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The overthrow of the Assad dynasty of Syria and the fall of Damascus to the rebel forces led by Abu Mohammad al Joulani’s Islamist militant outfit Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) marks the beginning of a new chapter in Syrian history. For a country ruled for the past five decades by the Ba’athists and characterised by a glacial pace of change, the scope of the upheaval was unprecedented. The Assads fled from Damascus on December 8 and landed in Moscow, their steadfast ally, where they received asylum. Assad’s defeat was greeted with spontaneous celebrations in Syrian cities, villages, and among the Syrian diaspora despite the great uncertainty about the new dispensation.
Assad’s fall marks the near-complete evaporation of the nucleus of Iran’s Axis of Resistance: it precedes the dilution of Hezbollah’s striking abilities and the assassination of their top leaders; Hamas is embroiled in a war of attrition with the militarily and numerically superior Israeli Defence Forces and has witnessed the erosion of the fractional legitimacy it enjoyed among the Palestinians. Syria remains as fractured as before—divided between the Kurds, the HTS, and a host of rebel outfits—and a playground for regional powers.
Iran’s influence, however, extends to Iraq, notably through the umbrella grouping of Shia militant groups, the Popular Mobilisation Forces; and Yemen, through the Ansarallah, also known as the Houthis. Whereas they had offered support to the Assad regime over the years, their participation in the current imbroglio was peripheral and, when seen against the backdrop of the continual withdrawal of Iran’s Quds Forces from Syria days before the fall of Damascus, it hints at Iran’s acceptance of the inevitable and the tempering of its partners’ objectives to merely keeping control over their core areas of influence.
Yet the Houthis’ peripheral role should not be conflated with a reduction in their influence and disruptive capacities. Last month, on the day of Trump’s victory in the US Presidential Elections, the Houthis claimed responsibility for shooting down an MQ-9 Reaper drone. This was followed by missile launches at the USS Abraham Lincoln, which were foiled by the US Navy. Since February 2024, over ten US-made drones have been shot down by the Houthis, underscoring their continuous resolve to fight the US and its regional allies, as well as the precision of their surface-to-air missiles in an unconventional, asymmetric war of the kind Iran’s partners in the region have persistently waged.
They have not been deterred by the US-led naval coalition, comprising Australia, the UK, and Bahrain, among over 20 members, called the Operation Prosperity Guardian, formed to counter their attacks on merchant vessels; Israeli strikes on Al-Hudaydah, a strategic port on the Red Sea under Houthi control, failed to put an end to Houthi hostilities. The Houthis continue to take advantage of their access to two of the busiest chokepoints in maritime trade—the Red Sea and Bab-al-Mandab Strait—to jeopardise supply chains and spike the time and cost of trade across the region.
As this article will show, the prospects of a dampening of Houthi spirits are not high. This article will first explain the impact of Houthi actions in the Red Sea and provide reasons why the Houthis, Saudi Arabia, and the US may not be interested in the cessation of hostilities.
The Red Sea Crisis: The Houthi Predicament
Yemen’s geostrategic relevance is not lost on the Houthis. Yemen’s coastline faces the Red Sea down to the Bab-el-Mandab Strait, which are critical bottlenecks for major commercial supply chains. Since 2014, after they expelled the Saudi-backed Hadi regime in the wake of popular resentment, the Houthis have controlled the western half of the Gulf state, including the capital Sana’a, ports like Hodeida, and the country’s mountainous hinterland.
Yemen is a tapestry of proxy and regional rivalries, some of whose actors are controlled by the Saudi-backed Internationally Recognised Government of Yemen (IRGY), based in Aden, the UAE-backed Southern Transitional Council, and the Houthis. Terrorist organisations such as Al-Qaeda and ISIS hold small pockets of territory. While the flaring up of the Israel-Palestine conflict provides a necessary prelude, analysts would be remiss if they dismissed the one-upmanship demonstrated by the Houthis in their systematic disruption to global supply chains. Given that 14% of global trade goes across the Red Sea, the consequences of the Houthi take-over along its shores have been devastating, thereby lending the group greater leverage in negotiations and inspiring fear and obedience among the disgruntled masses in the region. Since November 2023, the Houthis have incessantly targeted merchant vessels from countries supporting Israel; shipping majors like AP Møller-Maersk have had to reroute ships plying between Europe and Asia around Africa and the Cape of Good Hope, causing sailing time to increase by 17%, thereby increasing freight costs. That has had a cascading impact on inflation. The Houthis were the first among the junior partners of Iran to jump into the Israel-Gaza conflict, trying to burnish their image as the protectors of their Muslim brethren to rally Muslims around the flag of resistance to the US-Israeli alliance.
