Houthis, Iran, and Saudi Arabia: Yemen as a Battleground for Regional Dominance

Cristian VargasPLSI 1342Dr. Rosa Aloisi01 February 2016

INTRODUCTIONYemen has been embroiled in a destabilizing internal conflict for five years with little chance of a peaceful resolution in the foreseeable future. In 2014, the rebel group known as Ansar Allah successfully captured the Yemeni capital Sanaa and forced the transitional president Abd Rabbu Mansour Hadi to resign. The resurgent presence of other Islamic militant groups such as Al-Qaeda on the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) and Hirak al-Janoubi, both of which are primarily concentrated in the southern provinces of Yemen, exacerbates the existing fragility of the situation. Scholars may agree that the immediate cause of the crisis definitely originated from the political marginalization felt by the Zaydi Shia Muslims in northern Yemen under both Hadi and his predecessor, Ali Abdullah Saleh, who was ousted following the popular uprisings during the 2011 Arab Spring. However, the underlying structural causes that fuel escalation and drag the conflict out are indispensable to any analysis of the crisis. In the case of Yemen, the irresolvable struggle between Riyadh and Tehran for regional hegemony, the overriding concerns of the United States regarding terrorism, and the exclusion of Yemen from regional cooperation mechanisms like the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) precludes a solution to the impasse of the status quo.HISTORY AND BACKGROUND OF THE CRISISThe modern state of Yemen united in 1990 from the Yemeni Arab Republic, which comprised the north of the country and was supported by the U.S. and Saudi Arabia, and the Peoples Democratic Republic of Yemen, which comprised the south and was supported by the Soviet Union. Saleh, who had been Northern Yemens leader since 1978, assumed the presidency following unification. However, the centralization of power in Sanaa revealed to be an unsustainable situation, and Saleh faced many challenges to the nations cohesion. The first of these challenges came from Ali Salem al-Beidh, the former president of the Peoples Democratic Republic of Yemen. While an initial supporter of unification, al-Beidh unsuccessfully led a popular separatist movement, called Hirak al-Janoubi, in his former territories in 1994.The second of these challenges came in 2004, with the original formation of Ansar Allah, also known as the Houthi movement. The resistance movement is named for its founder, Hussein Badr al-Deen al-Houthi, who was a member of Parliament and part Al-Haq, a Zaydi political party formed in 1990 committed to contesting the newly-consolidated Yemens first legislative elections. The Zaydi Shia militants have felt for decades that the Yemeni government has failed to give them adequate political and religious representation. Zaydi Shiites compose the majority in the north of Yemen but are a minority in Yemen as a whole. State sponsored Salafi Sunni institutions have historically intruded upon areas in the north controlled by Zaydi Shiites which serves to intensify internal sectarian conflicts. While the initial assault from 2004 to 2010 was largely unsuccessful, in 2011, emboldened by the other popular uprisings in the Arab world, the Yemenis revolted and overthrew the Saleh administration. Following these popular revolutions, the United Nations and the Gulf Cooperation Council sponsored a National Dialogue Conference to compose a new constitution and broker a political agreement in which Salehs vice president Hadi would create an interim government. However, Hadi severely mismanaged the transition by adopting unpopular policies such as slashing fuel subsidies under pressure from the International Monetary Fund (IMF), which caused fuel prices to skyrocket. The Houthis organized mass protests against the transitional government, and Hadis supporters in the Sunni Islamist party Islah organized counter rallies. The two parties clashed and the Houthis seized the capital, forcing Hadi to resign and go into exile in Saudi Arabia, where he still claims legitimacy. The former president Saleh, a secular nationalist, has also formed a strategic alliance with the Houthis against their mutual enemy, and enjoys the support of factions within the military that remain loyal to him. The ensuing chaos has allowed AQAP to make strategic territorial claims in the south of the country, where they are allying with local tribes who fear the Houthis may attempt to impose Zaydism over their Sunni Muslim traditions. These fears also allow AQAP to stoke the flames of sectarian conflict by framing their struggle in terms of which interpretation of Islam is superior. The threat of terrorism and sectarian violence has dire implications for Saudi Arabia, Iran and the United States, as discussed below.THE SAUDI-US-IRAN TRIANGLESaudi Arabia has long feared Iranian regional hegemony and the rise of a powerful Shia Muslim state, which carries the potential to incite revolt within Saudi Arabias own Shia populations. Riyadh also perceives the Houthis as a hostile threat to its southern border, both in terms of possible territorial expansion and a possible alliance with Zaydi Shiites in southern Saudi Arabia. Fears that a Houthi-controlled Yemen would be more aligned with Iranian foreign policy are aggravated by Irans support of the Houthis as a proxy. Saudi Arabia has led a coalition air-strike campaign with Sunni-majority Arab states against the Houthis in Sanaa and has established an air and naval blockade to prevent arms and supplies from reaching the Houthi rebels. The consequence of these strikes and blockades has been massive food and fuel shortages among the civilian population. Even though Riyadhs actions are tempered by the threat of Yemens financial