Michael Knights, the Jill and Jay Bernstein Senior Fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy (WINEP), spoke to a December 16 Middle East Forum Podcast (video). The following summarizes his comments:
The Houthis are a North Yemen tribal group and rebel force that has been gaining territory inside Yemen since the Arab Spring in 2011 and has held Sanaa, the Yemeni capital, for the last decade. They are committed to the Palestinian cause and “have made it a major part of their political platform to support Palestinian groups.” This commitment “has continued to this day,” as indicated by the Houthis’ support of Hamas following Hamas’s October 7 attack on southern Israel. The Houthis “have proven to be one of the most committed members of the so-called axis of resistance,” which includes Iran, Iran-backed militias in Iraq, Lebanese Hezbollah, and Hamas, in its conflict with Israel and the West. “They’ve also been probably the most effective at internationalizing the conflict by attacking ships in the Red Sea and partially closing the Red Sea and the Suez Canal to civilian traffic.”
Located near the holy cities of Mecca and Medina and next to “the politically and economically significant Saudi Red Sea coast,” the Houthis “have designs to expand in the future to the north, into Saudi Arabia.”
For nearly two decades, the Houthis “have been directly or indirectly at war” with their northern neighbor, the Saudi government, for Riyadh’s backing of the Republic of Yemen government. As an Iranian proxy, the Houthis fought the Yemeni government between 2004 and 2010 with unguided Katyusha rockets. Since the start of the current war in 2015, the Houthis, “militarily supported by the Iranians,” have expanded their capability to where they “were able to fire medium range ballistic missiles 1,000 kilometers at Riyadh, the Saudi capital.”
Since the 1980s, the Houthis, “ideologically committed to the Islamic Revolution,” have worked closely with Iran and its leaders who are associated with Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, his Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), and Iran’s proxy, the Lebanese Hezbollah. The Houthis in many ways constitute a continuation or attempted continuation of the “Imamate,” a religious form of government under an Imam that is “connected to a tradition that has run Yemen for about 95 percent of the last thousand years.”
Although the group is not representative of other North Yemeni tribes, the Houthis “have been very effective in intermarrying with them and allying with them.” This has enabled the Houthis “to go from being a super niche group within Northern Yemeni tribal society, to being a group that has been able to successfully govern, mostly by force, the whole of Northern Yemen.” Located near the holy cities of Mecca and Medina and next to “the politically and economically significant Saudi Red Sea coast,” the Houthis “have designs to expand in the future to the north, into Saudi Arabia.”
Despite the Houthis’ control of most of the Yemeni population, the country’s oil and gas reserves are largely held by the Republic of Yemen’s government. “What this means is that they [the Houthis] have a massive surplus of hungry mouths, and almost nothing to feed them with.” To resolve this imbalance, the Houthis are becoming very adept in forcing “the non-Houthi factions in Yemen’s Civil War into a revenue sharing arrangement whereby most of the money from the oil and gas that’s held by the Republic of Yemen government forces” is “given to the Houthis to feed and pay those Yemenis who are living within Houthi-held areas.”
Ironically, “the Saudis are currently one of the biggest unintentional backers of the Houthis.” Currently, there is a “détente” between the Saudis and the Houthis, who were formerly “firing rockets and drones into Saudi Arabia.” The Saudis are investing huge amounts into their “economic transformation,” and it’s important “that everything stays nice and quiet.” The Saudis, who provide most of the money to the Republic of Yemen’s government, are held hostage by the Houthi threat to resume rocket and drone attacks. Thus, the Houthis are able to make threats to “use the Saudis as a point of leverage on the Republic of Yemen government.”
The Saudis, who provide most of the money to the Republic of Yemen’s government, are held hostage by the Houthi threat to resume rocket and drone attacks.
