Saudi options in Yemen exhausted

The country's disintegration is matched by growing difficulties in envisioning a peace deal

Sometimes there's merit in simplicity. It highlights truths that are camouflaged by complexity. Hundreds of thousands of words have been written about the horrors of the war in Yemen, a bewildering cauldron of Yemeni, regional and international interests. Yet few can possibly understand why it's happening, let alone how it might end. The New Yorker magazine recently added a few more thousand words to the heap, detailing US links to the war and to Saudi Arabia, its instigator. In the course of the article, the writer quoted an Arab diplomat from the Saudi-led coalition. Asked about a possible leader to head a transition government, he replied: "Who would you hand Yemen to? Who would be part o