Patrick Mondaca, Warrior Non-Resident Fellow
Since October 19, 2023, United States and Israeli militaries have intercepted multiple missile and unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) barrages against Israel fired by Houthi fighters in Yemen. A defense official also confirmed on November 8, 2023 that a U.S. MQ-9 Reaper drone was also shot down in international airspace off the coast of Yemen. Then, in an attack lasting several hours on December 3, 2023, the guided-missile destroyer U.S.S. Carney shot down three UAVs in response to a distress call from commercial ships under fire by Houthi missiles and drones. Later that week, France’s multi-mission frigate, the Languedoc (D653), shot down two more UAVs launched from Yemen; and on December 16, 2023, U.S. and British warships reported the shooting down of 15 UAVs.
The Houthis, who effectively declared war on Israel following the October 7, 2023 attack by Hamas militants, have been firing salvoes of ballistic missiles and drones from Yemen in what Houthi military spokesperson Yahya Saree said was an effort “to help the Palestinians to victory.” This effort, which now includes targeting commercial shipping in the Red Sea, was reiterated by Saree on December 9, 2023 who warned, “If Gaza does not receive the food and medicine it needs, all ships in the Red Sea bound for Israeli ports, regardless of their nationality, will become a target for our armed forces.”
It must first be said that the Houthi military spokesperson speaks for the Ansar Allah, or the “partisans of God” Houthi militant movement, and not Yemen’s internationally recognized government currently based in Riyad, Saudi Arabia. The movement is primarily affiliated with Zaidiyyah, a subsect of Shi’a Islam that split off in the eighth century after Zayd ibn Ali‘s unsuccessful rebellion against the Umayyad Caliphate. Zaidi Shiites are in the minority both in relation to Shi’a Islam and in the primarily Sunni Yemen. And while long established in northern Yemen, they have fought to wrest control of the remainder of the country from the Sunni government.
Theologically, Zaidiyyah differs from Iran’s official state Ja’afari, or Twelver, Shi’i denomination in that they believe in the appointment of an Imam by consensus of a community’s religious scholars. Twelvers, conversely, believe that an Imam must be appointed by the Prophet or a previous Imam. As Zaidis believe the usurping of an unjust ruler’s authority is a central qualification for any Imam, the two sects diverge on this tenet. Whereas Zaidis have a religious obligation to overthrow and replace any corrupt or illegitimate ruler, Twelvers maintain that any such rebellion should await the Mahdi’s return.
But where Zaidis and Twelvers converge is their shared ideology of rising up against Israel and Western “imperialism” and influence. Houthi resentment of U.S. involvement in Yemen has festered since the Pentagon ramped up counterterrorism operations in the region following the suicide bombing of the USS Cole in October 2000. The U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003 further stoked anti-imperialist sentiment among Houthis, and the Saudi Arabia-led intervention in Yemen in 2015 using American weaponry and munitions cemented the anger. Iran’s Twelvers arming of Yemen’s Zaidis is both an extension of Iranian foreign policy and a fomenting of the existing Houthi anger against Western influence, Sunni Saudi Arabia, and a desire to confront Israel.
Iran-Backed Houthis
Part of Iran’s “Axis of Resistance,” the Houthi movement’s sarkha, or scream, is “God is great, death to America, death to Israel, curse on the Jews, victory to Islam.” It was the movement’s late founder, Hussein Badreddin al-Houthi, who first came up with the slogan in a sermon in January 2002. Inspired by Iran and Hezbollah which he called “the most important masters of jihad in this world,” al-Houthi extorted his followers to “do everything you can to terrorize the enemies of God.” At the top of this list of enemies, al-Houthi placed the United States, Israel, and the Gulf states who have formed allegiances with, as his brother and current leader of the Houthi movement, Abdul-Malik al-Houthi, has also called them, “the enemies of Islam.”
According to the Middle East Media Research Institute in January 2015, the Ayatollah’s Qods Force of the Revolutionary Guards (IRGC-QF) representative, Ali Shirazi, explained that the Houthis act in concert with Iran “against all the enemies of Islam and the Muslims.” Shirazi further clarified that “Ansar Allah are a copy of Lebanese Hizbullah,” like the Basij militias in Iraq and Syria. As the IRGC-QF’s mission is to defend the 1979 Islamic Revolution through the creation, training, and equipping of armed foreign militias, its sponsoring of the Houthis allows Iran to extend its security apparatus throughout the region while maintaining some degree of deniability.
