The Houthis
Who Are America’s Newest ‘Enemies’?
The U.S. and Britain are bombing the Houthis, but they were not always our enemy, and they are no military pushover. While Barack Obama was in the White House, the Houthis, a political and religious sect in Yemen, were allied with the U.S. in its campaign against al-Qaeda as it plotted operations against Western targets. But this alliance was short-lived because the Houthis were sandwiched between big power players in the Middle East. That includes the U.S. and its allies—Israel and Saudi Arabia—on the one hand, and Iran on the other. Missing from much of the latest warring rhetoric aimed at the Houthis in Tel Aviv, Washington, London, and Riyadh is a misunderstanding of who they are. The Western public is being told they are our enemy, backed by Iran. They are depicted as religious zealots who hate the West.
It is a convenient and highly distorted view of this Shiite sect. First, they are a minority Zaydi Shiite faction within the minority Shiite population in the Islamic world. In 1990, they were called Ansar Allah, Partisans of God, but they took the name Houthis to honor their founder, Hussein al-Houthi. His brother now leads them. Their beliefs and doctrines do not follow those of Iran or of other Shiites. They were perceived as a cultural movement seeking to revive their unique religious traditions in one of the world’s poorest countries.
Nothing about them ever suggested that they were anti-Christian or anti-Western. In the 1990s, they became the opposition to the Yemeni leader, Ali Abdullah Saleh, who took power in 1978 and robbed the nation of its riches. The Houthis criticized the U.S. and the Saudis for supporting him while Yemenis starved. They also were alarmed by the dangerous spread of Saudi Arabia’s extreme form of Islam, Wahabism, that led to the emergence of al-Qaeda. While the Houthis led several unsuccessful insurgencies against the Yemeni government in the early 2000s, one particular event radicalized them—George Bush’s invasion of Iraq in 2003. They watched the “shock and awe” campaign and perceived it to be driven by Washington’s desire to fulfill the geopolitical objectives of Israel and the Saudis. The arrival of the Arab Spring that swept across the Middle East in 2011 was followed by changing political alliances within Yemen, but a decisive change happened when Mohammed bin Salman (MBS) rose to power in Saudi Arabia.
Known as impulsive, if not dangerous, MBS was consumed with ambition. In 2014, their fears seemed justified when the Saudis joined Yemen’s President Saleh in attacks on the Houthis that led to the death of the Houthi founder. MBS had decided that the Houthis were allied with Iran and, as such, if they controlled Yemen, they posed a threat to his Kingdom. He decided to go to war with the Houthis and he found ideal allies in Barack Obama and Western nations like Britain and France. Just as Biden has done lately, Obama provided the Saudis and its Arab partners, especially the United Arab Emirates (UAE), with weapons as well as military advisers and the intelligence to target population centers in Yemen.
Despite the apparent Saudi advantage with Western military backing, the Houthis, again and again, defeated Saleh and his Saudis allies. The outcome, however, was a catastrophic loss of civilian life in Yemen. By 2023, Yemen was suffering the world’s greatest humanitarian disaster. But the Houthis were no pushover. With an army of nearly 150,000, and ballistic missiles they bought from Hezbollah and Iran, they brought the war to Saudi Arabia, leading to an eventual ceasefire and an exchange of prisoners. During the war in Yemen, the UAE ran an assassination campaign using mercenaries who included former Navy Seals employed by a U.S. security outfit, Spear Operations group. They used the Yemen conflict as a backdrop for killing large numbers of individuals. But the most highly criticized part of the war was the Saudi bombing of civilians, very much like the latest Israeli air war against the citizens of Gaza. The Houthis have aligned themselves with the citizens of Gaza, but in many ways this was predictable. While the Israelis say that the Houthis are merely Iran’s proxies, and Washington calls them terrorists, their history confirms that no matter where they acquire weapons, they are their own masters. Linking them to Iran has been a convenient argument by the West, Israel, and Saudi Arabia, and claims that they are in Iran’s pocket have yet to be proven. This point was made as far back as 2016 by Thomas Junneau in The Washington Post. He said: The Houthis are a small nonstate actor attacked by a regional power with deep pockets and advanced weaponry. It is then only rational for the Houthis to seek assistance, albeit only small amounts, from the only external power willing and able to support them— Iran. This opinion from 2016 is just as accurate today. The Houthis have proven to be their own masters and they can be a formidable adversary. They are not religious fanatics who are planning to strike the United States, but a nation of fighters very much like the Afghan mujahedeen. A war with them is best avoided.
