Determined “to restore freedom of navigation and re-establish American deterrence,” the United States carried out missile attacks on March 17 against Houthi positions in Yemen. According to the Pentagon, since 2003, the Houthis have attacked 170 US warships and 145 commercial vessels in the region. The attack included command-and-control centres and a compound where several senior Houthi “unmanned aerial vehicle experts were located.” The offensive runs counter to President Trump’s stated position of reducing external engagements, his desire to seek an early end to the Ukraine war and consolidate the Israel-Hamas ceasefire.
By all standards, accounts and economic indicators, war-torn Yemen is the most impoverished country today. Political cohesion, something that has eluded Yemen for centuries, has only worsened due to the inability and refusal of the warring tribes to come under one administrative order. A unified Yemen (1990-2014) was a short-lived experiment before the Arab Spring protests plunged the country into another round of civil war.
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Economic impoverishment and failures of post-independent state-building only deepened tribal divisions in Yemen. Zaydis, a branch of Shia Islam, make up about a third of Yemen’s 40 million population. Houthis are the armed group that champions the Zaydis Shias. Though small — about 200,000 according to some estimates — they control and dominate the territories just north of Bab al-Mandab, which connects the Red Sea, Gulf of Aden, and the Arabian Sea.
Largely an agrarian economy, Yemen has suffered from periodic droughts, unseasonal flooding, and locust attacks. The UN has periodically warned that the country is on the verge of famine and food insecurity, with millions suffering from hunger and malnutrition. According to the UN, over 377,000 persons were killed directly or indirectly by the civil war, including about 85,00 children who starved to death between 2014 and 2021. Over four million people, or about 10 per cent, were internally displaced in that period. The media often highlights periodic outbreaks of cholera and other waterborne diseases severely affecting women and children.
The civil war situation, economic downturn, internal lawlessness and external piracy invited the neighbours to meddle in Yemeni affairs. If Iran emerged as the principal benefactor of the Houthis, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates (until October 2019) began supporting anti-Houthi elements.
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The Iranian role is more vivid and palpable. International isolation following the nuclear controversy and regional ambitions resulted in Iran finding Houthis as its potential sub-state ally. The Houthis’ hunger for resistance against other groups made them an economical and strategic option for Iran. Iran began working on its success with other militant groups, especially the PMF (Popular Mobilisation Forces) in Iraq, Hezbollah in Lebanon and Hamas in Palestine.
This is where striking Israel becomes a prudent military option for Houthis. Using the prolonged Gaza War as a ruse, the Houthis have periodically carried out missile attacks against Israel. Last April, the Houthis joined Iran in launching a coordinated aerial against Israel. Likewise, ships linked to Israel have come under Houthi attacks. These warnings were renewed earlier this month when the Houthis declared that “any Israeli ships violating the ban shall be targeted in the declared zone of operations.”
Even when there were two Yemens — North and South until 1990 — there was unity in being at the forefront of support for the Palestinians. In all the major conflicts and peace efforts, Yemen has been part of a resistant camp and did not support efforts such as the Camp David Accords, the Madrid Conference, the Oslo process or the Abraham Accords. Despite its limited political influence and economic clout, Yemen has been part of the anti-normalisation bloc. Hence, the prolonged Israel-Gaza War has provided Yemen an opportunity to go beyond internal tensions and stand united under the Palestinian flag.
Unlike protests in other parts of the world, the Yemeni support for the Palestinians manifests through active military attacks against Israel. Given its limited economic or technological capabilities, it does not have the indigenous capacity to develop ballistic or cruise missiles against a target more than 2,000 km away. Moreover, in April last year, drones were launched in Yemen that were synchronised with similar attacks from Iran, Iraq and Lebanon. Such high-level coordination and sophistication were not Yemeni but provided by Iran. In recent years, the Houthis also launched missile attacks against oil facilities in Saudi Arabia and the UAE.
In recent weeks, Iran’s power has been severely curtailed by the setbacks suffered by its proxies. Through systematic military campaigns and targeted killing of key personnel, Israel has succeeded in weakening Hamas, Hezbollah and, to a lesser extent, the Iranian support system in Syria. Despite anger in Tehran, the international reactions to the Israeli offensive have been muted and even tacitly sympathetic towards Israel. There are anti-Iranian sentiments inside Iraq that further weaken the political usefulness of the PMF. Moreover, the Israeli military offensive last October has exposed and dented Iranian security calculations. Currently, the Houthis are the only group that can still serve Iran’s regional ambitions.
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In the wake of the US attacks on Houthi targets, Iran’s supreme leader Ali Khamenei observed: “The Yemeni nation has its own motivation, and so do the resistance groups in the region. Iran doesn’t need proxies.” Facts and bravado rarely add up. Without proxies, Iran and its influence would be confined only to its territorial limits and would not be felt in any of its neighbourhoods, especially in Iraq, Lebanon, Syria or Yemen.
Facing renewed American pressure and President Trump’s embrace of Benjamin Netanyahu’s strategic plans for the region, Iran had to accept the downgrading of the military capabilities of its regional allies. The Houthis are the last remaining force at this point. They offer effective, cheaper and hence, an irresistible option for Iran. Tehran is unlikely to give up easily, and in the process, Yemen would be the new battleground for a proxy War between Iran and the US.
(The writer teaches contemporary Middle East at Jawaharlal Nehru University)
