Pillars of Sand

Note: This article has been updated from March 3, 2015 to reflect recent developments in Yemen.
Yemen, situated at the southernmost end of the Arabian Peninsula, has a long history of derailing the goals of great powers. When discussing the Egyptian military’s attempt to influence Yemeni politics during the North Yemen Civil War in the 1960s, historian and former Israeli Ambassador to the United States Michael Oren wrote that “the imminent Vietnam War could have easily been dubbed America’s Yemen.” Yemen has remained a difficult country to influence, and as recent news demonstrates, its internal politics have once again shown a knack for foiling the objectives of major powers. With instability throughout the region, and the risk that the conflict in Yemen poses for further escalation between powers like Saudi Arabia and Iran, taking measures to try and prevent further disintegration in Yemen is firmly in America’s interest.
The Making of a Movement
The Houthi rebel group has thrust Yemen back into the international spotlight, seizing power in the capital, Sana’a and relentlessly attacking the remnants of President Abdu Rabu Mansour Hadi’s government. The Houthis are composed primarily of Zaidi Shia, who dominated northern Yemen until 1962. They take their name from their former leader, Hussein Badr al-Din al-Houthi, who was killed in 2004 by the Yemeni military. Conflict has defined the recent history of the Houthis, and they fought multiple wars against the central government throughout the 2000s, as well as against the Saudi military in 2009. They have not described a central platform, and are equally seen as a reaction against dysfunctional governance and as a religiously-inspired militant group. As a sect of Shi’ism, the Houthis have a religious-ideological affinity with Iran, which has supplied the group with equipment and arms.
The most recent roots of the current conflict trace from confrontation between Houthi supporters and the national army. The rebels, in addition, have demanded economic policies more beneficial to Yemen’s poor, sparking armed clashes around Sana’a. Fighting quickly escalated, and the Houthis swept into the capital. At the start of February, the Houthis dissolved the parliament and announced that they would take over direct governance of the country, finalizing their seizure of power. The Shia group was also supported by forces loyal to Ali Abdullah Saleh, the former President of Yemen who was ousted during the Arab Spring, but who maintains significant influence in the country.
Saleh’s role in the Houthi’s victory should not be underestimated. When he lost power, he was able to avoid the fates of other ousted dictators by agreeing to step down in exchange for immunity. He maintained significant support with the nation’s armed forces, especially the well-disciplined and elite troops who control large amounts of American supplied weapons and many members of the state bureaucracy. He has also used his personal fortune to increase his role in the country. Saleh’s reputation for manipulation is legendary, and he successfully maintained power in the country for decades by skillfully maneuvering disparate factions against each other. His current actions are, for many, a continuation of this pattern, and part of a broader plan to regain power in the country.
The startling collapse of Yemen’s official government and the rise of the Houthi movement has additionally prompted worry across the region of further instability and conflict. The sectarian bent of the movement, coupled with their threat to the stability of the Saudi border, ideological appeal to Saudi Shia minority, and seizure of much of the military hardware used by Hadi’s military prompted a coalition led by Saudi Arabia. The resulting air campaign was titled “Operation Decisive Storm.”
The Yemeni crisis presents a difficult puzzle for the United States. While it is imperative for the U.S. to support Saudi Arabia, especially given the worries raised in the Kingdom and other Gulf States about a U.S.-Iranian nuclear deal, a conflict in Yemen endangers the key American interest in the nation, counterterrorism, and could potentially escalate into a major regional war. In order to reassure allies like Saudi Arabia while containing the conflict, the United States must take swift economic action to promote a negotiated solution that addresses international and domestic concerns in Yemen.
The American Angle
The United States has had an active role in Yemen as part of the War on Terror. The most dangerous of the Al-Qaeda franchise, Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, is based in Yemen and has attempted multiple attacks on the West, most recently claiming credit for the Charlie Hebdo shootings in Paris. AQAP is both an international terrorist group and an insurgent movement against the Yemeni government. American and Yemeni forces have worked closely in trying to target the organization. Yemen has been one of the main sites of the American drone campaign, and the United States has been granted permission to operate against AQAP using armed drones and other measures by the nation’s government.
Both this close cooperation and the gains against AQAP are threatened by the rise of the Houthis. Despite being locked in a struggle of their own with AQAP, the Houthis are suspicious of U.S. drone strikes. Due to their relationship with Iran and nationalistic appeal, they are also significantly less likely to be as supportive of the counterterror relationship as Yemen’s President Hadi was. While the United States has restarted strikes after a pause in November 2014, it is very possible that a continuation of the targeted killings campaign will need to be carried out unilaterally by the United States, without support from or coordination with Yemeni forces on the ground.
