YEMEN´S HOUTHIS AND IRAN´S ENCIRCLING OF SAUDI ARABIA / GEOPOLITICAL FUTURES

Yemen’s Houthis and Iran’s Encircling of Saudi Arabia

The U.S. has no good answers to the Houthi attacks on commercial shipping in the Red Sea.

By Kamran Bokhari 

On Dec. 19, a day after the U.S. announced a multinational naval task force to protect commercial shipping in the southern Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden, the Yemeni group whose attacks the task force is intended to stop said it would not be deterred. 

In the past few weeks, the Iran-backed Houthi movement, which rules most of northwestern Yemen, has targeted at least 10 merchant ships and a U.S. Navy vessel with ballistic missiles and drones. 

The attacks have led half a dozen shipping firms as well as oil giant BP to halt operations in the Red Sea.

Although the Houthis maintain that their attacks will continue until Israel stops its military campaign in Gaza, the group’s more immediate goal is to use the Israel-Hamas war to cement itself as the strongest force in Yemen. 

None of this would be possible without Iran, which not only helps to fund, equip and train the Houthis but also uses them to project power in strategic waters far from Iran’s borders. 

Approximately 12 percent of global trade passes through the mouth of the Red Sea, including 30 percent of global container traffic. 

More broadly, the Houthis’ rise in Yemen – especially in the most densely populated areas on the Red Sea coast and along the border with Saudi Arabia – is a key component in the Iranian strategy to encircle the Saudis.

Consolidation

What makes the Houthis, which represent the Zaydi sub-sect of Shiite Islam, a unique proxy for Iran is that they are an indigenous movement with religious and tribal roots in Yemen that date back centuries. 

In addition, the Houthis have gained military dominance in their country while Iran’s premier regional proxy, Hezbollah, remains vulnerable to a delicate balance of power in the multireligious Lebanese political system. 

The Houthis have been a growing force since the unification of North and South Yemen since the end of the Cold War. 

The group emerged from its stronghold in the highlands of the Saadah region in opposition to Saudi efforts to spread Sunni Islam in the country. 

By the early 2000s, the movement had transformed into a major armed insurrection against the regime of then-President Ali Abdullah Saleh.

When the 2011 Arab Spring uprising began, the Houthi movement was already conducting attacks across the border in Saudi Arabia, which was backing Saleh’s government. 

The Houthis were well positioned to benefit from the protests, which led to Saleh’s ouster in 2012 and escalated into a civil war in 2014. 

After consolidating their hold in several northwestern Yemeni provinces and along a substantial part of the Red Sea coast, the Houthis captured the capital, Sanaa. 

Alarmed by the group’s gains, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates launched a major military intervention in early 2015. 

It failed to degrade the Houthis’ capabilities or strengthen the anti-Houthi coalition in the country. 

In fact, equipped with Iranian drones and missiles, the Houthis were able to turn the tables and strike key oil facilities deep inside Saudi Arabia.

The Saudi- and UAE-led coalition spent a few years trying to ensure that Yemen’s main Red Sea port of Hodeida did not fall completely into Houthi hands. 

Throughout 2018, Saudi-backed anti-Houthi forces tried to dislodge the group from the port. 

After a lengthy stalemate, during which the Houthis launched drone and missile strikes inside Saudi Arabia to force the Saudis to the negotiating table, coalition forces finally ceded Hodeida to the Houthis in 2021. 

Ever since there has been a truce of sorts while negotiations continue.

Emboldened by their success in withstanding the Saudi military campaign, the Houthis are now trying to play regional geopolitics, with a focus on the Red Sea. 

The war in Gaza has provided them with this opportunity.

The group hopes to parlay its attacks on ships in the Red Sea into a stronger, more secure position in Yemen. 

To do so, however, the Houthis likely are relying on coordination with Iran, which stands to gain from a more robust forward operation base in the backyard of its Saudi rivals.

Encirclement

Though they agreed to normalize ties in March as part of an ostensibly Chinese-mediated deal, the Iranians and the Saudis remain wary of each other. 

From Tehran’s point of view, Riyadh’s efforts to normalize relations with Israel pose a threat to Iran’s position in the region. 

Likewise, the Saudis know that Iran will continue to undermine the kingdom’s regional position through its constellation of proxies, just as it has done with Hamas, Hezbollah and the Houthis since Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack in Israel.

That said, the Saudis are more resolved than the others to avoid a conflict, and their defensive posture further emboldens Iran and its allies. 

The Saudis have urged the Americans to avoid a confrontation with the Houthis. 

The Biden administration, too, seeks to prevent the Gaza conflict from spiraling into a regional war. 

It also doesn’t want to risk upsetting the Saudi-Houthi talks. 

However, as the global guarantor of free navigation, Washington cannot allow the Houthis to interdict shipping through the Bab el Mandeb strait, which links the Red Sea with the Gulf of Aden.

Aware of Washington’s conflicting interests, the Houthis and their Iranian backers are trying to provoke the U.S. into conducting limited strikes in Yemen. 

They assume that the U.S. will restrict any action against the Houthis to limited airstrikes, along the lines of what Washington does when faced with threats from Iranian assets in Iraq and Syria. 

They see such U.S. countermeasures as an acceptable risk. 

The Houthis would incur some damage, but the benefits of an anti-American backlash in Yemen and the wider region may leave the group stronger.

Yemen has been a challenge for major powers ever since the Arabian Peninsula became geopolitically significant following the rise of Islam in the 7th century. 

It has been a strategic backyard for all major Muslim dominions that have controlled the Middle East. 

Since the fracturing of the Abbasid Empire in the late 9th century, Yemen has with few exceptions been ruled by various local dynasties belonging to the Zaydi sect. 

The Zaydis proved particularly challenging for the Ottomans, who lost control of Yemen in the early 1600s and did not regain it until the late 19th century. 

The Zaydis dominated a good chunk of Yemen in the modern era following the collapse of the Ottoman Empire after World War I, ruling until 1962 when a military-dominated republican regime came to power. 

That regime lasted half a century, until it succumbed to the Houthis.

The Houthis will leverage the U.S. interest in avoiding a major regional conflict to further develop their capabilities as a major actor on the Arabian Peninsula and in the Red Sea.

Saudi Arabia’s southern provinces of Najran and Jizan contain significant numbers of Ismailis, a Shiite minority group, which may make them vulnerable to Houthi influence. 

Over time, the Houthis could develop the capability to threaten even the broader Hijaz region, which lies farther north and houses the holy cities of Mecca and Medina as well as the commercial centers of Jeddah and Yanbu. 

The Iranians have invested in the Houthis because it enables them to project power on Saudi Arabia’s west coast, potentially encircling the kingdom. 

At the moment, the Iranians are getting a return on their investment.

Kamran Bokhari, PhD is the Senior Director, Eurasian Security & Prosperity Portfolio at the New Lines Institute for Strategy & Policy in Washington, DC. Dr. Bokhari is also a national security and foreign policy specialist at the University of Ottawa’s Professional Development Institute. He has served as the Coordinator for Central Asia Studies at the U.S. Department of State’s Foreign Service Institute. Follow him on Twitter at @KamranBokhari