially after the rise of Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula. He argues that the American focus on the security file neglected the political, social, and economic roots of the crisis, making a major explosion almost inevitable.
Among the most prominent aspects addressed in the study is the concept of “war economy.” The author explains that the war itself has turned into a source of income and influence for many actors, through smuggling, levies, and the control of ports, crossings, and resources. This has created extensive interests tied to the continuation of the war rather than its end.
At the conclusion of the study, Firestein presents a set of recommendations he considers essential for saving Yemen, most notably completing the political process, rebuilding state institutions, strengthening decentralization, reconsidering the federal map, ensuring a fair distribution of resources, expanding political participation, developing infrastructure, creating job opportunities, and improving education and health.
The study also recommends that Gulf countries support Yemen’s unity and sovereignty, and provide genuine development assistance instead of relying solely on security and military approaches. The author further calls on the international community to commit to long-term support for state-building in Yemen, rather than merely managing humanitarian crises or negotiating temporary truces.
To listen to a reading and critical presentation of Gerald Firestein’s study:
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The importance of this study lies in its attempt to understand Yemen as a crisis of the state and society, rather than merely a conflict between individuals or parties. It reveals that the Yemeni problem is far deeper than changing a president or defeating an armed group, and that any real peace will not be achieved unless the political, social, and economic contract of the country is rebuilt in a just and comprehensive manner. In this sense, Firestein’s study appears as an attempt to understand why wars in Yemen are repeated, why peace fails each time, and why the country may remain trapped in the same cycle unless the very structure of the state itself changes.