Houthi supporters demonstrate in support of Palestine during the Gaza War on December 29,  2024. Peredur Morgan says the Houthis should be viewed as strongly armed partners of Iran, rather than pirates. (Shutterstock/YemenVision)

How the West Misreads the Houthis

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The Houthis will likely become a more integrated tool of Iranian strategy over time.

Yemen is one of the world’s prime examples of a failed state, with Yemeni GDP per capita now estimated to be only $471 after over a decade of brutal civil war. Sophistication is not therefore a quality which springs to mind when we conjure an image of Ansar Allah, commonly known as the Houthis. One might instead be tempted to envision the Houthis’ threats to international shipping in the region as a group akin to Somali Pirates, who have long troubled the waters near Yemen through their opportunistic buccaneering. Or one might think of the Tusken Raiders as one Navy pilot did: desert-dwelling nomads prone to aggression in the Star Wars franchise. Such images underestimate both the Houthis’ strength and the geopolitical risk they pose to the West.

The Iranian-led “Axis of Resistance” has been greatly weakened over the past three years. Israel has seriously degraded the capabilities........

© The National Interest