Introduction
Within a decade, the Houthi movement was able to turn from an armed gang that led a rebellion against the Yemeni government in the Maran Mountains in 2004 to an armed militia trying to run the state. The Houthi movement is based on social, developmental, political and intellectual roots that made it return to the rule of the Yemenis after it extended from Saada mountains in the north until it took control of the capital of the Republic of Yemen on 21 September 2014. The group was able to fully control the state but the killing of their former ally Ali Abdullah Saleh (4 December 2017) proves their illusion of sole rule and domination. The Houthis hope to subjugate the densely populated northern governorates of Yemen at gunpoint. Thus, the indicators of the collapse of the Houthis military capabilities began to appear after the absence of the political and social cover, represented by Saleh and his party, the General People’s Congress.
During the nineties of the last century, the Houthi movement began its activity gradually starting with demands related to the Hashimite class, accusing the authority of excluding them, in addition to regional demands for the people of Saada. Then the demands increased to become political as the movement demanded the rule of the region of Sana'a governorate, Amran, the capital Sana’a and Dhamar, including also the oil governorate of Al-Jawf in the east and Hajjah in the west with its sea port of Midi, until they demanded their right to restore the state of imams and may dream of building an empire, not only in Yemen but in the region.
The Houthis justified their movements with arguments and grievances, for which the group fought six wars against the state between 2004 and 2010. When the Peaceful Youth Revolution broke out in 2011, it contained the Houthi group, in an attempt to turn it from an armed struggle into a peaceful struggle. But this did not happen, as the movement exploited the Peaceful Youth Revolution, the transitional period and the weakness of the state institutions to attack the Yemeni state and overthrow the capital as well as to impose threats against the neighboring countries and the region, which caused the intervention of the Decisive Storm, led by Saudi Arabia on 26 March 2015.
Transitional Regime Overthrow
The Peaceful Youth Revolution succeeded partially in modernizing the tribal society, while it failed in this trend with the Houthi armed movement. This is why the tribal areas fell in hands of the Houthis, along with various factors including the support from some traditional forces that are angry with the power transition, particularly the tribal and political leaders who benefited from the former regime including former President Ali Abdullah Saleh, his son and some powerful military leaders; in an attempt to benefit from the regional fears from the Arab Spring revolutions. This enabled the Houthis to obtain a sufficient logistical support to overthrow the transitional regime in Yemen militarily.
This was the real front that the Houthi movement based on in its movements, but at the same time the Houthi movement exploited real grievances that have roots in the Yemeni society (northern provinces), including:
1. Social and developmental: such as the authority’s neglect of the development in the northern regions and devoting of the influence in the hands of certain political and tribal groups, prompting the Houthis to establish an entity that demands legitimate human rights of equal citizenship, distribution of wealth and paying attention to the basics of bread, health and education.
2 - Political: The Houthi group is overwhelmed by the idea of the divine right of the political Hashimiyya to return to the rule of Yemen since they lost it on September 26, 1962. The Houthis used this idea in the mobilization of families belonging to the Hashemite, which says that it is from the descendants of the sons of Ali bin Abi Talib, husband of Fatimah, daughter of Prophet Mohamed. Because of the actions of the former regime that monopolized the positions in pro-Saleh tribal areas. So many Yemenis rallied behind this project against the state.
The citizens, in the southern and northern governorates alike, suffered from the former regime but the Houthi movement was more penetrating in the northern areas of the North where they have a solid mass of "Hashemites" who still dream of the return of the extinct imamate.
3 – Ideological: Since the revolution of September 1962, the ideological idea had two wings operating in the state. Political one that was operating deeply within the state, and an intellectual one that was concerned with the intellectual aspects through Zaidi religious schools. The Houthi idea was founded in 2004, the year in which the group became an armed movement, and began to engage ideologically with Iran and under the supervision of Hezbollah.
So all the wings of the group worked to enable the Houthi movement to control the government and transform the Republic of Yemen into a system similar to the regime of the Islamic Republic of Iran(
[1]).
