In the two months since a United Nations–brokered ceasefire expired in Yemen, a tenuous peace has held. Yet with every passing day, that peace looks more and more precarious. The Saudi-backed Yemeni government has sanctioned companies that import fuel to areas held by the Houthis, a fundamentalist movement fighting the government, and the Houthis are targeting terminals in southern Yemen with drone strikes to deter tankers from loading crude oil. Both worsen a humanitarian crisis that has long been called the worst in the world. Nor is there anything preventing the Saudis from resuming their own airstrikes, grounding all flights, or retightening the blockade.

Senator Bernie Sanders’s new Yemen war powers resolution aims to strengthen that tenuous peace by blocking US backing for the Saudi-led war. Earlier this week Sanders announced he has the requisite support to pass a resolution, and that he could bring it to the Senate floor for a vote as early as next week. If approved and signed into law, the resolution would require President Joe Biden to withdraw several forms of military support for the Saudi-led coalition in Yemen.

Sanders’s resolution is certainly a positive development. It would force the Saudi-led coalition to think twice before resuming the war and, at least in theory, withdraw US collaboration in an immoral war that has killed hundreds of thousands of civilians and pushed millions more into near-starvation.