During a speech at The Atlantic Festival on Sept. 29, 2023, National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan boasted about the Biden regime’s perceived foreign policy successes in the Middle East. Sullivan cited a truce between the Houthi rebels and the Saudi Arabian-backed government in Yemen in addition to a drop in Shiite militia attacks against U.S. forces in Iraq as signs that the region was beginning to stabilize. He capped off his speech by declaring that the Middle East region “is quieter today than it has been in two decades.” However, any assumptions about a newfound wave of Middle Eastern peace came to a grinding halt after Hamas launched an unexpected attack against Israel last year on Oct. 7. This conflict has expanded with the Yemeni Houthi movement now entering the mix. The Houthis are a Shiite military and political organization that has been mired in a civil war with the central government of Yemen since 2014. The Saudis, with support from the U.S. and Gulf states such as the United Arab Emirates, spearheaded an intervention in 2015 to prop up the Yemeni government. For their part, the Houthis have received military aid from Iran. The ragtag Houthis defied all odds by giving the Saudi-led coalition massive fits throughout this military campaign, which eventually brought the Saudis and Houthis to the negotiating table to hammer out a potential truce in the last two years. However, the events of Oct. 7 have brought about a new wave of chaos across the Middle East. The Houthis added fuel to the fire by launching several attacks on Oct. 19 targeting southern Israel and vessels sailing across the Red Sea that it claimed were connected to Israel or sailing to Israel. Towards the end of October, the Houthis continued attacking Israel, with Houthi military spokesperson Yahya Sare’e acknowledging that the Shiite militants launched missiles and drones against Israel.
Al Jazeera aired Sare’e’s video statement where he declared that these attacks would continue undeterred “until the Israeli aggression stops.” As the Houthis have ramped up their attacks, the U.S. has responded in kind by shooting down Houthi missiles and drones. On Oct. 19, American officials announced that the U.S. Navy destroyer USS Carney took out three land-attack cruise missiles and multiple drones heading in Israel’s direction. Irrespective of the U.S.’s response, the Houthi militants have not relented. They have expanded their attacks against merchant vessels of multiple countries that are aligned with Israel in the Bab-el Mandeb strait, a critical chokepoint of global commerce. On Nov. 19, the Houthis pushed the envelope even further after Houthi militants hijacked the ship, Galaxy Leader. The constant barrage of Houthi attacks prompted the U.S. and a multinational coalition to launch Operation Prosperity Guardian in December 2023 with the aim of protecting shipping in the region.
Despite the U.S.’s efforts to drag its NATO partners into Operation Prosperity Guardian, several prominent countries such as France, Italy, and Spain have backed out presumably due to fear of facing potential reprisals in the Red Sea by the Houthis. In January 2024, the U.S. took another step up the escalation ladder by teaming up with its junior partner the UK to carry out airstrikes against multiple Houthi targets in Yemen. These attacks marked the first time Houthi fighters in Yemen were targeted since the Red Sea crisis kicked off in October. The Saudis, who have been negotiating their own peace accord with the Houthis, have apparently urged the U.S. to exercise restraint in this conflict to prevent it from metastasizing into a full-blown regional war that destabilizes world commerce.
