This summer's partial withdrawal of Emirati forces from Yemen, while the war still drags on, prompts the inevitable question – has anything been achieved by anyone in this conflict? Even the UAE – Saudi Arabia's closest ally – pronounced on 22 July: “There was no easy victory and there will be no easy peace.”
Let's start with the downside. What has been lost and the scale of the disaster here is quite staggering.
The Yemen war, now in its fifth year, has rightly been branded the worst humanitarian crisis of our time. Estimates of those killed range from 10,000 to more than 70,000, the vast majority being Yemenis and an estimated two-thirds of those from Saudi-led air strikes.
According to the UN's Under-Secretary General for Humanitarian Affairs, Mark Lowcock, there are more than 30 front lines, more than 3.3 million people have been displaced, and 80% of the population need assistance and protection, including 10 million now reliant on food aid.
Transpose those figures on to a UK population and it would notionally mean 53 million people needing help and protection.
So Yemen, already the Arab world's poorest country, has been plunged ever deeper into poverty and economic disaster.
This year, the Yemen war is already spreading beyond its borders with missile and drone attacks by Houthi rebels on Saudi border towns, on shipping in the Red Sea and reportedly even on targets as…
