Why the West Can’t Defeat the Houthis Without Securing Yemen’s Ports

The Port of Hudaydah [Hodeida] has long been a lifeline for Yemen’s Houthi rebels. While the Houthis also receive Iranian weaponry via smuggling routes through Oman, the most sophisticated Iranian weaponry enters through Hudaydah.

Houthis know the port is their lifeline and work proactively to ensure it remains in their hands. As the Saudis and Emiratis ramped up their campaign in support of the Internationally Recognized Government against the Houthis, Houthi propaganda went into overdrive, amplified by Qatari outlets like Al Jazeera that, at the time, prioritized Qatar’s anti-Saudi, anti-Emirati animus over the truth. Progressives in both the Democratic Party, European leftists, and most within the humanitarian community accepted at face value their line that the cost of extricating the Houthis from Hudaydah would be too great to bear, especially if it paused port operations and delivery of humanitarian aid.

Enter the United Nations, which sought to engage the various parties to the conflict in dialogue to alleviate humanitarian suffering. This process culminated in December 2018 in the so-called Stockholm Agreement that, among other provisions, required the Houthis to allow a neutral third party to manage the port, and then use revenues from the port to pay public sector salaries. The Houthis failed from the beginning to adhere to the agreement. They demanded the port maintain their own personnel, effectively creating a situation in which the UN pays Houthi salaries.

The inspection regime the UN initiated was the type of solution that prioritized symbolism over effectiveness in which the UN specialized: Ships could go to Djibouti to be inspected before proceeding to Hudaydah. The UN could then certify that its inspectors found only humanitarian goods on each ship. The loophole was massive, though: If ships chose not to report to inspectors, they could still go directly to Hudaydah and offload their supplies—often weaponry and other contraband—to Houthi dockworkers who would quickly transport it away.

The Stockholm Agreement did have one other function. It provided an excuse to avoid military action. If the world could claim the agreement resolved the problem of weapons smuggling through Hudaydah and resolved humanitarian shortfalls, then they could avoid a looming battle.

The Houthi’s Iranian sponsors sought insurance, though. Prior to the December 2018 agreement, the United Arab Emirates forces appeared massed to take the city. The Emiratis had forces in southern Yemen, a military base in Berbera, Somaliland, and a nearby navy command ship.

In May 2019, as the United Arab Emirates prepared to seize the main Houthi-controlled port of Al Hudaydah in Yemen to deal a deathblow against Houthi rebels, suspected Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps operatives sabotaged four ships in Emirati waters with underwater charges. The following month suspected Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps operatives attached limpet mines to two ships, owned respectively by a Japanese and Norwegian company. Abu Dhabi never acknowledged the link to the limpet mine incident, but in quick succession called off the attack on Al Hudaydah and pulled most of their forces out of nearby Somaliland.

In December 2015, Ali Fadavi, head of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps- Navy had defined the Gulf of Aden as within Iran’s strategic boundaries. For the Emiratis, the message was clear: They might not agree to Tehran’s expansionist strategic vision, but if the United Arab Emirates hit Iran’s interests in Hudaydah, then Iran would hit the United Arab Emirates in its flank.

Rather than bring peace, the sleight of hand over Hudaydah has empowered the Houthis and compounded the threat they pose to shipping. If the United States, the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Egypt and other international partners are serious about ending the Houthi threat, they must end the fiction that the Stockholm Agreement works and plug the loophole that essentially makes inspection voluntary. Rather than militarily virtue signal with ineffective naval patrols as the Biden administration did, the United States and its partners must blockade Hudaydah, and only allow ships to pass that undergo real inspections.

All payments must cease to port workers affiliated with the Houthis; they should face arrest or be sent packing. Coordination with Yemen’s International Recognized Government could allow it to move toward Hudaydah to take control, perhaps with U.S. air support. The Houthis are unpopular in Hudaydah; their grasp is weak and their control will collapse faster in the port city than Bashar al-Assad’s rule did in Aleppo and Damascus during Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham’s final push.

Humanitarian controls are legitimate, but Ospreys temporarily based at the Berbera Airport in Somaliland could airdrop supplies, much as the United States did for Syrian Kurds during the siege of Kobane.

Donald Trump rejects protracted American deployments but, as the case of the late Qods Force chief Qassem Soleimani shows, he is not averse to using the military completely. Trump is correct to calibrate policy to reality rather than wishful thinking. Yemen would be a good place to start.

The country is primed for a new beginning, and Yemenis are ready and waiting for the Houthis to follow Hezbollah into oblivion.