Yemen and the Gulf States: The Making of a Crisis.

• Author: Akkas, Betul Dogan
• Position: Book review

Edited by H. Helen Lackner and Daniel Martin Varisco

Berlin: Gerlach Press, 2018, 143 pages, [euro]85.00, ISBN: 9783959940306

Yemen and the Gulf States: The Making of a Crisis, an edited volume by Helen Lackner and Daniel Martin Varisco, provides six chapters presented in a workshop on Yemeni issues at the Gulf Research Meeting 2016 held in Cambridge, UK. The chapters address both domestic and international aspects of the ongoing conflict, namely the Iranian, Omani, Saudi, and Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) dimensions of the crisis. The six chapters are selected out of thirteen papers presented in the workshop. However, Lackner keeps his readers in the dark regarding the basis on which the chapters were selected, despite providing synopses of the content of the papers. Although the exclusion of the remaining papers is within the discretion of the editors or publishers, transparency about the selection process would have served to clarify why the book is structured as it is.

Yemen and the Gulf States frames the current crisis from a third-party approach. Instead of presenting an exclusively Saudi, Iranian or Yemeni stance on the issue, the authors have chosen to provide a combination of perspectives in thematic chapters. Although every chapter is unique in its engagement with the issue, the book has a common stance towards the conflict, emphasizing that the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia has had an embedded, negative impact on what has happened over the past decades in Yemeni society. Throughout the book, the authors openly advance this argument, which becomes central to the general frame of the book.

The first chapter of the volume, "The GCC, Iran and Yemen: An Overview of Relations," is devoted to a general assessment of the crisis that continues in the GCC, Iran and Yemen. Lackner provides a historical overview regarding the policy making of the various GCC states and Iran towards Yemen, which makes the chapter a short summary of the vulnerabilities of the fragile state. Lackner defines the Saudis controversial policy making towards Yemen as 'tumultuous' with due representation of the fluctuations in choosing partners and actors (p. 8). The chapter underlines the impact of policy makers on the Kingdom's foreign policy on Yemen with regard to the death of Prince Sultan and his replacement by Mohammed bin Salman. Lackner emphasizes that policy making in Saudi Arabia oversimplifies the complexity of the Yemeni civil war, and focuses on the...