Endless Conflict
The Houthis, much like other Iranian allies, are fighting an asymmetrical battle against the Israelis, relying on unconventional offensive tactics by targeting merchant vessels and Israeli cities with their drones and missiles. By extorting money for safe passage in the Bab-el Mandab and Red Sea and diverting humanitarian aid to serve their strategic ends, the Houthis have acquired a modicum of financial freedom from cash-strapped Iran to conduct their activities; moreover, by setting aside their sectarian differences with the Al-Qaeda in Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) and its affiliate in East Africa, the al-Shabaab – which is behind the revival of piracy in the western Indian Ocean—the Houthis have evinced some relative autonomy from the Iranian regime. Sect-agnostic, pragmatist alliance-building is a hallmark of the Houthi-Iran relationship as well, considering that the Zaydi Shiite brand of the Houthis significantly differs from the Twelver Shi’ism, the official creed of the Islamic Republic.
It is, therefore, misleading to treat the Houthis as a mere proxy of Iran. By building a continued resistance to Operation Prosperity Guardian and launching the earliest offensive against Israel after its operations in Gaza, coupled with the draconian implementation of the Sharia, the Houthis are branding themselves as protectors of Islam, undercutting their ally by forging agreements with sectarian rivals across the wider region to mount a multi-pronged offensive against Western powers and Israel. Whether agreeing to truce with Saudi Arabia when hostilities became mutually unsustainable in 2019 and 2022 or attacking Tel Aviv in July, the Houthis have demonstrated operational freedom from Iran, whereas Hezbollah and Hamas have not. Now that Iran’s influence in the region is on the wane, Ansarullah is undercutting Tehran by canvassing Chinese and Russian assistance for finances and military logistics. As a show of defiance to the new administration soon to come in Washington D.C., the Houthis may deliberately raise the stakes and reject talks to signal their resilience in the conflict.
The human and military costs skyrocketed with the entry of the Saudi-UAE-led alliance of Gulf monarchies in the Yemen internecine conflict in 2015. Saudi Arabia’s unprecedented belligerence owed to the policy changes introduced by Crown Prince Muhammad bin Salman, asserting his authority among his cousins and burnishing Saudi Arabia’s role as a regional leader. A belligerent foreign policy seemed opportune for Riyadh at the time when the Obama Administration ignored its interests in the negotiations with Iran on the nuclear issue. As the conflict lingered on and the Houthis showed unexpected resilience, Saudi Arabian casualties climbed; over 1000 soldiers died in border clashes while Saudi bombings caused a humanitarian catastrophe for Yemen’s impoverished population. Because of disquiet on its southern border on one hand, and of growing criticism and condemnation from its Western allies on another, Saudi Arabia was compelled to agree to a ceasefire with the Houthis on terms contrary to Prince Salman’s aims. The UAE’s objectives which include the secession of Yemen’s South differ from Saudi Arabia’s, and Abu Dhabi’s forces were relatively more successful in their operations than the Saudis, which exacerbated the competition between the two unsteady allies and Salman’s embarrassment.
Nevertheless, Saudi Arabia could resume hostilities in Yemen. The return of the Trump Administration, with Marco Rubio as Secretary of State and a possible new role for Jared Kushner in Trump’s Middle East policy, is expected to give more elbow room to the Saudis to pursue their regional ambitions. Salman will also be keen to exploit the emerging bipolar regional order in the wake of Iran’s apparent retrenchment, from which the benefits are likely to be shared between Turkey and Israel. Incidentally, the reversal in the American stance versus the Saudis was witnessed with the inauguration of the Biden Presidency, before Biden visited the Middle East in 2022, despite having vowed to ostracise Salman. Trump and Salman are strongmen who have an inflated self-perception of their ability to control events and they share an impatience with diplomacy. Trump, coming with a massive mandate in what will be his last term as President, will try to leave a lasting legacy, of which a resolution of the Red Sea Crisis by putting an end to the Houthi problem might be a crucial component. Since inflation was a decisive factor in this year’s elections in the US, any further hostility directed at merchant ships in the Red Sea could be met with a crushing response from the US. Besides being influenced by personal relations and domestic demands, Trump’s actions in the Middle East, be it the assassination of Qassem Soleimani or the relocation of the US Embassy in Israel to Jerusalem, have been impulse-driven and likewise, his quick temper could push Trump to ratchet up the confirmation with the Houthis. A less capable or more moderate Iran may embolden Trump and his allies in Riyadh and Abu Dhabi to deal a blow to the Houthis.
To conclude, Assad’s ouster implies a decline in Iran’s regional ambitions. However, instead of dampening Houthi spirits, it will encourage them to exercise strategic and operational autonomy, which, if unchecked, could transform them into a trans-regional terrorist organisation, connected with other militant groups in littoral states of the Western Indian Ocean. Saudi Arabia may be emboldened by Trump’s return to resume aggressive foreign policy, particularly on the pretext of the Houthis not ceasing, or possibly escalating, their operations in the Red Sea. Trump’s nomination of Marco Rubio as Secretary of State signals a hardening of American position on the Middle East; if Trump surrounds himself with people unwilling to disagree, groupthink will radicalise his policy.
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