These types of concerns have not registered with officials in the Biden regime, who are more than content to wage a de facto war against Yemen without congressional approval. A bipartisan coalition of House members have already stepped up to challenge these unconstitutional attacks. On Jan. 11, 2024, Rep. Ro Khanna (DCalif.) posted the following on X: The president needs to come to Congress before launching a strike against the Houthis in Yemen and involving us in another Middle East conflict. That is Article I of the Constitution. I will stand up for that regardless of whether a Democrat or Republican is in the White House. Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) went beyond partisan politics and agreed with Khanna about the necessity of sticking to constitutional norms to deal with this conflict. Unfortunately, the fighting will likely not end anytime soon given the U.S.’s slavish devotion to Israel, the fanatically anti-Iranian proclivities of the national security state, and the foreign policy elite’s desire to maintain primacy in the Middle East. This entire quagmire could have easily been prevented if the U.S. maintained a neutral foreign policy with respect to Israel and not try to stick its nose in every nook and cranny of the Middle East
It is a convenient and highly distorted view of this Shiite sect. First, they are a minority Zaydi Shiite faction within the minority Shiite population in the Islamic world. In 1990, they were called Ansar Allah, Partisans of God, but they took the name Houthis to honor their founder, Hussein al-Houthi. His brother now leads them. Their beliefs and doctrines do not follow those of Iran or of other Shiites. They were perceived as a cultural movement seeking to revive their unique religious traditions in one of the world’s poorest countries.
Nothing about them ever suggested that they were anti-Christian or anti-Western. In the 1990s, they became the opposition to the Yemeni leader, Ali Abdullah Saleh, who took power in 1978 and robbed the nation of its riches. The Houthis criticized the U.S. and the Saudis for supporting him while Yemenis starved. They also were alarmed by the dangerous spread of Saudi Arabia’s extreme form of Islam, Wahabism, that led to the emergence of al-Qaeda. While the Houthis led several unsuccessful insurgencies against the Yemeni government in the early 2000s, one particular event radicalized them—George Bush’s invasion of Iraq in 2003. They watched the “shock and awe” campaign and perceived it to be driven by Washington’s desire to fulfill the geopolitical objectives of Israel and the Saudis. The arrival of the Arab Spring that swept across the Middle East in 2011 was followed by changing political alliances within Yemen, but a decisive change happened when Mohammed bin Salman (MBS) rose to power in Saudi Arabia.
Known as impulsive, if not dangerous, MBS was consumed with ambition. In 2014, their fears seemed justified when the Saudis joined Yemen’s President Saleh in attacks on the Houthis that led to the death of the Houthi founder. MBS had decided that the Houthis were allied with Iran and, as such, if they controlled Yemen, they posed a threat to his Kingdom. He decided to go to war with the Houthis and he found ideal allies in Barack Obama and Western nations like Britain and France. Just as Biden has done lately, Obama provided the Saudis and its Arab partners, especially the United Arab Emirates (UAE), with weapons as well as military advisers and the intelligence to target population centers in Yemen.
Despite the apparent Saudi advantage with Western military backing, the Houthis, again and again, defeated Saleh and his Saudis allies. The outcome, however, was a catastrophic loss of civilian life in Yemen. By 2023, Yemen was suffering the world’s greatest humanitarian disaster. But the Houthis were no pushover. With an army of nearly 150,000, and ballistic missiles they bought from Hezbollah and Iran, they brought the war to Saudi Arabia, leading to an eventual ceasefire and an exchange of prisoners. During the war in Yemen, the UAE ran an assassination campaign using mercenaries who included former Navy Seals employed by a U.S. security outfit, Spear Operations group. They used the Yemen conflict as a backdrop for killing large numbers of individuals. But the most highly criticized part of the war was the Saudi bombing of civilians, very much like the latest Israeli air war against the citizens of Gaza. The Houthis have aligned themselves with the citizens of Gaza, but in many ways this was predictable. While the Israelis say that the Houthis are merely Iran’s proxies, and Washington calls them terrorists, their history confirms that no matter where they acquire weapons, they are their own masters. Linking them to Iran has been a convenient argument by the West, Israel, and Saudi Arabia, and claims that they are in Iran’s pocket have yet to be proven. This point was made as far back as 2016 by Thomas Junneau in The Washington Post. He said: The Houthis are a small nonstate actor attacked by a regional power with deep pockets and advanced weaponry. It is then only rational for the Houthis to seek assistance, albeit only small amounts, from the only external power willing and able to support them— Iran. This opinion from 2016 is just as accurate today. The Houthis have proven to be their own masters and they can be a formidable adversary. They are not religious fanatics who are planning to strike the United States, but a nation of fighters very much like the Afghan mujahedeen. A war with them is best avoided.