Expansion in space and aborting change process
Some people who are interested in Yemen and some regional and international political decision makers believe that the situation of the Houthis in Yemen can be described as a leap and the peaceful revolution of change against the regime of Ali Abdullah Saleh in 2011 contributed to turning it into a phenomenon, an inaccurate analysis. In retaliation against his opponents who came to power, Saleh helped the armed group to control the state. Over the course of more than a decade of establishing the group and turning it into an armed group, the group managed to build a militia force based on ideological factors. The democratic openness and the absence of a governmental and regional deterrent machine contributed to the expansion of its spread. The government institutions during the transition and before the fall were divided equally between the peaceful revolution power and pro-Ali Abdullah Saleh. Despite the economic successes of the consensus government (after the revolution), it failed to confront the Houthis by the paralyzed half of the government that was run by Saleh, who continued to control the army that remained loyal to him until his death on December 4, 2017, but after handing over arms stores to the Houthis and opening the doors for recruiting the Houthi militia following the Decisive Storm on 26 March 2015.
When former President Ali Abdullah Saleh decided, after the summer war of 94, to monopolize the rule, he went to establish a parallel army of the Yemeni National Army through what is known as the Republican Guards, whose task was to preserve only the legacy of his family. The evidence of that is the appointment of his son Ahmed to be commander of the Republican Guards, who demolished the National Army, and has monopolized the qualitative training and advanced weapons since 1997.[
[2]]
Despite the fact that the commander of the Republican Guard held the grip on the arsenal strategic weapons of the country, especially long-range missiles, and the movement of aviation, security and intelligence and some special army units, but in a decade and a half, the regime of his father was not able to achieve the goal of establishing a full parallel army in an integrated manner. So, in 2010, Saleh began what was known as the term "reset the governance counter" to ensure continuity and the completion of building the (family) army and to succeed in handing over the power to his son. [
[3]]
While Saleh has invested regional and international support in training and arming the new army units that he established taking advantage of the international community's concerns over terrorism. He excluded anyone suspected to be supporter of military, political or tribal leaders who reject power inheritance. The Houthis exploited this point to make a small hole through which they received a flow of money and expertise. Moreover, they penetrated into the armed forces and began to organize themselves in combat groups.
As soon as the last parliamentary elections in 2003 finished with bringing one of brothers of the founder of the Houthi movement, Yahya al-Houthi, to the Parliament with a comfortable majority sought by Saleh's party, the Houthi movement began to rebel against the state.[[4]]
Thirteen years passed since the first war that was launched by the National Army, with simple capacities, against the armed Houthi movement, that began its rebellion in 2004. The first war could eliminate the nucleus of this movement as its founder Hussein Badr al-Din al-Houthi was at the time.
But in 2005, the great concern of Saleh was to achieve his strategic goal of inheriting the rule. Saleh saw that the continuation of war with the Houthis, will enable him to achieve that goal through eliminating two obstacles against the power inheritance. The first obstacle is the National Army. The second obstacle is the Joint Meeting Parties that includes Islah Party, Yemeni Socialist Party, the Nasserite Unionist Party and the Union of Popular Forces Party.(
[5])
Saleh believed that dragging the first Armored Division, led by Major General Ali Mohsen Al-Ahmar, and the Camp of Giant Forces, led by Major General Ali Al-Jaifee, as the largest military formations in the National Army, as well as the Islamic Islah Party into a sectarian war with the Houthis is enough to dislocate the National Army and the opposition in order to be able to fully control the rule and inherit the power. Wikileaks documents proved that "Saleh" tried to get rid of Ali Mohsen al-Ahmar in an air strike. [[6]]
The State Swallow
Saleh launched a non-serious war with the Houthis, leaving the National Army smashed and collapsed in fighting with organized militias with obsolete and outdated weapons and ammunition. The Republican Guard, run by his son, Ahmed, remained in contact with the Houthis,
After only five years, specifically in 2009, the Houthis were fighting the Saudi Army and the Yemeni Army with anti-armor, machine guns, night-vision machine guns, and modern TG2 tanks, which they took over from the military camps in Saada without fighting. The Yemeni Army was fighting with a few old and worn-out tanks, most of them are T52, and soldiers with damaged weapons. Saleh used to ask the Army to withdraw in every operation they succeed to impose the siege on the Houthi fighters.