This “extortion scam” results in the Saudis pressuring the U.S. and Republic of Yemen governments to placate the Houthis. For example, when the Republic of Yemen attempted “to shut down Houthi access to [the] global banking system in early summer,” the Houthi threat to attack Saudi energy facilities caused the collapse of the “economic pressure campaign” to weaken them. The stakes for the Saudis are high because at some point the Saudis are going to be pushed too far and “are going to have to say no,” which will see a resumption of a “shooting war in Yemen.”
Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates “had almost recaptured the Red Sea coast in Yemen in late 2018,” but under pressure from the U.S. Congress to avoid risking a famine in Yemen, the Saudis and Emiratis returned the Red Sea ports to the Houthis. The Saudis, who “had the right approach, which is to militarily defeat the Houthis,” succumbed to Western pressure. In 2019, when the Trump administration was placing the Iranian regime under its maximum pressure campaign, the U.S. did “absolutely nothing” following Iran’s attack on Saudi Arabia’s “largest oil processing facility in the world.” Essentially, the U.S. is “reaping what we sowed.”
The Saudis calculated that if the U.S. was not going to solve the Houthi problem, they were “going to stop fighting them” and instead “start paying them.” Now the West is back in “a Cold War situation” in a “very strategic piece of geography.” The Houthis hold “a key piece of terrain in the center of the global shipping lanes, the point at which Europe, Asia, and the Middle East meet.” The West is also held hostage to the Houthi “extortionists [who are] using advanced conventional weapons, drone systems, and missile systems, and they are on one of the world’s trade superhighways, the Suez Canal in the Red Sea, [and] the Bab al-Mandab Strait.”
The Houthis “want to keep Yemen united” because “they’ve got most of the people and none of the resources.” In addition, they want to avoid anti-Houthi powers who would develop advanced militaries and form “an enemy bloc” of the Republic of Yemen government in areas not under Houthi control. The Houthis “want everyone to be folded into one country in which the Houthis are the dominating voice.” Even if the southern, eastern, and Houthi areas of Yemen are partially unified in a “loosely confederated state,” the reality is that the Houthis will threaten any challenge to their complete control.
Strategies for the West to confront the “severe foreign policy challenge for the United States and other Western partners at this time” are unlikely to be effective. Punishing the Houthis whenever there is an attack on shipping in an attempt “to shift their [Houthi] cost benefit balance” through a “coercive strategy” will have little impact on hardened Houthi militias. They are “more like Hamas,” who would rather “die in a hole in the ground rather than surrender.” With the Houthi leadership well-hidden, the Houthis are willing to live on “very little,” and they are inured to martyrdom.
The only way to address the Houthi threat is to “put a lot of resources in and decide to do it and explain that to the American people.”
Coercion is unlikely to break the Houthis, and “unless you’re willing to develop a ground adversary to the Houthis, and unless you’re willing to landlock them,” they are likely not going to be stopped. The “only way to actually coerce the Houthis and change their calculation is to build an alternate military structure inside Yemen that can remove them from terrain, particularly the Red Sea coast.” If they can be “rolled back into the hills,” they will be relegated to one of many forces in northern Yemen, “not the predominant one that controls the capital.”
Defending ships is also ineffective because, even though the “Houthis can only fire one attack on ships every two weeks,” it is still enough to deter most shipping. “Their attacks don’t actually have to be effective to have the result they’re looking for, which is to demonstrate that they can partially shut Bab al-Mandab Strait and the Suez Canal.” Much like the Saudis, the West will not gain the advantage over the Houthis “unless you are willing to go and attack leadership targets in densely populated areas.”
Recommendations for a “concerted air campaign” are hampered by a shortage of “intelligence surveillance reconnaissance,” as the U.S. is involved in watching “Ukraine, we’re watching the Taiwan Strait, we’re watching the Gaza-Lebanon crisis.” Additionally, there is a need for a “new authorization for the use of military force” since “people are not content to simply use the post-9/11 counter-terrorism authorization for the use of military force to hit any terrorist group around the world.”
The only way to address the Houthi threat is to “put a lot of resources in and decide to do it and explain that to the American people.” The bar is high because, “when you are fighting the Houthis, you’ve got to go all the way or not at all.”
