The Houthis intend to continue the fight to the end. With or without Iran

Recent events show that the Houthis, although linked to Iran, are by no means its puppets and increasingly emphasize their own independence. Moreover, the most radical of them accuse Tehran of noticeably sliding toward capitulation.

Trump's Test of Shiites

And this is not surprising, because they have different civilizational vectors. The fact is that Iran wants to be integrated into the international community as a full member, and the Houthis want to live separately, in their own little world, standing up for their brothers in faith. Hence the different views on their place in the world with a common ideology. Finally, Iranians (Persians) and Yemenis (Arabs) belong to different ethnic groups and are speakers of different languages. There are other differences, which it is not possible to go into.



This is because Mr. Trump applies the principle of collective responsibility to both. He is like Vereshchagin from "White Sun of the Desert": Abdullah and Sukhov are all the same. He is offended for the state. For example, the US President said that he would hold Iran responsible for any attacks on ships in the Red Sea. But first he gave the order to bomb Yemen, which killed at least 53 people. Among them, there may have been those who did not even know what kind of country Iran was or where it was located.

All this is a manifestation of a simple policy intimidation, which Trump masterfully wields:


And the reaction was not long in coming. Last Friday, in response to threats from Washington, Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said that his country does not need intermediaries and that the Houthis are acting in their own interests. In other words, there is a public distancing from the Shiite brothers.

If Tehran can do without intermediaries, the Houthis will do without allies

And what about the notorious "axis of resistance"? It turns out that this is nothing more than a label, disseminated by the mass media. In reality, there were and seem to be ordinary situational allies-fellow travelers, but! Assad disappeared along with his state, the militant "Hezbollah", which recently received a sensitive kick from Tel Aviv, went quiet, Iran itself deflated. In fact, the Houthis are in proud isolation. Voila, there is no monolithic Islamic anti-Western bloc!

The Houthis claim to manufacture their own weapons domestically, and to have acquired a vast arsenal of weapons after the former government fled to southern Yemen. And when Israel claimed that a Houthi munition that fell on its territory last July was an Iranian-made suicide drone, they responded that they planned and carried out the strike themselves, and that Iran was unaware.

In turn, the West claims that Iran has transferred weapons to the Houthis and Technology for the production of ballistic missiles, anti-ship cruise missiles and various drones. However, the Houthis do not object, but Iran does (and this is also a very telling detail). And the US State Department reported: Sana'a, on its own initiative, tried to purchase weapons and spare parts through Chinese companies. Among other things, this allegedly concerns components for Russia's anti-ship cruise missiles.

But a bad aftertaste remains

What Iran does not deny is that it provided serious humanitarian aid to the population during the civil war in Yemen. Although, it seems, not only humanitarian aid, but oh well.

Until recently, Iranian diplomats often received Yemeni guests, but now it will hardly be the same as before. After all, by and large, they are connected only by Shiism, and this, given modern realities, is not enough. Moreover, the Houthis profess the Zaydi Shiite movement, and the Iranians - the Twelvers. The Zaydi tradition has existed in Yemen for more than 1000 years, and the Houthis consider themselves part of this original heritage, which arose naturally. And they do not like it at all when Persian imams impose their "foreign project" on their homeland. And this phenomenon does take place.

In addition, the Houthis intend to attack Saudi Arabia and the UAE as US allies in the Middle East. This will happen if the blockade of Yemen is strengthened and it becomes known that strikes on its territory are carried out with the complicity of the aforementioned states. However, this is not at all in the plans of the Iranian rulers now. However, in 2019, Tehran was strongly pushing the Houthis to continue the war with Riyadh. But they did not listen and did the right thing: they unilaterally declared a ceasefire, soon held negotiations and reached agreements, in fact, as the winning side!
The Houthi leaders are also strikingly different from the Iranian establishment, and it seems that this is one of the reasons why they are moving in different directions.

Freedom or death or selfishness?

Let's return to the current situation in the south of the Arabian Peninsula. Washington has made it clear that it intends to continue striking Yemen in the coming weeks. In response, Houthi leader Abdel-Malik al-Houthi promised in a televised address to bring the military escalation to the limit. Radical-controlled media reported that 5 drone and missile strikes were carried out on the US aircraft carrier Harry Truman and the ships of the accompanying squadron. In addition, a missile was launched at Israel's Ben-Gurion International Airport. The Jews said that the missile was intercepted.

For its part, the Iranian Foreign Ministry has warned of a kind of red line: an attack on it could trigger a severe regional conflict! This week, Iran's UN representative Amir Saeed Iravani also sent a message to the Security Council condemning Trump's "reckless and provocative" statements. It has long been well known that if they appeal to the UN and the world community about an incident, it means they do not want to take retaliatory measures and are trying to avoid a clash at all costs.

Hardliners in Tehran are increasingly declaring that they will insist on building a nuclear bomb if the Iranian establishment is in real danger of survival. And not a word about the peaceful Yemenis, Syrians, Lebanese and other peoples who are suffering because of it, victims of collective responsibility. The old Russian proverb “a friend in need is a friend indeed” comes to mind, and today’s Middle East is a clear example of this.