Saleh believes that in six wars against the Houthis, he has achieved many interests, including the weakening of the National Army, strengthening the parallel army, and enhancing the Houthi influence to hit his political opponents, such as the Islah party.
But Saleh did not realize that the Houthis are more dangerous to his regime, and that they have a history of defiance and coup against the agreements. Only after the Houthis arrived in Harf Sufian of Amran and Bani Hushaish on the outskirts of the capital Sanaa, in the sixth war in 2009, Saleh felt that the cautious consensus with the Houthis group did not help him to penetrate the group, but helped the Houthis to penetrate his regime.
A year before the Peaceful Youth Popular Revolution, international indicators were saying that Yemen was on the verge of failure and that it was threatening the security and stability of the regional and global environment, but what some did not realize was that the ruling party, the General People's Congress, had been penetrated and controlled by lobbies that were supportive for the Houthis, even after an official report, some of its contents were published in the press during the wars with the Houthis, said that the Houthis called the ruling party as “the General Shiite Congress” in reference to the influence of the sectarian Houthis on the party’s decisions. [
[7]]
Just two years before the Peaceful Youth Revolution that toppled some of the pillars of Saleh's regime in 2011, the Houthis had already swallowed part of that regime.
The Houthis realized that the Yemeni Peaceful Revolution, which came within the Arab Spring, would cut the path of their control over the state, and that it would destroy their growing dream of the return of the Imamate rule they lost after the September 26 revolution in 1962.
The Hashemite political system is aware that a system like the imam regime that ruled Yemen for centuries must return by force, although it remained effective in all frequent regimes without being hostile to the principles of the republic.
The leader of the Houthis, Abdul-Malik al-Houthi, affirmed that the rule of Al al-Bayt is a divine right, as he said in his speech on the religious occasion of al-Ghadir. The characteristics of the Houthi movement became clear as an armed, racial and violent movement. [[8]]
The Peaceful Revolution hampers the strategy of weapons
Since the outbreak of confrontations between the Houthis and the state in 2004, Iran has engaged in a major logistical support for the Houthis. It has formed an intelligent strategy based on plans to break up and destroy the society, to weaken the morale of the Army and to gradually expand on the ground with each war and getting weapons to form an organized army.
Houthi's strategy in Yemen is inseparable from Iran's strategy in the region, but the Arab Spring and the Peaceful Popular Youth Revolution in Yemen have embarrassed the Houthi armed struggle and slowed down Iran's strategic plan of expansion.
Like Iran that intended to swallow such revolutions by saying that “they are an extension of the Islamic revolution,” the Houthis worked on dragging the country into armed conflict to reinvigorate its political and social forces and dismantle the military structure of the army, which is already weak, so that they can easily control the country. This is what they did during three years of war against the Yemeni society.
In 2011, battles broke out between the Republican Guard forces loyal to the regime of Saleh and the tribal fighters in Arhab and al-Hasabah. The Houthis provided the two parties with fighters in an attempt to expand the penetration and extend the clashes. The Houthis failed to prolong the war and exhaust the warring parties, but they succeeded in the penetration as hundreds of Houthi militias joined the Republican Guard camps.
The Yemeni political factions in power and opposition went to sign the Gulf Initiative in November 2011, which included a chronic program of a peaceful political transition of power. It was difficult that the GCC Initiative includes the Houthis because they are an armed movement, not a political one, and they also refused to hand over arms and return Saada to the state sovereignty.
According to the profit and loss calculations, strategically, the Houthis will not inherit the state as easily as they bet on them, and the failure of the scenario of their full control over the state three years after their invasion of Sanaa proves that they slowly lose the ground under their feet.
Politics, society and weapons
The Houthis have created hostile ideological and social centers during wars in Saada. However, their targeting of tribes and the Army camps, since they departed Saada, has served as a wake-up call for the new Yemeni state, the Gulf neighbors and the international sponsors of the peaceful political transition of power, led by Saudi Arabia and the United States of America.
The legacy of tribe, power and party
While the Houthi conflict with the Salafis was enveloped by a sectarian conflict to seem to be an extension of the conflict between Saudi Arabia and the Islamic Republic of Iran, the conflict between the Houthis and Al-Ahmar family had a historical root dated back to the past decades. It was an extension of a conflict between this family and Hashid tribes and the imams who ruled Yemen for decades.
