رهف الحمود - Rahaf Alhamoud

My article: Can We Make Peace with the Houthis? 🇸🇦🇾🇪 After 15 years of conflict with the Houthis in Yemen, some favour dealing with the group as the regime in control rather than continuing to fight it. After all, they say, most of those who ruled Sanaa in the past were recognised regardless of their identity or ideology. This is a realistic approach. The problem, however, lies in the Houthis’ own agenda. They seek to control the state’s resources and institutions while waging wars aligned with Iran’s interests. The events of 2013–2015 offer a clear test case. The Houthis were invited to join the Dialogue Conference and signed the peace agreement, gaining political representation. In return, they were required to hand over their medium and heavy weapons to the state. Instead, they seized state institutions, detained President Hadi and dissolved parliament, triggering war among Yemenis. A second test came when former President Ali Abdullah Saleh entered a governing “partnership” with the Houthis. Though out of office, Saleh still controlled most of the armed forces. Yet he too misjudged the militia, which ultimately killed him in 2017. Some may see it simply as a power struggle that ended in Houthi supremacy and argue that we should therefore have accepted the new reality and dealt with it accordingly. Why not be pragmatic now and deal with whoever rules Sanaa, just as we did in the past, from Imam Yahya to President al-Iryani and ultimately President Saleh? That approach has already been tried. But the Houthis refused to make the transition from ideological movement to state authority. They continued to wage war against Yemenis, neighboring Saudi Arabia and the wider region. To understand whether the Houthis are a state or a militia, we should compare them with ISIS and Hezbollah. True, ISIS represents an extreme case. It rejected the idea of the state and sought to establish a caliphate without borders. Hezbollah adopted a mixed model in which it participates in state institutions while remaining an armed militia that takes orders from abroad. The Houthis are more similar to the Hezbollah model a militia dressed as a government while answering to Iran. The Saudis dealt with different previous Yemeni states. But this approach has failed with the Houthis. Could one argue that the Houthis remain armed and rebellious because their neighbors and the international community refused to recognize them or give them a chance? Recent history shows exactly the opposite. The Americans, Europeans and UN gave them an opportunity to be recognised. The Stockholm Agreement in 2018 saved them from defeat and collapse. Western governments that accommodated them tried and failed to turn them into a civilian political movement and a normal government. Riyadh then tried again, working with Muscat and the UN envoy. They offered the Houthis incentives to become peaceful neighbors and end the war. Saudi Arabia paid their employees’ salaries and allowed them to run airports and ports. A senior Saudi delegation visited them in their “capital,” Sanaa, as a major gesture of political recognition. These efforts aimed to turn Houthi rule into a friendly neighboring “state.” Meanwhile, the militia was secretly working with Iran to build its offensive military capabilities. In 2023, it returned to waging war against its neighbors to look more like an armed Iranian proxy. Contrary to what some believe, the Houthis are Iranian proxy, not the nucleus of an ordinary Yemeni system of government. There is a clear distinction between an ally and a subordinate. An ally is someone whose interests coincide with yours. A subordinate is someone whose will is constrained by yours.

صادرات النفط السعودية تعود الى مستوياتها العليا