by Marilyn Stern
Middle East Forum Webinar February 12, 2024
Michael Rubin, director of policy analysis at the Middle East Forum and senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, spoke to a February 12 Middle East Forum podcast (video). The following summarizes his comments:
Iranian-backed Houthi militants are harming the international economy by disrupting global shipping in the Red Sea with anti-ship missile and drone attacks. The Houthis, a Shia tribe in northern Yemen, have been accumulating weapons since their uprising in 2004 against the government of Yemen. In 2009, Iran shipped weaponry to the Houthis in an effort to counter its regional Sunni foe, Saudi Arabia, which had begun “sectarian propaganda” against the Houthis. Iran’s assertiveness coincided with the commencement of the Obama administration, and the regime, which was emboldened to “test the waters,” concluded that there was “permissiveness.”
Even today, many U.S. policymakers are in denial regarding “Iranian fingerprints” in the Houthis’ actions, fearing that policy recommendations would then have to address Iran as a “rogue regime.” One need only consider Iranian rhetoric to recognize the alliance between the regime and the Houthis. In January 2015, Ali Shirazi, Iran’s representative to the Quds Force, a branch of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) charged with cultivating and supporting terrorist groups, considered the Houthis “a version of Hezbollah” that confronts Islam’s enemies. In May 2015, Ali Khamenei, the Supreme Leader of the Islamic Republic of Iran, indirectly reinforced Shirazi’s pronouncement, citing the regime’s responsibility to support “the oppressed people” of Yemen. When Iranian leaders speak on behalf of supporting the Houthis, “we need to take them at their word.”
Understanding the Iranian dictatorship requires American analysts to put aside “wishful thinking” and admit Iran is a “dictatorship of omission rather than commission.” Whatever Khamenei does not expressly forbid is permitted, which can be seen in how the Quds Force and the IRGC operate. There is a “separate culture of command” not typically found in other dictatorships, so that a Houthis drone strike on a ship leaves no “smoking gun” pointing to a direct order from Iran.
😀 Way to go!
https://www.jewishpress.com/news/middle-east/iran-news/iranian-ship-ignores-distress-call-from-nearby-ship-struck-by-houthis/2024/06/17/
One aspect of the Yemen mess that no one is talking about is that “Yemen” is the result of a very unwise union between two previously separate independent states, North Yemen and South Yemen. These two countries had different histories, different religious affiliations, and different tribal identities. They should never have been united ito one state, since they had always been two separate countries with two different national identities. That is one of the main reasons that the Houthis became proxies of Iran, their fellow Shiites. The defeat of the Houthis, although necessary to protect international shipping, will be a mixed blessing for the West, since the opposing army is affiliated with al-Quaeda and ISIS.