The tribes of Al-Ahmar were keen to stay for centuries in the closest and most influential position to the regime. Their relations with the rulers of Yemen were seen as a historical sequence, beginning with a rapprochement with the rising regime, and ending with hostility and confrontation during the collapse of that regime and the emergence of another new power that they can build an alliance with.
For some people who are interested in the Yemeni issue, it is not known that when the tribe weaken and begin to integrate into the structure of the political state with each stage of transition, any conflict is considered to be as a savior breath that return the spirit back to the tribe to appear in the political scene again and become influential for the interest of one of the conflict parties, not only interactive.
The tribes joined the peaceful revolution leaving the gun behind them. Many members of the tribes were killed, so many people who used to criticize the tribe as a traditional obstacle against urbanization changed their mind and began to look to the tribe as an important part of the change process. But the Houthi movement and through the influence, in the framework of the General People's Congress, was able to manipulate the tribal paper and penetrated the tribes and experienced it well. The Houthi group found that the tribes weakness points that were manipulated by Saleh regime are still open, including poverty, illiteracy and the lack of development that represent appropriate factors to recruit tribesmen in an open war, starting with the neighboring tribe and ending with full Houthi control of the society.
The Houthis managed to bring down Sanaa in the tribal frame, which was ostensibly loyal to Saleh, Houthi's ally in the coup. But on December 4 Saleh discovered that the tribal power was nothing but a big illusion and that the Houthis had inherited the tribes and that his life had become the appropriate price for the Imamate alliances.
Before that, the Houthis opened multiple fronts to fight the tribes and the state. They expelled the Salafis from Dammaj and the Jews from Saada and then chased the Yemenis and blew up their homes in an attempt to clean the northern governorates at least as a center of governance without any opposition. But they have lost international sympathy with them as a sectarian minority as they promote their movement by wildly attacking other beliefs and hitting their Salafist rivals. [
[9]] Rather, they have prosecuted those who are accused of belonging to the Buhra.[
[10]] Thus, the justification of the West to support them as a minority to come to power has become weak as they are unlike other minorities that always put their loyalty outside the border in return for helping them to get the power - the matter which makes the West believes that the minorities are most keen on its interests.
In addition to taking over the governance systems, the minorities have been used against the rising political trends, some of which are based on a moderate political Islam.
The Houthi movement has become a regional and international threat, especially after it targeted neighboring countries with missiles and ships at the oil passages in Bab al-Mandab. This is a natural result of the mistake committed by some Gulf countries that turned a blind eye to the Houthis' bulldozing of the tribe, which is the basis of the structure of the Yemeni society. Some tribal dignitaries say that this mistake is due to an unbalanced reaction because of the tribe's support for the peaceful revolution.([11])
Saleh-Houthi alliance formed a solid bloc to bring down the change process, but with that alliance the Houthis got modern weapons and bought tribal loyalties in the same way Saleh used during his reign.
Although the six wars with the Yemeni Army have given the Houthis a military experience, and taught them the art of maneuvering in negotiations, and enabled them to fight in these wars and to form a small army, in addition to breakthroughs, but the reality of expansion of the Houthi battles between 2011 and 2014 was not based on their potentiality, but on the capacities of a deeply-rooted regime.
After Saleh's regime became infiltrated, its operatives managed to provide logistical support to the Houthis, exploiting modern weapons stolen from the Republican Guard camps, Air Force stores, or camps run by Saleh’s family. Saleh, who was also related to the state, provided intelligence, training and funding to some groups of violence, especially the Houthis movement, directly by himself or indirectly through powerful figures around him. He also contributed to the weakening of the state when he ordered GPC to behave as an opposition against the consensus government, not as a partner that has half of the government members.
The signs of military cooperation between the Houthis and Saleh appeared early([12]). The state founded that some deaths of Houthis have military ranks and numbers since they left Saada and launched a war on tribes and the Army forces. The Houthis group appointed military personnel who were loyal to Saleh as Houthi field leaders before the Houthis swallow the party of "Saleh" and turn those personnel into members in the Houthi militias, who contributed to the killing of their leader, Saleh.
