The Houthis vs. Saudi Arabia: Who Can End Yemen’s War?

Yemen is one of those places that casual Americans may not be able to point to on a map.

But it sits in the southwestern corner of the Arabian Peninsula, directly below Saudi Arabia, with which it shares a long and mountainous border.

At its southwestern tip is a strait called the Bab al-Mandab.

It's about twenty miles wide at its narrowest point, and every ship that moves between the Suez Canal and the Indian Ocean passes through it.

The name is usually translated as the Gate of Grief.

For our purposes, there are three main camps inside the country and several powers outside of it.

The first side is the movement the Americans call the Houthis.

They come from the mountains of the far north around the city of Saada, and they take the name from the family that founded the movement.

Their formal name is Ansar Allah, Supporters of God.

They belong to the Zaydi branch of Shia Islam, which is a minority in the country as a whole and long rooted in the north.

Their slogan, chanted since two thousand and two, runs, "God is greatest, death to America, death to Israel, a curse on the Jews, and victory to Islam." On September twenty-first, twenty fourteen, they took the capital, Sanaa, and they hold it today, along with most of the populous northwest.

Since March of two, twenty twenty-five, the United States has listed them as a foreign terrorist organization.

The second side is the government the world recognizes, which the Houthis drove out of Sanaa.

And it is led today by Presidential Leadership Council, chaired by Rashad al-Alimi, and it works mostly from the southern port of Aden.

Saudi Arabia pays for it, arms it, and flies for it.

The third is a set of southern factions with militias and patrons of their own.

They fight beside the government on some days and against it on other days.

Outside of the country, Iran arms and supports the Houthis.

People often call the Houthis a proxy, meaning a force that fights on another country's behalf.

But The Guardian columnist Nasreen Malik made the point this week that matters for everything that, that is in this episode.

The Houthis take Iran's weapons, but they are not empty proxies.

They have ambitions of their own inside of Yemen and a grievance of their own against the House of Saud.

A proxy war can end when the sponsors make a deal, but a feud with its own grievances cannot.

The grievance is older than the movement, and it runs through both houses.

The House of Saud is not a foreign dynasty planted in Arabia.

Yemen is one of those places that casual Americans may not be able to point to on a map.

But it sits in the southwestern corner of the Arabian Peninsula, directly below Saudi Arabia, with which it shares a long and mountainous border.

At its southwestern tip is a strait called the Bab al-Mandab.

It's about twenty miles wide at its narrowest point, and every ship that moves between the Suez Canal and the Indian Ocean passes through it.

The name is usually translated as the Gate of Grief.

For our purposes, there are three main camps inside the country and several powers outside of it.

The first side is the movement the Americans call the Houthis.

They come from the mountains of the far north around the city of Saada, and they take the name from the family that founded the movement.

Their formal name is Ansar Allah, Supporters of God.

They belong to the Zaydi branch of Shia Islam, which is a minority in the country as a whole and long rooted in the north.

Their slogan, chanted since two thousand and two, runs, "God is greatest, death to America, death to Israel, a curse on the Jews, and victory to Islam." On September twenty-first, twenty fourteen, they took the capital, Sanaa, and they hold it today, along with most of the populous northwest.

Since March of two, twenty twenty-five, the United States has listed them as a foreign terrorist organization.

The second side is the government the world recognizes, which the Houthis drove out of Sanaa.

And it is led today by Presidential Leadership Council, chaired by Rashad al-Alimi, and it works mostly from the southern port of Aden.

Saudi Arabia pays for it, arms it, and flies for it.

The third is a set of southern factions with militias and patrons of their own.

They fight beside the government on some days and against it on other days.

Outside of the country, Iran arms and supports the Houthis.

People often call the Houthis a proxy, meaning a force that fights on another country's behalf.

But The Guardian columnist Nasreen Malik made the point this week that matters for everything that, that is in this episode.

The Houthis take Iran's weapons, but they are not empty proxies.

They have ambitions of their own inside of Yemen and a grievance of their own against the House of Saud.

A proxy war can end when the sponsors make a deal, but a feud with its own grievances cannot.

The grievance is older than the movement, and it runs through both houses.

The House of Saud is not a foreign dynasty planted in Arabia.