The political crisis has also significantly decreased the threat to AQAP, which has used the opportunity to regain strength. AQAP, like other extremist Sunni Islamist movements, such as the Al-Qaeda core and the Islamic State, is deeply anti-Shia, and the sudden rise of the Shia Houthi movement has helped the group recruit from Sunnis concerned about the growth of Shia influence. The fighting between the Houthis and the forces of the central government has also taken military pressure off AQAP, allowing it to regroup without a military threat from the central government. The Sunni group has weathered multiple assaults from the Yemeni army while also planning and conducting terror plots outside of the country. Therefore, an extended period without a major conventional threat could allow the group to exponentially increase its strength.
Cold War Turned Hot
Despite the domestic origins of the Houthi movement, the struggle it initiated has rapidly morphed into a battle in the broader regional struggle between Iran and Saudi Arabia for dominance of the Middle East. This conflict is playing itself out in Lebanon, Iraq, Bahrain, Syria, and now Yemen.
The Houthis are an offshoot of mainstream Shi’ism, making them a natural religious and ideological ally of the Iranian government. While the extent of Iranian influence within the Houthi movement is unclear—and it is unlikely that it is as great as its dominance in the Iraqi or Syrian governments—Iran is supplying material support to the movement. Iranian officials have spoken in support of the Houthi movement and have even gone so far as to say that Sana’a is the fourth Arab capital, after Beirut, Baghdad, and Damascus, to be controlled by Iran.

The rise of the Houthis and the corresponding probability of increased Iranian influence have been crucial in driving Saudi intervention. Sway with the Houthis would give Iran some ability to control the Bab-el-Mandeb Strait that controls the Southern entrance to the Red Sea, a key global trade chokepoint. Additionally, the Houthis are of the same sect as the Saudi Kingdom’s restive Shia population, and their success has caused some nervous glances from the Saudi security services towards the internal Shia community. These concerns are not new. Saudi Arabia intervened in Yemen in 2009 against the Houthis, although it was unable to substantially degrade the group’s capabilities. At the time of this writing, Operation Decisive Storm, which includes forces or close support from Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Bahrain, Qatar, Kuwait, Jordan, Egypt, Sudan, Morocco, and Pakistan, has remained restricted to an air war. However, should the air campaign fail in its objective to slow the Houthi advance or to allow President Hadi to return to the country, a ground invasion by the coalition will become more and more likely.
A Cautionary Tale
The dangers of direct intervention in Yemen, by the United States or regional states like Saudi Arabia, are only too clear from a historical perspective. Specifically, Egypt’s involvement in the country under Gamel Abdul Nasser from 1962 to 1967 illustrates the significant dangers of a ground war in Yemen. Egypt deployed 100 commandos in 1962, only for their commitment to balloon to 15,000 soldiers by the end of the year. Eventually 13 infantry brigades, a tank brigade, and most of Egypt’s special operations forces were engaged in the war. Despite this major commitment, Egypt was unable to achieve victory over royalist insurgents and withdrew in 1967 after the Israeli triumph in the Six Day War.
Egypt’s deployment, which eventually involved over 70,000 troops and, through deployment cycles, the entire Egyptian Army at one point or another, is a strong caution against direct intervention. The intervention cost Egypt huge amounts of money, as well as the lives of thousands of Egyptian soldiers, and helped set the stage for a devastating defeat inflicted on Egypt by Israel in 1967. The same geographical factors—a mountainous interior and desert to the north—as well as a lack of strong potential military partners within the country, continue to frustrate any intervening power. The inability of the Egyptians to quash the insurgents suggests that neither the Houthis nor AQAP could be completely defeated without a massive deployment of conventional ground troops.
The Egyptian precedent should serve as a warning to Saudi Arabia and its allies about using ground troops to solve the political problems in Yemen. Saudi Arabia faces significant challenges in other parts of the country, including a disgruntled minority population of its own. Furthermore, apart from a foray into Bahrain to put down protestors in 2011, the Saudi military has seen few active military deployments, suggesting that even the best training will be unable to prepare a large number of its forces for real combat against the battle-hardened Houthi infantry. Considering these handicaps, the U.S. government would be well advised to encourage restraint on the part of Saudi Arabia and encourage it to limit its intervention to air attacks while seeking a return to genuine political dialogue in Yemen.