As all these factors led to the defeat of the tribal resistance against the Houthis in Saada, Amran and Sana'a, the last of which was Arhab tribes in 2014, the same way enabled Houthis to inherit Saleh's tribal legacy what has shown Saleh, in the first clash with the Houthis in December 2017, as an old monster that lost his nails and teeth. So the first confrontation ended with Saleh defeat and killing him by one snake after four decades of dancing on the heads of snakes.
Failure and vanity
The GCC Initiative has been a slap for Houthis as it made them hanging, neither partners in the government during the transitional period, nor controller of the state. But while Saleh was handing over the power, he helped the Houthis to expand all over Saada and supported them to launch attacks on cities and camps in Saada. At the same time, al-Qaeda took over the military camps in Abyan, in the center of the country, without any resistance.
The Houthis obstructed the early presidential elections in Sa'ada constituencies in February 2012 for electing President Abd Rabbo Mansour Hadi. After the formation of the consensus government, in which the Houthis obtained seats indirectly through figures from the General People's Congress and the al-Haq party, under the Joint Meeting Party. The Houthis began to play the alliances game, depending upon the power of Saleh who was angry with President Hadi, who seemed to be weaker before the risks, and on the Gulf fears from the virus of revolutions.
While Yemenis encouraged the Houthis to join the peaceful revolution to build a new Yemen without wars, the international community encouraged the Houthis to engage in the National Dialogue Conference and pressed for giving them seats at the conference close to the share of Islah party, the largest opposition party against Saleh.
The Houthis did not invest this encouragement for political gains. They did not abandon their weapons and military expansion and did not participate in the UN-supervised peaceful transfer of power, which made them fail to participate officially in the consensus government and not formally participate in the conclusion ceremony of the National Dialogue Conference.
The National Dialogue Conference [
[13]] was able to come out with a document that helps the Yemenis to build a new civil state through decentralization and federal system, and which does not allow any regional or sectarian projects to impose a reality other than the reality of the state.
The most important outcome of the National Dialogue Conference was the extension of the state’s sovereignty over all regions, the disarmament of armed militias, the prohibition of the formation of any militia and restricting the use heavy weapons to the state only.
The outputs of the national dialogue addressed the great national problems and the consequences of previous conflicts and put forward visions to prevent their recurrence. They emphasized equal citizenship and the termination of privileges and drew the characteristics of the new federal Republic of Yemen.
The federal division was a major obstacle for the Houthis and other armed groups preventing them from achieving a total control, declaring secession or a self-rule of any territory. Including Saada, the stronghold of the Houthis, with Amran, Sana'a and Dhamar, angered the Houthis because they were seeking to take over the port of Midi in the coastal governorate of Hajjah and the oil fields in the desert governorate of Al-Jawf as an integrated region to rule away from the centralization of Sanaa, before controlling it.
During three years since the coup against the state, the Houthis fought and contributed to multiple wars, not only in the northern governorates, but even in the eastern governorates (Mareb and Al-Jawf) and the governorates of the center (Taiz and Ibb), and the southern governorates of (al-Dalea, Shabwa, Lahj and Aden) until they reached the coast of the Arabian Sea. Since their departure from the southern governorates and their defeat in Aden on July 15, 2015, the Houthis began to lose land piece by piece in parallel with the Arab Coalition move to re-establish a national army and support a national resistance of a deep social root.
The Illusion of Supremacy
Through their alliance with Saleh’s legacy and his networks that he founded during 33 years in power, the Houthis managed to swallow the state and destroy its institutions, with support from Saleh himself. The Houthis found some political indicators in the influential countries, regionally and internationally, which help them reach the governance paths in Yemen without abandoning their arms or their influence that they gained in Saada, north of the country, during six wars with Saleh’s regime.
Although the strategic objective of the Houthis was to control the whole Yemen and its rule, the tactical goal after the popular youth revolution that erupted against Saleh in 2011, was at least getting a quota in power, similar to what happened with Hezbollah in Lebanon, without giving up their arms. This goal enabled them to achieve the strategic goal and they swallowed up the state. They began on the ground with the invasion of the capital Sana'a; and most of the international solutions during the consultations in Kuwait and earlier in Switzerland went in this direction.
