How does this idea of an imamate vision inform your view on the Ansar Allah treatment of the Hadi government? Why has the movement assembled a sort of unity government now? How come they've made deals with and stopped fighting some sunni salafi militant groups? Why have they recruited fighters much more broadly than along sectarian lines?
What the saudis, americans and british have done in Yemen is much worse than what the Ansar Allah has done. They're repressive for sure and they'll likely never agree with me on issues like queer people, but that's not unexpected after large amounts of colonial and later genocidal violence, it tends to see to it that only the hardest, least compromising people can survive and rise to leadership positions.
The yemeni army under the Sana'a government has managed to drive away US ships, so they very much try to kill americans that are there to protect US occupation and genocide. Eventually they'll likely get good at it, like they got good at building mobile radar systems and taking down MQ-9 drones.
I wrote a long comment here but I don't think detail is helping. So:
* There is no unified government of Yemen, no central organization controls all Yemeni territory, Ansar Allah continues to fight for territorial control, particularly in Marib and around Taizz.
* There are no Americans in Yemen for Ansar Allah to fight, there are no Israelis there to fight, and the British haven't been in Aden for over 50 years.
* Ansar Allah adopted the Khomeinist "Death To America" chant to galvanize supporters for their Zaydi Rivalist movement, but their actual military targets are all Yemenis inside of Yemen. Far from unifying the different factions in the areas they control, they make government employees sign pledges to support the revival of the Imamate and its Sada caste system.
Sure, there's the secessionist Southern Movement supported by UAE, there's the Hadi government backed by the saudis, sometimes AQAP or its offshoots holds territory.
You don't explain why Ansar Allah officials consistently claim they aren't a movement aiming for an imamate, why? The Saleh government used to say the Ansar Allah aimed for an imamate, but now Saleh and Islah are mostly allied with them. Did Saleh change his mind and now wants the imamate revival? Has the Islah party converted to zaydism?
There are quite a few americans in the Red Sea and probably the Gulf of Aden too. They see a lot of drones and other projectiles coming their way. The Ansar Allah has also fought, rather efficiently, Janjaweed soldiers employed by their neighbours. They also attack Israel, mainly what's currently known as Eilat and Tel Aviv. Yes, it's a repressive movement but it's pretty clear they at times militarily engage distinctly foreign troops.
Since they have sunni allies they clearly aren't fanatically sectarian either. It's likely they learned a lot from Hezbollah, which typically has allied with the christian fringe in Lebanon. I find it very hard to explain the decisions and policies of the Ansar Allah without seeing them through an anticolonial and antiimperialist lens.
"Death to America" isn't a specifically khomeinist slogan, though Khomeini did a lot to popularise it. The Ansar Allah expands on it, and for a mainly sunni hating movement it's surprising it doesn't mention sunnis, wouldn't you say?
Could you share a facsimile of such a pledge or similar source?
You'll find 4o can translate this just fine, though several articles have also been written about it based on human translations.
I'm not so much interested in arguing with you about whether Ansar Allah seeks the revival of the Zaydi Imamate; this is pretty basic stuff. Your own source discusses it, but also: I'm not sure you can read any history of Ansar Allah, the Houthi family, Believing Youth, the Sa'da vs. Sanaa conflict, etc. without learning about this. When you read Blumi's account, keep in mind: the Zaydis are a minority in Yemen (I think they're even a minority in North Yemen.)
The body count inside of Yemen is into the hundreds of thousands. One super useful source on this is ACLED, which tracks raw conflict events around the world; they have an "Explorer" on their site that breaks battles and fatalities down by region and time (for lots of countries, not just Yemen). Dig into that, come back, and tell me the Houthis are fighting America and Israel.
There have been lots of reports that Israel is ‘advising’ the UAE in building their airbase in Socotra. Though I’ve not seen any admission of it outside of conservative Israeli or anti-Israeli media.
The White House told Congress of boots on the ground in Yemen about a year ago (but the DoD walked that back).
I’d probably not try to argue there are no Israeli or American intelligence or military officers in Yemen.
Whether they are in range of Ansar Allah or qualify as an occupation force is probably a semantic argument where each side can reasonably claim honesty.
I don't think Socotra is salient to anything happening inside Yemen. I'm pretty confident Ansar Allah isn't fighting Americans and Israelis! Or, for the last several years, for that matter, Saudis or Emiratis.
They've been shooting at ships in the Red Sea for the last year, too. I'm sure whatever missiles Iran gives them, they'll be happy to shoot off, the same way they're happy to launch QF SA-67s at American drones. But their foot soldiers are busy inside Yemen, killing Yemenis.
Agreed on both counts. I'm just saying there's a bit of a difference between shooting at a crew of 15 sailors once in a while, and sending a million+ civilians sleeping in their beds to bomb shelters (and destroying an elementary school).
