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- [00:00]
A
Hello, dear listeners. Welcome back to Conflicted. Now listen, dear listeners, today's episode, this is a Tuesday episode, is meant to have Amon Dean in it. It's meant to be a conversation between me and Eamon, like every Tuesday. However, yesterday at the very last minute, Eamonn texted me and said, thomas, Thomas, Thomas, I've been called away from Dubai at the last minute for an absolutely important meeting in some place that I cannot disclose to you with, that I cannot tell you, but it's really important. I just can't be there for Monday's recording. Please, please, please, what can we do? I said, eamon, don't worry, it's okay. I mean, it's a shame, dear listeners, because so much is happening, so much has happened today. You know, yesterday President Trump threatened to obliterate power plants across Iran if the Strait of Hormuz wasn't fully open in 48 hours. Iran, of course, mocked this. And then today, Trump initially said that good had convinced him to postpone the ultimatum by five days. So you think, what's going on? We heard that the US 82nd Airborne Division arrived in the region this morning. So you think, okay, are they going to make that move on Kharg Island? What's going on there? The Jerusalem Post then announced that the US Is in talks with the Iranian speaker of Parliament, Mohammad Bagr Ghaliba. And Trump himself, I think on Fox News said that these talks included Jared Kushner and Steve Witkoff and then Gali Baf himself posted on X saying, no, no, there's been no negotiations at all. Again, what's going on? The Supreme Leader is, we assume, still alive, or is he? The IRGC and the Basij are still powerful enough to rebuild their offensive posture throughout the region. Or are they? Have the foundations been laid for a transition led by senior Iranian politicians to a properly civilian led, non clerical, non military government? Who knows? This is why it would be good to talk to Eamon, because he will probably know more certainly than me, however, because he can't be here and he won't be here until Thursday. So we have to wait 48 more hours to hear the Oracle of Arabia's take on all of this. I am extremely pleased to say that at the last minute, an old friend of a friend of the show has agreed to come on. The excellent person, Nedwa Dosseri, a researcher, a conflict analyst, a policy advisor. This is how she describes herself on the Internet. Works for the Middle east institute in Washington D.C. and a real good friend and old friend of friend of the Show Bara Shaban Nedwa Dosri, you have agreed to come on Conflicted, really, at the last minute to fill in for aim, And I can't thank you enough. Thank you so much for being here.
- [03:04]
B
Thank you, Thomas. It's a great pleasure. I'm a huge fan of the show and of Ayman, of course. I mean, he is the best and Bara is brilliant. So thank you for having me.
- [03:13]
A
Eamonn, when I texted him to say, hey, what do you think? Shall I ask Nedwa Dosseri on for a special guest episode to fill your shoes? And he texted back a little heart emoji.
- [03:27]
B
That's so Ayman.
- [03:28]
A
He's very pleased that you're filling in for him today. And I am too, because I've been following you on X, I think, for 10 years now. Cause I met Bara in 2016, if I'm not mistaken. And he told me in the very first conversation, oh, you've gotta follow Nedwa Dosseri on Twitter, as it then was. And I have been following you, but this is the first time we're really meeting and I'm really pleased about it.
- [03:53]
B
Thank you. I'm a little off leash on Twitter, but. Yeah.
- [03:56]
A
Well, we hope you're gonna be off leash on Conflicted today, Nedwa, because, my God, what isn't happening in the Middle East?
- [04:04]
B
Oh, my gosh.
- [04:05]
A
And yet a lot of people are not paying enough attention on Yemen, perhaps, as always, but certainly right now the focus is on Iran and the gcc. But Yemen is there. Yemen is crucial. We're going to talk about it, dear listeners. Ned was going to tell us all about where the Houthis stand at the moment in relation to the Iranian regime, how likely it is that they will join in the war on the Iranian side, when that might happen, why they haven't joined so far. All the questions we're going to ask her. It's going to be great. I cannot wait. Let's get right into it. Nedwa, here on Conflicted, we like to be friends. I consider you a friend already. I am. And so I want to get to know you a little bit better, you know, we like to introduce our guests to the listeners. So you are from Yemen, but where exactly are you from in Yemen?
- [05:01]
B
I'm from Dais, originally from Marib. I trace my roots to Marib. I went to school and spent most of my life in Yemen, and then I moved to the US in 2012. I come from a sort of peace building background. When I was in Yemen, I did peace building I worked with the tribes, I worked with civil society. And then I moved to the US in 2012. And because I'm no longer in the field or I was no longer in the field, I became more involved in policy. So writing, advocating, sort of driven by the desire to challenge many of the stereotypes on Yemen and internal dynamics in Yemen and the conflict in Yemen and then the war happened and that kind of pulled me, pulled me more into that community, if you will. I started writing on the conflict dynamics, particularly on the Houthis, but also on the security dynamics, conflict dynamics within the country and then in relation to sort of the regional dynamics. So Saudi Arabia, Iran, I'm now more. I've been working on also the Houthis and the Horn of Africa, you know, Iran and Axis of Resistance activities beyond just, you know, Yemen. Because it's all sort of interconnected.
- [06:20]
A
Well, it's because, you know about all that stuff that you're, you're here today. You know, let's just kind of set the scene a bit more back in. You said you, you left Yemen in 2012, so the Arab Spring is in full swing at the time. And when you said you were working in, in sort of peace building and stuff, you mean in that context, I suppose you were out there in Sana' a when the Arab Spring broke out in Yemen in 2011.