In the short and medium term, the Houthis' control has created an additional burden on the already collapsed country. The group's coup was a new route for the future of armed and combative militias, but at the same time the coup created a new factor for the early collapse of their own state.
The armed expansion of Houthis, their mischief of the state and the overthrow of the State’s institutions have created unsolved problems. Most important of those problems was the enmity with the society and tribal forces, especially in areas that have suffered a lot from their actions that included forced recruitment, kidnapping, killing or displacement, exploding houses and assassinating leaders.
The Houthis' victories and the swallow of the tribes represent a different picture of the reality of the community structure, but there are things that do not change in the long run. Yemen is a tribal society and its own sons, especially in the northern north, are more loyal to the tribe than political parties. Whatever their internal political disputes, when the vision is not clear and there is an enemy threatening the tribe, they unite and return to their social structure. This is why the tribe again regains control, influence and domination!!
The state failed to assist the tribe in its urbanization through peaceful political tools. After the tribe went to the option of the peaceful revolution, the state left the tribe facing groups of armed violence.
The tribe in the northern north of the country needed only one step to complete its urbanization in order to build a democratic system and a civil state. The party situation greatly penetrated the tribe, this was evident in its acceptance of the peaceful change in 2011. The tribe needs special attention through education, economic development, decentralized government. The Yemeni tribe is pragmatic, close to opportunistic, in the north; a combination of pragmatism and ideology in the east, and ideological with some pragmatism in the south. So tribe in Yemen is not similar to the tribe in Pakistan and Afghanistan where the tribe is almost ideology.
The situation of the tribe in Yemen is also not similar to the situation of the tribes in Iraq, which have been entrenched in sectarianism in search for power outlets but that increased vulnerability and fragmentation, in addition to the weakness caused by the Baath regime that integrated the tribes with a national identity without securing them with a participatory or democratic system that preserves the rights of their members as Iraqi citizens. In Yemen, any confrontation with the tribal society ends with the victory of the tribal society, even later.
Even if tribes are subjected, they will not support those who use the method of humiliation against them, because their history says that the first enemy is that who marginalize them, and the most enemies are those who try to reproduce or divide the tribes. Thus, the Houthi movement put the future of its conflict with the tribe in a losing bet.
The tribe did ride on the back of the peaceful revolution to topple Saleh's rule, who the tribe felt that he marginalized it, especially after Saleh started to establish a family regime parallel to the state.
The tribe did ride on the back of the alliance between the Houthis and Saleh to overthrow the state of President Hadi after he dealt with it with disregard, that appeared clearly in the lack of tribal representation in the National Dialogue Conference, and finally the tribe that used to be loyal to Saleh is subject to the Houthis (to save its head), and will ride on the back of any force that can enter Sana’a and overthrow the state of the Houthis in the future!
The Houthi movement sought to control the power outlets in society and the state, but the reprisals, emanating from the Yemeni blood that the Houthis shed and the wounds and scars due to their attacks on the tribes, made the Houthis the enemy who should be avenged even from those loyal tribes who paid a heavy price on illusion of living in prosperity through the Houthi movement.
Control strategies:
The strategic objective of the Houthis is part of Iran's expansion strategy in the region, and Iran does not want more than the Houthis to remain as a force that threatens the security of the Gulf and Saudi Arabia, or at least Yemen becomes a mess that mobilizes fighters ready to invade the border.
But if we assume that the Houthis are a stand-alone project, the most important goal will be the establishment of an entity and a regime that will expand in the oil regions and in places of geopolitical importance to the world.
To achieve the strategic objective, the Houthis can achieve tactical progress objectives, the most important of which are:
1 - Completion of the overthrow of the state, both military and civilian.
2 - The penetration of government institutions, civil society organizations, international organizations and media, and influence their performance.
3 - Eliminate any factors that led to previous revolutions against the imams or against Saleh regime, whether social factor such as tribe or political factor such as parties.
4- Creating chaos, and regional and sectarian conflicts.
