Welcome back to Yemen, the world’s most persistent reminder that humanity has all the foresight of a goldfish with a concussion. On Wednesday, the southern part of this dust-caked tragedy hosted yet another impromptu pyrotechnics display. A car bomb. Groundbreaking. Revolutionary. If only the actual revolution had this much kinetic energy. Three people are dead because some regional 'leader'—bless his delusions of grandeur—happened to be the target of a group that clearly values dramatic exits over surgical precision. It is the same tired script, performed by different actors who all graduated from the same school of spectacular incompetence.

Let’s talk about the 'Saudi-backed' label attached to the target. It’s the political equivalent of a 'Verified' badge on a social media platform that is currently engulfed in flames. The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, having more money than common sense and a desperate need to pretend it’s a regional hegemon, continues to throw cash and ordnance at a conflict that has all the tactical nuance of a toddler throwing a tantrum in a Lego store. They back these groups, these 'leaders' of the Southern Transitional Council or whatever alphabet-soup acronym is currently claiming a pile of rubble as a sovereign state, and then act shocked when someone decides to turn a sedan into a high-velocity shrapnel distributor. It is a subsidy for chaos, and the returns are always paid in blood—usually someone else’s.

This 'leader' who was targeted—who is he? Does it even matter? In the grand, depressing ledger of Yemeni politics, a 'leader' is just a man with a slightly better-fitting suit and a louder megaphone, waiting for his inevitable promotion to 'martyr.' These figures represent the pinnacle of parasitic governance, presiding over a population that is increasingly composed of rubble, hunger, and fading memories of a time when the sky didn't occasionally fall on your head. To target such a person with a car bomb is to acknowledge their relevance—a courtesy they certainly haven't earned through actual leadership or, heaven forbid, improving the lives of their constituents. It’s just one gangster trying to take out another gangster’s middle manager.

The tactic itself—the car bomb—is so painfully mid-2000s. It’s the 'Ugg boots' of insurgency tactics. It shows a complete lack of creative malice. You’d think with all the sophisticated weaponry being funneled into the region by every industrial-military complex from DC to Beijing, they could come up with something more elegant. But no. We’re stuck with the classics: take a perfectly good vehicle—probably a Toyota, let’s be honest, the unsung hero of global instability—and fill it with enough explosives to make a statement that no one is actually listening to. It’s lazy. It’s messy. It’s the work of people who have run out of ideas but still have plenty of fertilizer and blasting caps.

And what of the 'other side'? Whether they are Houthi-adjacent, Iranian-funded proxies, or just some local entrepreneurs of violence, they are the B-team of theological expansionism. They claim they’re fighting for sovereignty, which is a hilarious concept in a country where the currency is essentially Monopoly money and the borders are more like suggestions than lines. They replace Saudi-backed corruption with Iranian-backed dogma, ensuring that the average Yemeni citizen stays hungry, terrified, and perpetually five seconds away from being vaporized by a passing Mazda. It’s a choice between a gold-plated boot and a rust-covered one, and neither is interested in stepping off your neck.

While Aden or whatever southern district this happened in continues to smoke, the rest of the world looks on with the blank stare of a teenager being told about the importance of dietary fiber. The Western Left will write a performative tweet about 'imperialist aggression' while ordering a fifteen-dollar latte, and the Right will ignore it entirely because there’s no immediate way to turn it into a culture war talking point about 'woke' kindergartens. Yemen is the orphan of the international community, only visited when someone needs to sell more missiles or posture about human rights for a UN photo op that will be forgotten before the flash clears.

Three people are dead. Just statistics for a spreadsheet in a basement in Riyadh or a boardroom in Virginia. The 'leader' likely escaped with a ruffled ego and a new security detail, while the street cleaners are left to pick up the pieces of people who were just trying to exist in a failed state. The cycle is as predictable as it is pathetic. The crater will be filled with sand, the car will be towed to a scrap heap, and another 'leader' will step up to collect his Saudi stipend and wait for his own turn to be the centerpiece of a Wednesday afternoon explosion. It is a masterclass in futility, a testament to the fact that we, as a species, are remarkably good at destroying things and remarkably bad at wondering why we bothered in the first place. Yemen doesn't need leaders; it needs a vacation from history. But history is a clingy ex, and in this part of the world, she expresses her affection through the medium of high explosives.