Saudi Arabia and the Yemen dilemma
Summary: the Huthi offensive has heightened the challenge Saudi Arabia faces in its efforts to extricate the kingdom from the Yemen quagmire.
We thank James Spencer for today’s newsletter. James is a retired British infantry commander who specialised in low-intensity conflict. He is an independent analyst on political, security and economic issues of West Asia and North Africa and a specialist on Yemen.
The Saudis are on the horns of a dilemma: their conflict with the Huthis of Yemen has re-ignited, and their choices seem limited to continuing the war in pursuit of victory or buying off the Huthis. The problem with the former is that the Saudi-led Coalition has tried and failed while the problem with paying protection money is that the recipient almost always comes back for more.
It’s worth re-capping how and why the original situation arose: the UAE and Saudi Arabia intervened as part of their counter-Arab Spring strategy to prop up the late Abd Rabuh Mansur Hadi, the secular frontman they had installed. A twelve year-long war, pitting the Huthis against the anti-Huthi factions supported by Saudi and Emirati forces, saw heavy bombing resulting in the Huthis being pushed back to the mountains (apart from the Red Sea port of Hodeidah) while holding the capital Sana’a. The bombing campaign achieved little other than large numbers of civilian casualties and ruinous expense. (Reconstruction costs are estimated at US$ 20-25 billion.) The Huthis had also developed the strategy of firing UAVs and missiles at military and civilian targets in the UAE and and Saudi Arabia and using missiles, UAVs and naval drones against military and commercial ships in the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden.
After Hamas’ attack on Israeli in October 2023, the Huthis fired missiles and long-range UAVs at Israel, causing some casualties and damage. In response, the US initiated Operation Rough Rider, aided by Britain and Israel, a 1000 target bombing campaign which despite Trump’s claims accomplished little at a cumulative cost of more than US$1 billion, bringing Washington only a non-aggression pact with the Huthis.
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Saudi Arabia's energy minister has vowed a "serious" response to the deadly attacks on the kingdom's airports and oil and gas facilities by Yemen's Ansar Allah (Huthi) movement.
On 13 July this year, an Iranian flight tried to bring Huthi representatives attending Ayatollah Khamenei’s funeral back from Tehran to Sana’a. There were probably both Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps personnel and materiel on board as well. The Saudis bombed the runway to prevent the landing, although the plane landed safely in Hodeidah. Using this attack as an excuse, the Huthis declared a maritime blockade of Saudi Arabia and began to fire missiles at Saudi airfields and commercial targets. Subsequently, the Huthis stormed south along the Red Sea coast, routing the troops of the former president’s nephew (some of whom reputedly sold their weapons to the Huthis), and capturing first the port of Mokha then the island of Perim in the Bab al-Mandab straits, through which 12% of global trade passes.
While the West connects this to the US/Israeli conflict with Iran, the Huthis’ actions have a mostly domestic and economic purpose: the blockade is hurting them, as is the massive reduction in aid; opposition (and its repression) in Huthi areas has increased: an external enemy is always a politically useful distraction. They have taken advantage of schisms in the anti-Huthi coalition, the Riyadh - Abu Dhabi split and American and Saudi focus on Iran (and their greatly depleted stocks of interceptors) to gain territory in Yemen.
Like Afghanistan, Yemen is a graveyard of empires: the Romans lost an army there under Aelius Gallus in 24BC; an Ottoman governor remarked that he was "losing troops like salt dissolving in water"; the Sunni Wahhabis from what is now Saudi Arabia ran into trouble on several occasions; and the Egyptians still don't know exactly how many troops they lost there in the 1960s. That’s partly due to the the martial skills of the Huthi but also because geography is on the defenders’ side. The Coalition tried to invade the mountains (with a more powerful force than now), and the US heavily bombed Yemen, both in vain. Trump has recently rebuffed Saudi calls for help nor are the Pakistanis or Turks under the new Mecca Pact keen to get involved. History dictates that going down the kinetic road is unlikely to succeed. So the military option is probably not viable.
The Saudis’ suggested alternative option is to buy the Huthis off. While US$50m was reputedly the price after the 2009 campaign, the Huthis are in a far stronger position now and so the price will be vastly higher - at a time when Saudi coffers are less flush. And unless the problem is solved permanently the demand and threats of attack will return when the Huthis have spent whatever sum they manage to extract.
Therefore, the financial option is probably not viable either.
One stumbling block to addressing 'the Huthi problem' is that neither Saudi Arabia, the USA nor the Internationally Recognised Government has been prepared to accept a negotiated agreement, instead demanding an unconditional Huthi surrender and humiliating disarmament. Yet the IRG and their backers lack the military capability and/or the political will to defeat the Huthis and the financial cost of continuing the conflict keeps rising (particularly if the Huthis blockade Bab al-Mandab.) A negotiated agreement is unpalatable but probably necessary.
Do the initial drivers of the conflict remain or has the situation changed?
In 2015, Riyadh and Abu Dhabi’s main concern was to ensure the defeat of the Arab Spring was secure. In that they have succeeded and a battered Yemen is unlikely to see more uprisings until it is rehabilitated and its people can concentrate on more than survival. Saudi Arabia and the UAE are now more concerned with transforming their economies to a post-oil future (a future hastened by the closure of the Straits of Hormuz), and by the threat of Iran, which musters far larger armed forces than their Arab neighbours. They could probably accept an Arab-oriented, federal Yemen in which the Huthis have a role in government but do not rule outright.
The various factions of the IRG mostly wanted to continue Ali Abdullah Salih’s kleptocracy, differing mainly in who should rule. That originally involved keeping the Huthis from getting a share of the pie; but if the pie can be grown enough for all, the IRG can probably be persuaded to accept a deal.
That leaves the Huthis’ position. If the Saudis (and the Emiratis) undertake to stop interfering in Yemen, to allow a government in which the Huthis have meaningful participation and Riyadh agrees to pay reparations for the war damage, the Huthis can probably be persuaded to accept a peace in which they have international legitimacy.
The first step should be to reduce the leverage the Huthi have through their indirect fire capability: as seen in Ukraine, cheap air defence and counter-UAV systems provide at least some of the solution. Having evened the odds, a ceasefire, both domestically and internationally, would be easier to achieve. That should be followed by a conference involving all Yemeni factions, chaired by an impartial arbiter – perhaps Haitham, the Sultan of Oman. That should then be followed by general elections, with the government to be formed using the d’Hondt system, ensuring each faction gets influence but none dominates. The government’s first order of business should be distilling, developing and implementing the Outcomes of the National Dialogue Conference and the Peace and National Partnership Agreement. Simultaneously, there should be comprehensive security sector reform, a well-funded effort to rehabilitate Yemen under the aegis of the Aga Khan’s Development Network and an independent counter-corruption programme. Finally, a truth and reconciliation commission will be needed to gain closure, covering not just the recent conflict, but going back to the beginnings of the civil war era.
A tall order - and with the recent deadly attacks on Riyadh’s international airport reverberating one admittedly with only a thin hope of seeing the light of day - but that’s how Saudi Arabia escapes being further impaled on the horns of the Yemen dilemma.
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