We all woke on Friday to the news of US/UK airstrikes on Yemen. Our TV screens were filled with images of RAF bombers taking off into a Mediterranean night sky, and seemingly random explosions briefly illuminating nameless, darkened landscapes, as in some slow-motion video game. But real strategic objectives are involved here, and real people: British and American pilots risking their lives, Yemenis on the ground beneath the bombs.
It is a disconcertingly familiar set of images, evoking the US/UK/France bombing of Syria in 2018, the British-French bombing of Muammar Gaddafi’s forces in Libya in 2011, and the “shock and awe” campaign in Iraq in 2003. How did these end? Not so well. But nor did the one that didn’t happen: the proposed Obama-led US/UK/France airstrikes on Bashar al-Assad’s forces after they used chemical weapons against their own population in 2013.