A Distinctly American Approach
Yemen’s primary importance in the realm of American interests is in the field of counterterrorism. AQAP remains deadly, and continuing to pressure it, with or without Houthi support, is an important action that the United States can continue. The drone campaign in Yemen, while not without its serious flaws, has also claimed notable successes in targeting major militant leaders. Drone strikes can also be effective in pressuring militants to restrict their ground operations. If the drone program is reformed to more strictly target identified militants, it can continue to be a key tool in the American anti-terror arsenal in Yemen.
However, a broader American strategy outside counterterrorism is also required: one that plays to American economic, rather than military, strength. Yemen remains one of the poorest countries in the world and is very far behind on most international development indices. This economic stagnation has been a significant feature in the rise of both the Houthis and AQAP. The Houthis were able to parlay a decision by the central government to end a popular fuel subsidy, while AQAP has been able to recruit from impoverished and unemployed Sunnis.
As such, economic development is crucial to bringing a greater semblance of stability to the country. The United States can therefore encourage the Houthis and their opponents to return to the bargaining table through the promise of a new and expanded aid package. The United States has supplied Yemen with approximately $600 million in aid since 2011. This is significantly less than the $1.5 billion provided to Egypt on a yearly basis and the $7.5 billion to Pakistan from fiscal years 2010-2014. Both nations, like Yemen, are considered vital partners in the War on Terror. History suggests that the Houthis would not necessarily be opposed to changing their behavior in exchange for material support and development aid. Houthi forces have received support from Israel, Saudi Arabia, and now Iran in seeking influence in the governance of Yemen, supporting the idea that they would be amendable to diplomacy that included aid to help their communities. Considering the major threat of AQAP, the United States should consider increasing its aid to Yemen on the condition that the more moderate parties return to negotiations and create a more inclusive political arrangement, marginalizing extremists such as AQAP while preserving the balance of international interests in the nation.
At the moment, the only real way to do this would be to return to the caretaker government of President Hadi, while representatives of the Houthis and the country’s other political parties return to the National Dialogue Conference. The NDC was formed after the country’s revolution in 2011, and while there is great skepticism about its potential for ironing out the differences between the groups, it offers the best chance to shift political debate back to the conference table, rather than the battlefield. While the NDC hammers out a new arrangement for the country, taking into account the concerns and frustrations of the Houthis as well as those of the other major national groups, President Hadi would continue to serve until new elections could be called after the final power structure of the country was determined.
The key danger to the NDC formula is that it has already failed once and therefore may be discredited in the eyes of many Yemenis. To avoid the breakdown that marred the last meeting of the NDC, an arbiter, such as the United States or another nation acceptable to all the parties, should be appointed to facilitate discussion. A third party mediator has proven decisive in negotiations over issues such as Israeli-Egyptian peace and ending the Bosnian War. Such an arbiter in this case could help maintain productive discussion amongst the various parties without the historical, tribal, or religious overtones that often cloud direct negotiations.
The other key challenge would be convincing the Houthis to surrender some of their newly won dominance in order to revitalize dialogue. The continuation of Operation Decisive Storm helps create new military pressures on the Houthis, and may help balance the differing strengths of the armed groups in Yemen. While some accommodation of the military balance, that at the time favored the Houthis, took place on the ground following their seizure of power, the group did not move to unilaterally consolidate power. Rather, it first issued an ultimatum for the competing parties in Yemen to work out a political solution and then formed a transitional government to manage the state for two years. This suggests Houthi interest in creating a durable political compromise, and not simply in strengthening their own position at the expense of other factions. It implies that they would be amenable to more productive negotiations aimed at establishing a fair political compromise in the country.
The American response to the crisis in Yemen needs to incorporate a much greater emphasis on a diplomatic and economic, rather than a primarily covert or military approach. American foreign assistance has the potential to be a major inducement for the parties to return to negotiations, while American air power can provide necessary support for combatting groups like AQAP. Furthermore, as long as Saudi and Gulf intervention is restricted to an air campaign, and does not launch an extremely risky ground war, the immediate military advantage enjoyed by the Houthis will likely be diminished, making diplomacy look more viable from their perspective. As the only major power capable of providing the assistance necessary to prevent Yemen’s further disintegration, the United States has the opportunity to take an active leadership role in bringing the crisis to a diplomatic conclusion. Failure to do so could see a strengthening of radical anti-American elements, among them both the Houthis and AQAP, and a further dangerous increase in tensions in the Gulf.
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