You're right. I'm fixated on the idea of Ansar Allah recruiting foot soldiers to fight America (or whatever); just: that's not why they recruit foot soldiers. Thanks to both of you for the clarity.
Please, I am very interested to know how the side that reasonably claims honesty explains how parts of Yemen are occupied by Israel.
The presence of Mossad spies who I have no knowledge of but I will just assume exist and are trying to find out where the Houthi leadership is or where the ballistic missiles are, so Israel can eliminate them, are an occupying force?
I think they're just saying it'd be hard to disprove the presence of Special Forces on the ground in Yemen, given that both NATO and Israel have cause to be there (Yemen being a declared belligerent to both). That discussion gets mired in speculation very quickly, so: I'm happy to stipulate that someone could be lurking outside the launcher site on the side of the Sana'a-Sa'da Highway waiting to plant explosives or whatever.
My point is just: Ansar Allah fields an army of roughly 200,000 (including the children). That army does not exist to fight Israel or the US (look at a map). What it's there to do is to take Marib, Taizz, and Aden, and to prevent the secession of South Yemen, which has become the stronghold of the ROYG-in-exile and hosts most of Yemen's extractive industry as well as its largest ports.
The basic idea of Khomeinism, which Ansar Allah proudly patterns itself on, is to institute a centralized authoritarian government managed by religious leaders while positioning the country against western imperialism (as a distraction from what's happening within the country). In Iran, this took the form of picking a gigantic fight with the US before losing a half million of its own people in a pointlessly prolonged fight with Iraq. In Yemen, it's a proclamation that Ansar Allah will liberate Palestine while murdering several hundred thousand Yemenis over the course of 12 years.
The current situation is pretty great for Iran. There's an open debate about how reliant Ansar Allah is on the IRGC QF, which creates some deniability. NATO is flying all sorts of stuff over and boating all sorts of stuff around Yemen, so Iran gets to use it as a playground for their new loitering munitions and anti-ship weapons, but with Yemenis pushing the buttons. If Ansar Allah actually managed to strike any kind of real blow against NATO or against Israel, my guess is that it would take less than a couple weeks for the aggrieved power to hit the Houthis so hard you'd need a HEPA filter to collect what would be left of Abdul-Malik al-Houthi.
Aside: for anybody not familiar with Socotra: it's an island out in the middle of the Arabian Sea, physically closer to Somalia than Yemen, notable mostly for being a sort of Galapagos of East Africa and a major tourist destination (even during the middle of the civil war, because it's not meaningfully integrated with Yemeni politics). Socotra does not matter.
I have a simpler question about the meaning of "country A occupies country B". Does it simply mean "presence of people who work for country A on the territory of country B"? Maybe excluding the official staff of embassies?
Is the UK occupied by Russia due to the botched assassination of Sergei Skripal using Novichok nerve agent in Salisbury in 2018?
Is Pakistan occupied by the USA because of the US Navy Seals who killed Osama Bin-Laden in 2011?
I assume US special forces are present in many places from time to time if not continuously, although they are also continuously based in many countries.
I assume all serious countries have spies in every single other serious country. If you exclude small and poor countries, everyone occupies everyone? How is this definition useful in any way?
There is no portion of the territory of Yemen† that is currently controlled by a hostile foreign power. So far as I know, all of Yemen is currently controlled by the Houthis, the ROYG-in-exile, and AQAP (bearing in mind that the highlands of Yemen are sort of like the Appalachia of Arabia, and are comprised largely of semi-autonomous hollers [wadi] managed by clans [qabila], and so may not be effectively controlled by anything).
I personally would not describe any portion of Yemen as occupied by the US or Israel.
But Socotra being de facto occupied by the UAE is pretty easy to surmise given the airbase they are building there and the lack of air power capability by the STC.
Given that Israeli or US troops at that base, even as advisors, could be considered occupying. It’s not like it’s a rigorously defined term.
Lots of people might have described Berlin as occupied during the Cold War (on either side) and it wouldn’t be out of bounds.
But it’s mostly not salient to the point you were making, which is the point I was trying to make. Whether there is some cadre US or Israeli soldiers in Yemen or if the UAE has built a base there doesn’t change the fact that it’s a civil war.
What the saudis, americans and british have done in Yemen is much worse than what the Ansar Allah has done. They're repressive for sure and they'll likely never agree with me on issues like queer people, but that's not unexpected after large amounts of colonial and later genocidal violence, it tends to see to it that only the hardest, least compromising people can survive and rise to leadership positions.
The yemeni army under the Sana'a government has managed to drive away US ships, so they very much try to kill americans that are there to protect US occupation and genocide. Eventually they'll likely get good at it, like they got good at building mobile radar systems and taking down MQ-9 drones.