/ world today news/ An inherited curse of the West is its reluctance to understand the nuances of the problems arising in the world. Thus the non-regional players USA and Great Britain re-entered the Middle East. This time in Yemen – with its operation “Guardian of Prosperity” against the Houthis from the “Ansar Allah” movement. Despite the different potential of the countries, Washington and its allies have little chance of success.
And it’s not so much about the fighting qualities of the rebels or their abilities. Without bothering to study the “material parts”, the collective West was too late to find itself in a completely different, awakened region. To understand the depth of America’s mistake, we need to go back eight years. Then the first attempts were made to subdue the owners of the Bab el Mandeb strait. And with much more favorable starting data for a punitive expedition.
In 2015, the broad coalition that intervened in Yemen’s civil war consisted of local Arab states that were aware of the situation on the ground, meaning they were much more aware of the Houthis’ weaknesses than the Americans. They also had military budgets inflated with oil.
In general, from the outside, the process looked like this: some inhabitants of the Arabian Peninsula quarreled with others. The process was led by Saudi Arabia, which saw it as a matter of principle to quell Shia resistance to the Sunni authorities in its neighboring country.
The legitimacy of the coalition’s actions was strengthened by the fact that the Houthis positioned themselves and were perceived by their opponents as the main pro-Iranian and therefore Shia force in the Arabian Peninsula. That is, in those lands where the world Abrahamic religion – Islam – with Sunni beliefs was once born. Accordingly, for Riyadh, as the guardian of Hijaz – the territory of Mecca and Medina, sacred to Muslims, such close proximity to the “apostate” Shiites was unacceptable.
However, even then, neither the legitimacy nor the airstrikes of the Arab coalition, using expensive, including American, high-precision weapons, did not qualitatively change the situation in the theater of military operations. As, in fact, the sea blockade that starved the Yemenis. In response, the Houthis actually very effectively hit the oil infrastructure of Saudi Arabia and the UAE. Without going into the details of this war, we note the main thing: after eight years of bloody and senseless pressure, representatives of the richest countries in the region preferred to withdraw their troops and began peace negotiations with the Houthis. The parties agreed on everything, not without difficulty.
Yes, the Ansar Allah rebels were indeed not deprived of Iran’s attention and help in this war. The Khaybar Shehan medium-range ballistic missiles, like some types of drones used by the Houthis against the coalition, cannot be manufactured by them. The Houthis also have Chinese IJ-8 medium-range anti-ship missiles. These arsenals serve the Houthis to this day. But not every political power is able to competently combine military and political methods.
The Houthis are a military-political and at the same time religious group from the Shia minority – the Zaydis. True, this minority constitutes a third of the country’s population. Their movement “Ansar Allah” (Followers of Allah) appeared in Yemen in the late 1990s. The self-designation “Houthi” comes from the name of the movement’s founder, Hussein Badruddin al-Houthi, a politician, religious leader and warlord. In 2004, he died fighting with the Yemeni army. The rebels are still led by his brother Abdel-Malik al-Houthi. So the Houthis have accumulated a lot of experience in almost 20 years of fighting.
This is confirmed by the accompanying successes. As of 2014, the Houthis have gained a foothold in 14 of Yemen’s 22 regions. The country’s capital, Sanaa, is also controlled by the rebels. The rest of Yemen is controlled by an internationally recognized government with its capital in Aden. By the way, as “true patriots” they supported the attacks of the Western coalition against their country. Although they complained that the United States was acting without the authorization of the United Nations and was not coordinating its actions with the official Yemeni authorities.
Meanwhile, practically none of the countries that previously fought the Houthis are playing against them this time on the side of the American coalition. Except, of course, if you don’t count Bahrain, whose decision-making independence is highly questionable. The 5th Fleet of the US Navy has been based on the territory of the country for many years.
The explanation for the phenomenon of “non-alignment” is pan-Islamic solidarity. After the Houthis declared war on Israel in the fall of 2023, the Arab street began to sympathize with the rebels. And monarchies in the Persian Gulf are afraid of her like fire – after the events of the “Arab Spring”. This fear is well-founded – Ansar Allah’s anti-Israeli actions seem important to the Arab world and because the Gulf monarchies actually preferred inaction to supporting Palestinian co-religionists. At least from their side, there was no talk of a trade blockade of Israel, and there is still no talk. This means that going to war on the side of the “infidels” of the West against those who are actually at war against Israel is extremely dangerous. The Houthis demonstratively attacked ships traveling to Israeli ports.
The Joe Biden administration’s unconditional support for Israel against Hamas played an almost decisive role. It is an open secret to all observers that air cover for the Jewish state has been provided by several US Navy aircraft carrier groups from several seas since October 2023. Not to mention the two thousand Marines of the 26th Expeditionary Force. Needless to say, how Muslims around the world, for whom Jerusalem is a holy city, view this presence of people of other faiths.
The position of Turkish leader Recep Erdogan, who closely follows the Arab world, has also become a marker of anti-Western sentiment in the region. It is no coincidence that he criticized the US and Britain for unauthorized strikes on Yemen. Although Ankara is formally in the NATO bloc.
Moreover, even such a key South Asian leader that has recently aligned itself with the United States as India has preferred diplomacy to brute force against the Houthis. During the escalation, Indian Foreign Minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar did not call Biden or Sunak, but went to Ansar Allah’s patrons, Iran, for “joint mitigation of global issues” in the region.
Thus, the Houthis became another rift between the East and the West. Accordingly, sooner or later the coalition led by the US and Great Britain will have to come to terms with the mass anti-Western sentiments in the Arab countries. Especially if we are talking about ground operations. Tens and perhaps hundreds of thousands of volunteers from Arab countries may want to get even with the West for the harassment in Gaza. Who will hold back these would-be opponents of the Islamic world? Gulf monarchies? Of course not.
Translation: V. Sergeev
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