Assad is gone. Make the Houthis follow

No longer should anyone in the West or the Arab world accept Houthi claims to legitimacy or strength.

By Michael Rubin, Middle East Forum

Yemenis are excited. After nearly a quarter-century of rule, Bashar al-Assad is gone from Syria, his Russian and Iranian sponsors unable to protect him.

With Syria removed from the “Axis of Resistance,” Hezbollah’s days are numbered. After all, Syria was the central pillar of the land and air bridge that enabled Hezbollah to exist.

Assad’s rule collapsed for simple reasons: His corruption and mismanagement were so great, his conscripts saw no reason to lay their lives on the line for him. While he had a base among the minority Alawis, this was no longer enough.

The same characteristics apply to Yemen’s Houthis.

While the Houthis enjoy some tribal support, they have been unable to expand their base beyond family and clan because of a generally incompetent rule, although the Houthis still receive great revenue from the Hodeidah port, due to the unwillingness of the United Nations to hold them to the terms of the Stockholm Agreement to deny the Houthis the ability to profit from the port and international humanitarian assistance.

To substitute for the Houthis’ governance failure, the Houthis try to impose their will through the barrel of a gun.

No longer should anyone in the West or the Arab world accept Houthi claims to legitimacy or strength.

The Southern Transitional Council governs the areas under its control far more competently and enables greater security than do the Houthis in Sana’a.

The United States and moderate Arab allies could seize the initiative in Yemen to help the Yemenis end the nightmare of Houthi rule with concerted action while Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps reels from its recent defeats in Lebanon and Syria.

First, the United States must compel the United Nations, using its donation as leverage, to force compliance with the Stockholm Agreement.

No Houthis should be working at the Port of Hodeidah and, certainly, no customs duties or port fees should flow into Houthi coffers.

The Houthis may complain and bluster, but for the U.N. to employ or enable the Houthis to pay salaries repeats the mistakes that the United Nations has made with the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) in the Gaza Strip.

Second, the United States and moderate Arab states should dry up Houthi arms shipments and supply. There is precedent for the United States to sanction aircraft involved in terrorist supply.

If Yemenia Airways continues to shuttle supplies from Beirut, purchase fuel from Houthis, or even service Houthi-controlled cities, the U.S. Department of the Treasury should sanction them.

Likewise, Washington should not tolerate the same deceit from Muscat that it did from Doha.

Even the Biden administration tired of Qatar’s double game with Hamas, leading to (alongside the realization that President Donald Trump did not play by the same niceties) the expulsion of Hamas’s political leadership to Turkey.

Increasingly, while the Omani government says they are merely interlocutors with the Houthis, providing space for diplomacy, they seem to enable and cheerlead for the Houthis.

They also turn a blind eye to weapons smuggling across their porous border. So long as U.S. diplomats show willful blindness, they will not reform.

Third, the Biden administration’s acquiescence to the international roadmap for Yemen is a disaster.

Not only does the international community appease the Houthis—even Saudi Arabia, which knows better—but the Biden administration also has front-loaded concessions to them that have reduced international leverage and bestowed undeserved legitimacy on the group.

The National Democratic Institute in Washington, D.C., meanwhile undermines the opposition to the Houthis by seeking to empower the Muslim Brotherhood in its midst.

Yemenis, like Syrians, have endured civil war for too long. While the Houthi government in Sana’a lacks the international recognition Assad received, it asserts the same control over the capital and its immediate environs that Assad once did.

It is as corrupt as Assad and as unable to provide living standards commensurate with Yemen’s potential. In short, the Yemenis could turn on the Houthis if the international community signaled a lack of willingness to abide by the status quo.

Bashar al-Assad reportedly has arrived in Russia after fleeing Syria. Surely, he is lonely. Perhaps it is time to send Houthi leaders to join him and, by doing so, to restore stability and security to the entirety of the Arabian Peninsula.

HouthisTerrorismYemen