Our new @CrisisGroup report "Rethinking Peace in #Yemen" is now online. Based on a year and a half of fieldwork and interviews.

Read it here https://www.crisisgroup.org/middle-east-north-africa/gulf-and-arabian-peninsula/yemen/216-rethinking-peace-yemen

After five years of war that has killed 112,000+ people and left 75%+ of the population in poverty, an outright military victory by any one side is unlikely. It is time for the parties to rightsize their expectations of what a peace deal might look like and come to the table.

But #Yemen has been divided into multiple cantons of military and political control over the course of the war, and a settlement brokered between the Huthis and Hadi government with Saudi input will not be enough to produce a lasting, sustainable settlement.

Because of these divisions the war is being fought across multiple front lines and lines of command and control. Which also makes stopping the war a complicated affair.

Given their centralising instincts, a deal between the Huthis and Hadi could stoke new conflict with autonomous local groups. To obtain broad buy-in, and for the substance of a settlement to reflect ground truths, more parties will need to be involved in talks.

This doesn't mean tearing up the established framework entirely, but it does mean adapting / updating them at some point in the process. We lay out four options for improving inclusion ranging from new UNSCR action to an expanded Yemeni government umbrella.

All parties to the conflict may believe they have reason to delay. But if they do, they will simply prolong a conflict that has already taken an unconscionable human toll.