collapse, which would cause an undesirable influx of economic migrants into Saudi Arabia, the blockade has yet to be lifted. The stalemate only serves to confirm suspicions that Saudi Arabia is solely committed to a military victory over any lasting political solution, which is the reason the Houthis emerged in the first place. Even if the Saudi-led coalition can be successful militarily against the Houthis, living standards, political equality, and weak government will fail to be addressed, which leaves intact the structural conditions that led to the Houthis rise in the first place. Saudi Arabia is more concerned with isolating Iran, as seen by their concerns over the Iranian nuclear deal and what Riyadh perceives as U.S. retrenchment in the Middle East, than with providing the mechanisms necessary for peaceful co-existence. Yemen has expressed a desire to join the GCC for the economic advantages, since membership would mean an end to the restrictions of Yemeni migrant laborers in the Gulf, which provide a substantial portion of Yemens income through remittances. Yet Yemen has, as a republic, been denied entry into this club of monarchies and has historically been punished unfairly by Saudi Arabia for the decisions of its political elites. When Saleh decided to support the former Iraqi President Saddam Husseins invasion of Kuwait, Saudi Arabia expelled more than a million migrant Yemeni laborers from its soil, which severely crippled the Yemeni economy and did nothing weaken Salehs power. Irans involvement appears nebulous, but clearly Tehran has supported the Houthis and the Hirak separatists in the past. Although the Iranians and the Houthis have similar political interests, the Houthis are not beholden to Irans orders in the same way Hezbollah would be. Iran has concerned itself more with Syria than with Yemen, but has indicated that Tehran does perceive a battle for regional hegemony against Saudi Arabia and the West in general. Thus, Irans support for the Houthis is informed by strategic political calculations above all else. The Houthis oppose Hadis government, which is supported by the United States and Saudi Arabia, while Iran seeks to generally challenge U.S.-Saudi dominance. However, the Zaydi Shiism practiced by the Houthis opposes the Twelver Shiism widely practiced in Iran, which indicates that their alliance is merely politically contingent and will only dissolve once broader problems of Iranian-Saudi competition are resolved. History provides examples of effective cooperation between Iran, Saudi Arabia, and Yemen, such as the mutual backing of the Zaydi imamate in Yemen in the conflict against Egyptian-backed Arab nationalists during the 1960s.The United States has sought to distance itself from regional politics and focus more on counter-terrorism efforts against AQAP. The U.S. unfavorably associated itself with former president Saleh by providing financial support in exchange for cooperation in the fight against Al-Qaeda, as well as providing support for his campaign against the Houthis in the six wars between 2004 and 2010. U.S. drone strikes within Yemen against terrorist targets have destroyed infrastructure and claimed many civilian lives, ironically stoking the fires of extremism rather than quenching them. The United States other interest in the region lies in securing the Bab al-Mandeb, a key chokepoint for the free flow of oil out of the Middle East. The United States is also perceived as implicitly backing the Saudi-led airstrike campaign against the Houthis, and thus Washingtons cries for Saudi restraint are dismissed as hypocritical. The United States shares a mutual interest with Saudi Arabia in constraining the rise of Iran as a regional hegemon, and thus also has a stake in condemning Iranian support of the Houthi rebels.CONCLUSIONS AND POLICY RECOMMENDATIONSThe Houthis clearly require the financial support of their Gulf neighbors in order to keep Yemen afloat, and are politically inexperienced in dealing with dissenting factions such as AQAP and the Hirak rebels. However, they also perceive the consequences of political concessions to Saudi Arabia as existential, which means that peace talks cannot be mediated by actors seen as unfavorable to the Houthis. This makes Oman the best candidate for mediator.However, policymakers should not be satisfied with policy that merely deal with crises reactivelyrather, policymakers should be proactive in identifying the causes of these crises in the first place in order to craft solutions that can prevent these crises from ever escalating. To this end, clearly Saudi Arabia and Iran must resolve the difference in regional aspirations that each country has. This competition lies at the heart of other crises in the region such as Syria, and is the source of potential conflict in the future. The United States holds unique power over both actors. Given the recent relative successes of the nuclear deal, the United States is capable of compromise with Iran, and the controlling factor for the interactions between the three countries should be regional stability. If leaders recognize that power competition drives instability in the Middle East, they will be compelled to craft solutions that address power competition through cooperation and address the foundations needed for Yemen to have stable governance. This needs to start with Yemens acceptance into the GCC so that its people can better take advantage of foreign aid and the economic opportunity available in the region. Laying the foundations for a stable economy and resolving broader political disputes in the region are prerequisites for Yemen to even begin to address the social unrest and resource deprivation that produces militants such as AQAP and the Houthis in the first place.

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