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As Saudi Arabia continues its air assault on Yemen’s Houthi insurgents, supporters and opponents of the Riyadh monarchy are reconfiguring the political landscape in a way that’s unlikely to vanish once the fighting is over. The Saudis have constructed what at first glance seems a formidable coalition consisting of the Arab League, the monarchies of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC), Turkey, and the United States. Except that the “coalition” isn’t as solid as it looks.

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Claims Iran is supplying the Houthis with weapons ignore the fact the group was already flush with American arms from ex-president Saleh.

It must have seemed a very good idea at the time. The young, ambitious son of an aged king launching a war against a rebellion in a troubled country to the south. However, the Saudi-led bombing campaign, which was supposed to break the Houthis resistance and drive them from the cities, has failed miserably. The Houthis remain in control of the capital Sanaa and much of the key southern city of Aden. And the only beneficiary of the Saudi air war may be al-Qaeda.

By leading a Sunni coalition Saudi Arabia will internationalise the Yemen conflict and emphasise its sectarian Sunni-Shia dimension. US policy across the Middle East looks contradictory. It is supporting Sunni powers and opposing Iranian allies in Yemen but doing the reverse in Iraq. Whatever happens in Iraq and Yemen, the political temperature of the region is getting hotter by the day.