5 - Imposing a new political reality through military expansion.
6 – Eliminating the political and sectarian opponents in areas of control and weakening their influence in the state.
7 - Obtaining international sympathy with them after the intervention of the Arab Coalition
8 - Targeting Saudi Arabia to satisfy Iran and to prove its existence and strength.
9 - It was able to bring a strong Iranian presence in the Straits of Bab al-Mandab, and some sectors affecting internally, regionally and internationally.
10. It exploited wars to develop its military capabilities on the ground, to make a demographic change to the capital Sana'a, and to recruit as many Yemenis as possible.
11 - Exploiting the repercussions of the humanitarian situation due to the war in marketing their new grievances
The regional and international factors that the Houthis found as helpful for them:
1 - Gulf and Western fears of the Arab Spring and its implications on their interests.
2- The Iranian-Western negotiations and the nuclear agreement.
3. The Russian-American conflict and the race for control in the Middle East.
4 - Regional and international trend to thwart the emerging political Islam.
5. Utilizing the Western strategy of supporting minorities.
6 - The focus of the major countries on events in Iraq, Syria and Egypt.
7. Exploiting the international war on terror and the international alliance to fight Daesh as well as exploiting the West leniency with Shiite violence groups and not including them in terrorist groups.
8- Exploiting the tendency of some influential countries to benefit from the Houthis as a pressure force on the Gulf neighborhood to achieve the economic interests of selling arms and getting oil.
9 - Before the arrival of Trump to power, there were attempts by Washington to contain them to cause a break between them and Iran and its military arms such as Hezbollah. Some people in the US administration still consider the Houthis as a national group, not an armed group.
10 - Exploiting the anger of countries, governments and organizations towards the deteriorating humanitarian situation in Yemen to obtain funding for their military activities through the flow of aid from international organizations.
The future of the Houthi movement
If we want to understand the future of the Houthi movement, its focal points, opportunities and threats against it, we must provide a realistic description of the movement.
The movement that makes alliances, fights, controls, and debates is a double and modeled movement that rapidly wins and rapidly changes its positions, and relies heavily on initiative to fill the gaps, but it seems that after three years of impenetrable war, the movement suffers from a case of intransigence before falling.
By going back to the history of wars and violence and the reality of peoples who look for democracy, civilization and freedom in the world, the Houthis movement that believes in a divine right of one kind of human being to rule, and in weapons as the only means of imposing thought and power, can only be described as underdeveloped violent groups.
This indicates that this movement carries the seeds of annihilation within it. Therefore it has no future, despite the fact that it receives and holds Iranian thought as a tool for expansion and hegemony. The features of the Houthi movement are indications of its end.
The most important features of the Houthi movement:
1- A religious ideological movement that uses ideology, history and geography.
2 – The violent armed movement extended in the spaces amid the chaos.
3 - The movement of racial superiority depends on the class differentiation in society.
4 - The movement gets some of its views from the influence of some external trends that have regional and international conflicts.
5 – The movement gets its strength from small social, political and religious alliances. It allied with the tribe and then hit them. It allied with the General People’s Congress and then dropped it. It allied with the political Hashemite and may enter the race and conflict with it in future.
6 – It is the movement of dual references, the local reference (religious) is Abdul-Malik al-Houthi, and its regional reference (militarily) is Hezbollah and its reference internationally (politically) is Iran.
7 - The movement jeopardizes by receiving support and funding from local, regional or international parties that have conflicting interests.
8 – It depends, in its alliances, on tactics and changes its alliances once the plan changed.
9. It wins quickly and expands militarily, intellectually and economically in the areas that it controls but then loses everything quickly as well.
10 – It exploits the weakness and absence of the state in its expansion areas and contains influential figures, chaotic organizations, armed gangs and disgruntled political and tribal figures.
11 – It penetrates the state, parties and society to impose their presence and swallow the power and benefits from it.
12. Accepts that it is a political, military and ideological tool for local, regional and international actors to achieve its strategy.
