A Saudi-Iran proxy war has torn Yemen apart — and America is fanning the flames

Worldly

Vox Media Podcast Network

News Commentary, Politics, News

4.4 • 1.8K Ratings

🗓️ 18 January 2018

⏱️ 30 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Yochi, Jenn, and Zack discuss the horrific war in Yemen, which has become a battleground in a shadow war between Iran and Saudi Arabia — and where there are real reasons to worry that the US is complicit in war crimes. On Elsewhere, they look to a rare bit of potential good news from Korea, where athletes from North and South Korea plan to march under a united flag at the 2018 Winter Olympics opening ceremonies and compete on a joint team for the first time. Zack has some tough talk for the Saudi foreign minister, Jenn reluctantly admits to her past life as a cheerleader, and Yochi manages to name drop both Dennis Rodman and “Team America.” Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	Welcome to Worldly, Fox's Weekly Guide, the most important stories in the world, part of the
0:12.4	Vox Media Podcast Network.
0:14.0	We're going to be talking about one of the bloodiest wars in the Middle East,
0:17.0	one that has killed thousands, left hundreds of thousands starving, and displaced millions.
0:21.0	But it's not Iraq, and it's not Syria. It's Yemen, which has
0:25.6	become a battleground in a shadow war between Iran and Saudi Arabia and where there are
0:30.0	real reasons to think that the US itself is complicit in war crimes that are leaving
0:34.6	enormous amounts of civilians dead.
0:41.0	We are not all Al-Qaeda, We are normal people just struggling with life. We don't know why we were targeted.
0:47.0	So, Zach, the human death toll is staggering. We'll come back to it in a moment in a bit more detail, how do we get here? Well it began with the
0:54.0	2011 Arab Spring uprising when the longtime dictator of Yemen was overthrown
0:59.5	then as the internationally recognized government that came up afterwards tried to consolidate control,
1:06.0	it alienated a Shia Muslim rebel group called the Houthis.
1:10.0	And the Houthis, who are sort of separatists and only sort of okay with the central government
1:15.6	ended up just essentially invading the capital and taking over the country.
1:20.3	And the Saudis who neighbor Yemen on the north, felt threatened by this.
1:27.0	They saw the Houthis as a proxy for the also Shia Iranians and launched a war designed to topple the Houthis and replace them with the internationally
1:38.0	recognized government that had existed after the 2011 uprising.
1:42.3	The issue is that this war has not been super effective.
1:45.0	It has invited further Iranian intervention
1:48.0	and support for the Houthis
1:49.0	and has killed a lot, a lot of people.
	...

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