I had written an article analyzing the ongoing situation in Yemen. I had stated that the current turmoil in the impoverished country would lead to further divisions and a long civil war.

Before the article could go to the press, luckily a Saudi-led coalition changed everything and surprised us all by launching attacks against the Iranian-backed Houthi rebels.

We are all hopeful now that everyone including the Houthi rebels and those elements supporting the isolated former Yemeni president, Ali Abdullah Saleh, will accept a peaceful solution.

The Houthi rebels in sheer arrogance had been under the wrong impression that they could easily impose a new reality on Yemen and rule the country against the will of the people and ignore all agreements and deal they had signed. They had placed the legitimate president, prime minister and other members of the government under house arrest. Following the escape of the president and some other government officials to Aden, the Houthi militants decided to pursue and assassinate them.

The situation had become so tense that Yemenis had lost all hopes. In desperation, they were thinking as if it was the end of their country.

However, when the Saudi-led coalition launched the airstrikes, hopes of an all-inclusive Yemen were revived, as the coalition agrees on this very important issue of allowing everyone’s participation in managing the state.

Prior to this military intervention, what was awaiting us was a map of a divided Yemen with two capitals and two governments — a Yemen with armed groups, like the Iranian-backed Houthis, Al-Qaeda, terrorists, armed rebels affiliated with Saleh, southern separatist powers and tribal fighters. Amid this chaos, the Houthis in particular sought to dominate Yemeni lands as much as they could and to impose the fait accompli that they are the most united and expansive power.

The Houthi militias’ advancement toward the strategic Strait of Bab El-Mandab and their attempt to seize it would have been a huge blow to the Saudi and other Gulf countries’ oil shipments.

Before the Saudi intervention, Yemen was taking a turn for the worse toward a deepened and long civil war. It was by resorting to terrifying chaos that Houthis were intending to manage Yemen. They wanted to have the upper hand by launching a series of wars. Chaos is a policy, which benefits them considering the absence of enough resources to manage the country. Due to their previous experience in the north, Houthis only care about military control. Therefore, they never addressed the needs of the areas they seized considering that residents there are either peasants or government employees and the capital, Sanaa, was in charge of paying their wages. The United Nations had warned several times that famine threatened many Yemeni areas as resources diminished and the government’s work got obstructed.

Saudi intervention halted the Houthis’ and their allies’ expansion toward the east and the south and there’s now a new chance for Yemen. If the region’s countries and the international community do not support this move, it will not be easy to prevent chaos which will make Yemen the fourth country, after Syria, Libya and Somalia, where wars would flare up.

What makes Yemen different from Syria, Libya and Somalia is that the international community recognized its political regime. The Houthis were hell bent on the destruction of the regime, which the UN and the region’s countries had supported and which was established in a flexible manner.

The war, which the rebels launched, was aimed at sabotaging the regime and imposing a new reality on Yemen. However this time, Saudi Arabia announced the end of negative neutrality and refused to remain silent over the actions of Iran, declaring it’s time to empower a central government in Yemen.