That Post report on Yemen and the Obama administration also contained this bizarre and misleading assertion:

While both sides have been blamed for violence against civilians, the Obama administration now faces increasing pressure to reconsider its military support for a campaign that was supposed to be a short operation focused on defending the Saudi border, but has evolved into an open-ended, offensive war [bold mine-DL].

If this is what the administration expected, they clearly weren’t paying attention to the Saudi-led coalition’s stated goals for the war. The Saudis claimed that the intervention was intended to expel the Houthis from the capital and put Hadi back in power. Neither objective was realistic, and after 18 months the coalition is hardly any closer to achieving any of its goals, but there was never any chance that the intervention wouldn’t be an “open-ended, offensive war.” If the Obama administration didn’t understand that this is what they were signing up for, their continued support for the war is even more ridiculous than it originally seemed. The Saudi-led war was much more ambitious and aggressive from the outset, and it was never simply “focused on defending the Saudi border.” It didn’t “evolve,” but has been the same stupid, unnecessary campaign from day one. Indeed, Saudi territory came under attack only later in response to the bombing campaign. If defending the border had been the mission, there would have been no need to bomb Yemeni cities.

No doubt the administration hoped that the war would be a brief one, but it’s not clear why they or the coalition governments thought that was likely. Wars frequently last longer than anyone expected at the beginning, and the costs are always greater than most people imagine. This war is no different, and it seems that it will continue for however long Washington is willing to enable the Saudis and their allies. Absurdly, administration officials reportedly “see little choice for now but continued support,” but the continued support is what allows the coalition to keep the war going. The U.S. could withdraw that support and make it very difficult for the coalition to keep fighting, but that would anger the clients that Obama has been so keen to “reassure.” The need to “reassure” bad clients is apparently so great that the administration has stupidly trapped itself into backing a pointless war without end.