44 THENEWYORKER,OCTOBER11, 2021
citizens to the U.S. and its allies....
Why is Safer more dangerous than the
siege and the assault of the Americans,
British, Saudis, Emiratis and their al
lies on the people?”
Alseraji told me that the Houthis
would not allow any oil to be removed
until there was “peace.” But if the Hou
this are hoping to maintain the colos
sal threat posed by the Safer—a spill—
until it suits them to defuse the risk, the
tactic is unsustainable: their leverage
would vanish the instant the ship began
to leak.
The United States, which has made
a more concerted effort to help end
the fighting in Yemen since President
Joe Biden took office, has been nota
bly quiet on the Safer issue. Recently,
however, Cathy Westley, the chargé
d’affaires for the U.S. Embassy to
Yemen, told me that she placed the
onus squarely on the Houthis to stop
obstructing the U.N., and she accused
them of “politicizing the tanker.” I
also learned that American represen
tatives were attempting, through
Omani interlocutors and other part
ners, to convince the Houthis of the
perils of inaction.
“The Houthis must stop negotiat
ing in bad faith,” Westley said. If a spill,
a fire, or an explosion happened, she
said, “the Houthis will be the only ones
to blame and will risk the wrath of
both the Yemeni people and the inter
national community.”
Whether the Houthi leadership in
Sana’a will respond to such admoni
tions is another matter. Indeed, some
U.N. contractors worry that the Houthis
may have actually weaponized the ship.
In 2020, during preparations for an in
spection that never occurred, a U.N.
contractor advised that experts check
the ship for “mines or explosives or im
provised explosive devices.” Another
U.N. source said that the vessel was an
integral part of the Houthis’ defense
of Hodeidah. Nobody who has been
on the Safer recently has reported see
ing any I.E.D.s. But the ship is now
defended by soldiers. It would take less
than a day to transfer explosives to the
Safer by boat.
Alseraji, the Houthi negotiator, ap
peared to confirm to me that the ship
was being used as a weapon: “Whether
it’s a new vessel or an old vessel or a
decaying vessel, we can still use it as a
military defense in battles for Hodeidah.
It will not change anything if the U.N.
follows through with the agreement or
does not. It will not change the status
of the F.S.O. Safer to us, from a mili
tary standpoint.”A
s the U.N.’s negotiations have foun
dered, other parties have made
their own suggestions about how to fix
the crisis. In March, Ian Ralby, who
runs I.R. Consilium, a U.S.based ad
visory group focussing on maritime is
sues, coauthored an article arguingthat the only viable solution was for the
U.N. Security Council to authorize the
use of force to secure the Safer. He pro
posed that a naval minesweeping team
comb the area for explosives, and that
a naval guard protect the Safer as its
oil is extracted and then loaded onto
another tanker. Ralby’s point was that
time was running short, and that it was
too dangerous to keep negotiating with
the Houthis on this issue.
Ralby’s article noted that, during the
month that it would take to remove the
oil from the Safer, there “would be more
than enough time for the Houthis to
exhibit a change of position from per
mission to hostility.” He went on, “Fur
thermore, the lack of unified command
within the Houthi elements means that
local Houthi forces may take a differ
ent approach than their ostensible
‘leadership’ in Sana’a. The risk of an
impulsive attack is too great, therefore,
to attempt a shiptoship transfer of
the oil without external security, which
would need to be provided by a foreign
military. The only way for that to hap
pen at this point is via a U.N. Security
Council Resolution.”
Ralby’s proposal has not won uni
versal support. To many, the idea of
using an armed naval convoy to enter
Houthi waters near Hodeidah is un
wise. Peter Salisbury, a senior analyst
for Yemen at the International Crisis
Group, a non governmental organiza
tion dedicated to conflict prevention
and resolution, told me, “We are talking
about a rusting, heavily guarded ship
probably surrounded by sea mines that
is highly prone to leaks and some kind
of explosion.” He continued, “The con
sensus seems to be that you want to
get the oil off without moving the ship,
to minimize the risks of a leak. I strug
gle to see a military scenario that doesn’t
significantly increase the chances of
what we all want to avoid—a leak, or
an explosion, or the F.S.O. Safer just
sinking outright.”
Iran has also offered to facilitate a
nonmilitary version of a shiptoship
transfer. In July, the Iranian foreign min
istry sent a memo to the U.N. propos
ing to send a floating storage vessel to
the Red Sea to offload the Safer’s oil.
The Iranian document noted, in En
glish, “The new initiative will circum
vent the current disagreement of Ye