During a speech at The Atlantic Festival on Sept. 29, 2023, National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan boasted about the Biden regime’s perceived foreign policy successes in the Middle East. Sullivan cited a truce between the Houthi rebels and the Saudi Arabian-backed government in Yemen in addition to a drop in Shiite militia attacks against U.S. forces in Iraq as signs that the region was beginning to stabilize. He capped off his speech by declaring that the Middle East region “is quieter today than it has been in two decades.” However, any assumptions about a newfound wave of Middle Eastern peace came to a grinding halt after Hamas launched an unexpected attack against Israel last year on Oct. 7. This conflict has expanded with the Yemeni Houthi movement now entering the mix. The Houthis are a Shiite military and political organization that has been mired in a civil war with the central government of Yemen since 2014. The Saudis, with support from the U.S. and Gulf states such as the United Arab Emirates, spearheaded an intervention in 2015 to prop up the Yemeni government. For their part, the Houthis have received military aid from Iran. The ragtag Houthis defied all odds by giving the Saudi-led coalition massive fits throughout this military campaign, which eventually brought the Saudis and Houthis to the negotiating table to hammer out a potential truce in the last two years. However, the events of Oct. 7 have brought about a new wave of chaos across the Middle East. The Houthis added fuel to the fire by launching several attacks on Oct. 19 targeting southern Israel and vessels sailing across the Red Sea that it claimed were connected to Israel or sailing to Israel. Towards the end of October, the Houthis continued attacking Israel, with Houthi military spokesperson Yahya Sare’e acknowledging that the Shiite militants launched missiles and drones against Israel.
Al Jazeera aired Sare’e’s video statement where he declared that these attacks would continue undeterred “until the Israeli aggression stops.” As the Houthis have ramped up their attacks, the U.S. has responded in kind by shooting down Houthi missiles and drones. On Oct. 19, American officials announced that the U.S. Navy destroyer USS Carney took out three land-attack cruise missiles and multiple drones heading in Israel’s direction. Irrespective of the U.S.’s response, the Houthi militants have not relented. They have expanded their attacks against merchant vessels of multiple countries that are aligned with Israel in the Bab-el Mandeb strait, a critical chokepoint of global commerce. On Nov. 19, the Houthis pushed the envelope even further after Houthi militants hijacked the ship, Galaxy Leader. The constant barrage of Houthi attacks prompted the U.S. and a multinational coalition to launch Operation Prosperity Guardian in December 2023 with the aim of protecting shipping in the region.
Despite the U.S.’s efforts to drag its NATO partners into Operation Prosperity Guardian, several prominent countries such as France, Italy, and Spain have backed out presumably due to fear of facing potential reprisals in the Red Sea by the Houthis. In January 2024, the U.S. took another step up the escalation ladder by teaming up with its junior partner the UK to carry out airstrikes against multiple Houthi targets in Yemen. These attacks marked the first time Houthi fighters in Yemen were targeted since the Red Sea crisis kicked off in October. The Saudis, who have been negotiating their own peace accord with the Houthis, have apparently urged the U.S. to exercise restraint in this conflict to prevent it from metastasizing into a full-blown regional war that destabilizes world commerce.
These types of concerns have not registered with officials in the Biden regime, who are more than content to wage a de facto war against Yemen without congressional approval. A bipartisan coalition of House members have already stepped up to challenge these unconstitutional attacks. On Jan. 11, 2024, Rep. Ro Khanna (DCalif.) posted the following on X: The president needs to come to Congress before launching a strike against the Houthis in Yemen and involving us in another Middle East conflict. That is Article I of the Constitution. I will stand up for that regardless of whether a Democrat or Republican is in the White House. Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) went beyond partisan politics and agreed with Khanna about the necessity of sticking to constitutional norms to deal with this conflict. Unfortunately, the fighting will likely not end anytime soon given the U.S.’s slavish devotion to Israel, the fanatically anti-Iranian proclivities of the national security state, and the foreign policy elite’s desire to maintain primacy in the Middle East. This entire quagmire could have easily been prevented if the U.S. maintained a neutral foreign policy with respect to Israel and not try to stick its nose in every nook and cranny of the Middle East
By: Amy Rose