In a careful assessment of the Houthi movement, especially after the Saudi-led Decisive Storm on March 26, 2014, and after the international sanctions resolution 2216 in particular, we find that the Houthi movement loses every day its power outlets. The killing of Saleh made it without political and social cover. The Republican Guard, the solid force that the Houthi movement relies on has become fragmented. This was evident in the frequent defeats of the Houthis after the date of Saleh's death on September 4, 2017. The sanctions resolution also made the Houthis lose the international sympathy as a minority.
The Houthi movement, after losing control in the southern provinces, is about to lose the eastern and western provinces. The National Army is on the outskirts of the capital Sana'a and may enter any time to Saada or Sanaa where the Houthis dream of restoring the rule.
Houthi Movement Scenarios:
The Houthi movement began an armed sectarian movement in the mountains of Maran in Sa'ada in 2004, and within a decade it became the controlling power in Sana'a. This puts it in one of two classifications: Either the movement is an armed front for a political movement that represents the parallel and deep system of the imams as many researchers believe that it is the armed wing of the political Hashemite, or that the movement's head has become big because of its rapid victories on the ground and its external support, specifically (Iranian support).
By reading the natural datum that accompanied the war in Yemen, we are faced with several scenarios of the movement, all of which are proves the fact that the Houthi movement, as an armed military movement, is on the path of annihilation and will end as an armed phenomenon and forever.
The expected scenarios for that end are as follows:
Scenario 1:
The defeat of the Houthi movement as a natural result of the progress of the Yemeni government forces and the resistance supported by the Arab Coalition led by Saudi Arabia, and then this movement will be dissolved with the criminalization of affiliation to it legally. This scenario is the most expected.
Scenario 2:
The military, regional and international pressure may push the Houthi movement to surrender and declare its transformation into a political party and the end of the armed movement forever. But the history of the Houthi movement does not support this scenario at all except in one case that the control of its military capabilities is organized by the political Hashemite, not by the Houthi movement, to maintain its existence.
Scenario 3:
Before the military defeat or surrender, the Houthi movement may witness internally armed conflict between the armed wing of the Houthis and the political Hashemite, especially if there is a communication between the Arab Coalition and leading figures loyal to the political Hashemite. This scenario is expected even if its success is weak, however, it is similar to the scenario of disconnection between the two parties of the coup, the Houthi movement and former president Ali Abdullah Saleh. Thus, the legitimacy led by President Hadi will be the most beneficiary.
Scenario 4:
Any international intervention may convince the Houthis to return to Saada and abandon the rule in Sanaa. Hence, Houthiya will return to its hides in a certain geographical environment to establish its influence in preparation for a new phase of conflict.
Margins:
[1] -Iran is controlled by a complex dictatorship between its democratic, sectarian but sectarian theocracy operates according to the theory of divine right run by the religious leadership. Despite the election of the president of the country, the country's administration goes to the Supreme Guide appointed by the Council of Experts, a group of powerful clerics.
[2] Learn about the Yemeni Republican Guard 5/12/2017 - Al Jazeera Net
[3] In Wikileaks (07SANAA1954), most observers, including the Embassy's special intelligence center, feel that Ahmed Ali is being groomed to be the next president to succeed his father Ali Abdullah Saleh.
[4] Yahya Al-Houthi, the Parliament Observatory http://www.ypwatch.org/members.php?go=member&id=269&lng=en
[7] The description of the (Shiite General Congress) as a sign of the Houthi infiltration into the General People’s Congress, was part of a confidential report during the wars with the Houthis prepared by a committee of ministries of Awqaf, Education and others headed by Mohammad Hadi Tawaaf.
[8] A speech delivered on October 12, 2014 by Abdul-Malik al-Houthi, for the first time declaring the principle of the state as the divine right of the Hashemites
[9] Report by Abaad (Dammaj.. Black Hole) November 9, 2013
[10] Since taking control of the government, the Houthis have launched a campaign of arrests against the Buhra sect, a Shi'ite minority that believes the 21st Imam has chosen to disappear while the Houthis accuse them of links to Israel. One of Buhra members was sentenced to death by a Houthi judge early in 2018.
[11] (Balance of fire) issued by Abaad Center about the peaceful revolution 2011
[12] Saleh and Houhtis collaboration revealed in an audio recording broadcast by Al-Jazeera in its documentary program (The Black Box) in June 2016