With Hezbollah as the standard bearer, the other militias in the Axis aspire to attain both the hard and soft power that Iran’s Lebanese proxy now wields. The Houthis are no exception to this ambition, and as they have become increasingly battle-hardened and better equipped, they have sought opportunities to elevate their status within the Axis of Resistance and in the eyes of the West. The October 7, 2023 attack on Israel by Hamas militants was such an occasion, and the Houthis have sought to exploit it primarily as a means of self-promotion. By taking a hard pro-Palestinian stance against the Zionist occupier and the Great Satan, the Houthis are betting on the reward outweighing the risk of their ongoing aerial attacks.
According to Thomas Juneau, a Middle East studies professor at the University of Ottawa, the Houthis seem to have calculated that such attacks will tap into the pro-Palestinian sentiment at home. “To be seen domestically as not only opposing Israel politically but actually trying to do something about it — i.e. sending missiles and drones — is a classic way to mobilize domestic support by playing on these pro-Palestinian popular feelings,” Juneau told NPR on December 5, 2023. Likewise, Yemeni analyst and former diplomat, Mustapha Noman, also believes that by redirecting public attention to their support of the Palestinians, the Houthis can quiet some of the discontent directed at Ansar Allah for failing “to provide services and other benefits to the public.” In a December 10, 2023 interview with the Washington Post Noman said, “At war, people do not ask for anything. [The Houthis] can do whatever they want.”
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With their support bolstered in Yemen, Noman thinks the Houthis “dream that the Americans or the Israelis attack them, because that will turn them into a real ‘resistance’ force.” As a movement seeking recognition at home and abroad, the Houthis appear to have much to gain by provoking a Western response to their attacks. Their gamble is thus one in which Ansar Allah has bet that the cost of expending its Iran-supplied armaments is low compared to the potential increase in regional standing. If U.S. or Israeli forces were to escalate a military response to Houthi militants beyond batting down their UAVs and missiles over the Red Sea, any such escalation would achieve multiple objectives for Ansar Allah and Iran while leaving Israel and Western forces with a limited number of bad options.
Why have the U.S. and Israel not responded more forcefully to the Houthis?
Houthis – 200,000 Fighters
The main reason is that any more forceful of a response by Western or Israeli forces risks handing the Houthis the symbolic victory they are hoping for and exacerbating the ongoing humanitarian crisis in Yemen. More glaringly though, is that the possibilities for such a response on the Arabian Peninsula range from pretty bad to really terrible. The Houthis are a well-equipped, battle-tested nonstate armed actor with an estimated 30,000 to 200,000 fighters dispersed throughout a civilian population that grows more supportive as the movement confronts Israel and the West. Houthi fighters have already proven themselves against the Saudi-led, U.S. equipped coalition over the past eight years in Yemen and are aiming to do so again.
Since 2015, the Saudi-led coalition targeted Houthi camps, bases, and missile sites in Yemen with varying success. The Houthis responded with aerial and ground attacks against Saudi Arabian airports, power stations, oil facilities, and military bases. A United Nations brokered truce in April 2022 resulted in a marked reduction of conflict-related casualties, and the agreement formally ended in October 2022. While the prior cease-fire has largely been adhered to, the Houthis declaration of war against Israel and ongoing attacks on Red Sea commercial shipping is significantly testing Israeli and Western willingness to maintain the tenuous peace. The Saudis, for their part, appear to be in no hurry to resume hostilities and have urged the U.S. to show restraint in any response to the Houthis’ attacks.
As of right now, the options for any U.S. or other Western powers with the ability to project hard power in the region remain limited to countering Houthi UAVs and missiles over the Red Sea or potentially targeting their origin in Yemen. The first option, in the form of a growing maritime coalition, is intended “to send an ‘important signal’ to the Houthis that further attacks will not be tolerated,” according to the U.S. envoy to Yemen on December 14, 2023. However, such a coalition would encounter “extraordinary problems” in a region where Iran has “predominance,” warned Iranian defense minister Mohammad Reza Ashtiani. The second option, which would involve striking Houthi camps or launch and storage sites in Yemen, would come at the risk of incurring more civilian casualties, escalating the current humanitarian crisis, and legitimizing the Houthis as a movement and military threat.
If Israel or Western coalition militaries were to strike Houthi targets within Yemen, this would undoubtedly risk a resumption of hostilities in the Arabian Peninsula while potentially pulling other Iran-backed Axis of Resistance militias into direct conflict with the West. For Houthi militants, who appear to be itching for the opportunity to bring their threat perception to that of their Hezbollah role model, such a conflict would be more than a symbolic victory. It would be an existential test of their strength and proof of their worth in the fight against Western imperialism and influence in the region. Both the Arab and Western coalitions and Israel are keen on avoiding any such Houthi triumph. But how long they will be able to do so, and what else might be done to circumvent giving Ansar Allah exactly what it wants, this is the dilemma.
Patrick Mondaca, PhD candidate is a Warrior Contributor — Mondaca is a PhD candidate at The Royal Military College of Canada in War Studies
