. >> thank you, dr. yoho. miss meng of new york. >> ambassador, i thought when the campaign started, the saudis were smart to brand this as a panarab effort. with the rising of civilian casualties, can you give us a sense of the perspective of this on the arab street today? >> it varies and i do believe that broadly on the arab street i think there's a great deal of support for what the coalition is trying to accomplish in the sense that it is appropriate for the saudis to take a leadership position in confronting iranian malign intent. within yemen of course the situation is a little bit different and the concerns about some of the civilian casualties is obviously and understandably much higher. one of the things we are trying to accomplish in providing support to the international coalition is precisely to help them avoid those kinds of civilian casualties and make sure when they're going after a particular target that they're doing everything possible to make sure there's no collateral damage. >> my last qu

i yield back. >> thank you, dr. yoho. miss meng of new york. >> ambassador, i thought when the campaign started, the saudis were smart to brand this as a panarab effort. with the rising of civilian casualties, can you give us a sense of the perspective of this on the arab street today? >> it varies, and i do believe that broadly on the arab street i think there's a great deal of support for what the coalition is trying to accomplish in the sense that it is appropriate for the saudis to take a leadership position in confronting iranian malign intent. within yemen, of course, the situation is a little bit different and the concerns about some of the civilian casualties is obviously and understandably much higher. one of the things we are trying to accomplish in providing support to the international coalition is precisely to help them avoid those kinds of civilian casualties and make sure when they're going after a particular target that they're doing everything possible to make sure there's no collateral damage. >> my last

i yield back. >> thank you, dr. yoho.miss meng of new york. >> ambassador, i thought when the campaign started, the saudis were smart to brand this as a panarab effort. with the rising of civilian casualties, can you give us a sense of the perspective of this on the arab street today? >> it varies, and i do believe that broadly on the arab street i think there's a great deal of support for what the coalition is trying to accomplish in the sense that it is appropriate for the saudis to take a leadership position in confronting iranian malign intent. within yemen, of course, the situation is a little bit different and the concerns about some of the civilian casualties is obviously and understandably much higher. one of the things we are trying to accomplish in providing support to the international coalition is precisely to help them avoid those kinds of civilian casualties and make sure when they're going after a particular target that they're doing everything possible to make sure there's no collateral damage. >> my last

i yield back. >> thank you, dr. yoho. miss meng of new york. >> ambassador, i thought when the campaign started, the saudis were smart to brand this as a panarab effort. with the rising of civilian casualties, can you give us a sense of the perspective of this on the arab street today? >> it varies and i do believe that broadly on the arab street i think there's a great deal of support for what the coalition is trying to accomplish in the sense that it is appropriate for the saudis to take a leadership position in confronting iranian malign intent. within yemen of course the situation is a little bit different and the concerns about some of the civilian casualties is obviously and understandably much higher. one of the things we are trying to accomplish in providing support to the international coalition is precisely to help them avoid those kinds of civilian casualties and make sure when they're going after a particular target that they're doing everything possible to make sure there's no collateral damage. >> my last qu

dr. yoho. >> thank you madam chair. is it feierstein? >> feierstein. >> good, i am satisfying you both. what warning signs were present prior to the fall of the hadi government? what did we see, did we know this was coming or was this kind of out of the blue? >> the situation with the houthis has been complicated for a long period of time and we have been in a situation when we had the initial uprising, political uprising in 2011 and 2012, the houthis were part of the opposition to the saleh regime, there was strong desire on the part of all of the political groups in yemen to see if they couldn't bring them into the political process. i think there was a broad understanding that the houthis had legitimate concerns and grievances about the way they were treated over the years there was a hope that they could be accommodated through the negotiations and implementation of the gcc initiative in a way to make them part of the larger political fabric and that was really the main effort for a long period of time. unfortunately, low level confl

dr. yoho does not need to address the panel now. so we'll go to miss meng of new york. >> thank you, chair and ranking member, for assembling this hearing and our distinguished ambassador for joining us here today. on january 21st a fragile power sharing deal between democratically elected president hadi and the houthi rebel group in yemen fell apart, and the houthi began seizing control of large portions of yemen. these actions were troubling because of the houthi' illegal usurpation of power and their immediate dissolving of the yemeni parliament. the houthi have very close ties to iran, which is supporting their aggression and seeking to expand its own sphere of influence in the middle east. on march 26th saudi arabia and more than ten arab partners began air strikes to weaken the houthi stronghold and reinstate president hadi to the presidency. while i'm supportive of arab solidarity and intervention here, i'm deeply concerned about the possibility of a large humanitarian crisis in yemen and look forward to delving into these is