Published in the Jerusalem Post, 5 August 2024
Who are these Houthis? The short answer is: pawns in Iran’s master plan.
For 45 years the upholders of Iran’s Islamic Revolution have been intent on consolidating and extending its sphere of influence across the Shia Muslim world. Once known as the Shia Crescent, and more recently, as Sunni extremists have been added, as the Axis of Resistance, regimes and organizations subservient to Iran stretch through Iraq, Syria and Lebanon down to the Gaza Strip. By converting the Houthis of Yemen into a dependent entity, Iran has now gained a foothold on the Arabian peninsula. It brings the Iranian leadership one step closer toward the fundamental purpose of the regime’s founder, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini.
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On July 24, during his address to a
joint session of Congress, prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu referred to this.
“When he founded the Islamic
Republic,” said Netanyahu, “Ayatollah Khomeini pledged: We will export our
revolution to the entire world.”
Khomeini’s philosophy, which he penned nearly 40
years before the 1979 revolution, required the immediate imposition of strict
Sharia law domestically, and a foreign policy aimed at spreading the Shi’ite
interpretation of Islam across the globe by whatever means were deemed
expedient.
“We shall export
our revolution to the whole world,” he declared. “Until the cry 'There is no
god but Allah' resounds over the whole world, there will be struggle.”
As Netanyahu pointed out, pursuit of this fundamental objective of the Islamic Revolution has involved Iran in undertaking or sponsoring acts of terror, mayhem and murder against Western, and largely American, targets, and against non-Shia Muslims as well.
Khomeini was
unequivocal about the basic purpose of his regime. “We have set as our goal the worldwide spread
of the influence of Islam and the suppression of the rule of the world
conquerors.”
“Now, ask yourself,”
said Netanyahu, addressing the joint session, “which country ultimately stands
in the way of Iran's maniacal plans to impose radical Islam on the world? And
the answer is clear: It's America, the guardian of Western civilization and the
world's greatest power. That's why Iran sees America as its greatest enemy...
“But Iran understands
that to truly challenge America, it must first conquer the Middle East. And for
this it uses its many proxies, including the Houthis, Hezbollah and Hamas. Yet
in the heart of the Middle East, standing in Iran's way, is one proud pro-American
democracy—my country, the State of Israel.”
Who are
the Houthis? They are a minority group on
the Shia side of the great Islamic Sunni-Shia divide – Zaydi Shi’ites,
taking their name from Zayd bin Ali, a descendant of the Prophet Mohammad’s
cousin and son-in-law. With the collapse of the Ottoman Empire in 1918, a Zaydi
monarchy took power in North Yemen, but it was overthrown by republicans, and
in 1968 the Yemen Arab Republic was formed in the north.
At roughly the same time the south was undergoing a constitutional upheaval of its own. In 1967 South Yemen was established as a socialist state under the protection of the USSR. In 1972 the two Yemens took up arms against each other. A ceasefire, brokered by the Arab League, included the aspiration of eventual unification. It took a further 18 years of military and political in-fighting before that aspiration was realized, but in 1990 the Unified Republic of Yemen came into being. Ali Abdullah Saleh, who had been president of North Yemen since 1978, was proclaimed president of the newly united state.
Saleh was far from
universally popular, and it was not long before the Houthis, accusing Saleh of
corruption and being backed by Saudi Arabia and the United States, emerged
as an opposition movement, under the leadership of Zaydi religious leader Hussain
al-Houthi.
In 2011 Saleh
became a victim of the so-called Arab Spring. He gave up the keys of office with a very bad
grace, and was quite prepared to ally himself with his erstwhile enemies, the Houthis,
in an attempt to maneuver his way back to power. The Yemeni military, including its air force,
had remained largely loyal to Saleh. As
a result, and supported with military hardware from Iran’s Revolutionary
Guards, the Houthis overran large tracts of the country, including the capital
city, Sana’a, and the port city of Hodeidah.
The
subsequent turn of events seems depressingly familiar in the context of Yemen’s
long history. Saudi Arabia, intent on thwarting Iran’s expansion into the Arabian
peninsula, intervened in March 2015 to beat back the Houthis. Saudi’s Crown Prince, Mohammed bin Salman
(MBS), assembled a coalition of Arab states, obtained the diplomatic backing of
the US, UK, Turkey and Pakistan, and launched a series of air strikes against
the rebels.
The
unconventional Saleh-Houthi partnership came to an abrupt end on December 2,
2017, when Saleh went on television to declare that he was splitting from the
Houthis and was ready to enter into dialogue with the Saudi-led coalition. This volte-face was to end in tragedy. On
December 4, Saleh's house in Sana'a was besieged by Houthi fighters. Attempting to escape, he was killed.
Subsequently Iran poured finance and
technology into boosting the Houthis and consolidating their hold on the large
chunk of western Yemen that they had conquered.
With Iran’s aid, the Houthis managed to beat off the consolidated forces
led by Saudi Arabia, acting in support of the internationally recognized
government.
With
the outbreak of the Israel-Gaza conflict, Iran boosted the role played by its
proxy. On October 31 the Houthis effectively declared
war on Israel. Controlling Hodeidah port
as they do, they have been attacking international shipping in addition to
despatching drones the roughly 2000 kilometers toward Israel. On July 19 one of these long-distance missiles
managed to evade Israel’s aerial defenses, and fell on Tel Aviv, killing a
civilian.
The next day Israeli warplanes, in the
first such attack on Yemen, struck Hodeidah, killing three people and wounding
more than 80.
At the moment the Houthis are content to act as Iran’s proxy, since it accords with their own fervent anti-Israel ideology. But they have their own agenda – namely to take over the rest of government-held Yemen, and then to conquer the area of southern Yemen that has split away and declared independence - the STC. An extended intra-Yemen struggle lies ahead – a struggle which has nothing to do with the Palestinian cause, and in which anti-Israel military action is irrelevant.
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