- [06:48]
B
Yes, and I was part of that uprising. Yes, I was in Sana', a, but I worked mostly outside Sana', A, mostly in tribal areas that were, they had governance, but also tribal conflict programs and security issues. I started working with the tribes into 2005 and I became completely in love with the tribal. It was just fascinating because I come from an urban background, from Tai. So in Yemen, urban people have inherited sort of bias against tribes and they tend to view tribes as the source of all evil.
- [07:28]
A
Backwards, uncivilized, barbaric.
- [07:31]
B
Exactly. And obstructors of rule of law, anti state and you know, all that nonsense I came to learn later. So I became really fascinated by the tribal system, which is extremely sophisticated.
- [07:45]
A
That's great. Listen. We could rehash the Arab Spring, but our listeners know that story. And if you're a new listener to Conflicted, just go back, listen to. I think it was our fourth episode, maybe our third. It was on Yemen. It's still one of our best. It really explains that whole story very clearly. Or you could go and listen to the incredible five part series we did with Bharat Shaban and that really goes into it in even more detail. So we don't need to rehash that story, Ned. In fact, what I'd rather do right now is for you to explain to me how tribes work and function in Yemen. If you say that urban Yemenis have a bias, a prejudice against tribal Yemenis, imagine what Westerners think when the word tribe comes to their minds. They don't have the first idea in reality what it means. What is a Yemeni tribe and what role does it play in the culture, in the politics, and even in the economy of Yemen?
- [08:46]
B
Yeah, I think urban Yemenis kind of borrowed that bias against the tribes from Western sources because of their education and background. Many of people in urban areas are, you know, they're kind of leaning left. So in terms of tribes in Yemen, I think a lot of people tend to confuse tribes with tribal leaders and confuse the actions of individual tribesmen with their tribes. I think it's important to make the distinction in order to understand what is the tribal system and how it functions. The tribes in Yemen are social units, they're not political units. In other words, a tribal leader does not command and control his tribesmen. He doesn't have absolute authority over his tribesmen. The tribes are sort of governed by some sort of a. I like to call it a social contract between tribesmen, between tribesmen and tribal leaders. And basically the main goal of the tribal system or customary law is to preserve peace, to preserve harmony, social cohesion. And so it's really. The concept of collective responsibility is very strong in the tribal system, and the interest of the collective sort of overrides the interest of the individual.
- [10:12]
A
Sounds pretty leftist, actually.
- [10:14]
B
Well, yes, because here's the thing.
- [10:18]
A
I mean, I think a lot of people, even pretty conservative people like me, we think of tribes, we think of Yemeni tribes, and I think maybe we incline towards images of patriarchy, of authoritarianism, of a kind of rigid lack of freedom, all that sort of thing. I mean, is that true?
- [10:39]
B
No, it's not true. I mean, it's a Middle Eastern society, so there is a level of patriarchy. Men are dominant over women. But that's not only limited to tribal societies. It's even in urban societies. It's actually more women. Women in tribal areas have stronger voice than women in urban areas when it comes to their communities. But my point is tribal structure, tribal system is very egalitarian. Tribesmen can choose what they want. They can choose which political party to pick, who to fight for. The only thing that they need to keep in mind is that their choices must not impact the tribe in a negative way. So a tribal Leader does not have absolute authority over his men. He can influence them, but he cannot force them. He cannot force them to fight for the Houthis or fight for the government they choose to.
- [11:29]
A
What makes a tribal leader leader in the first place? What criteria makes a man the leader of a tribe in Yemen?
- [11:35]
B
Okay, so where the tribal leaders have authority is not in the political decisions. It's when it comes to tribal law application. So as judges in the tribal system, they do have authority.
- [11:49]
A
And these are, I mean, is this judges like in a religious sense, judges? Are they. No, this is a different. This is customary.
- [11:56]
B
This customary law. So when conflict parties go to a tribal, they call them arbitrators to resolve a conflict. It very much mirrors the former rule of law system. The tribal judge or arbitrator, he listens to both parties individually as well, and then he comes with a verdict. That verdict has to be implemented by the parties because the way it goes, they go. And then when they choose an arbitrator, they agree in advance to his verdict. Now there's a system to challenge his verdict to a higher authority, higher tribal customary law authority, okay? But at some point it becomes binding. And then the tribalist system has a way to sort of enforce implementation by the conflict parties. But that's again, that's the only time where tribal leaders have authority. It's when it comes to the implementation of the tribal law. When it comes to political decisions, any other decisions, tribes member are free, okay? Now if their choices affect the tribe negatively, then what happens is that they lose protection from the tribes. And sometimes they can be expelled or disowned by their own tribes.
- [13:12]
A
There's something almost biblical about this description. Like, you know, I'm thinking, you know, of the ancient Israelite judges, like literally men that would be called upon to adjudicate, to defend the collective from outside attack, but basically to render judgments in law. I mean, to make sure that the peace is maintained. And so somehow, through hook or by crook, over all of these millennia, this system has remained intact in Yemen. But how does it relate to, or how could it coexist with the structures of a modern nation state? I perhaps have drunk too much the Kool Aid of modernization theory or whatever, And I have this kind of broad story of 20th century Middle Eastern history that in all these zones, certainly Arabia, Saudi Arabia and other Arabian places, Jordan, Iran, lots of places, the quote unquote tribal, of course, in those places, the tribes are associated with nomadism, which is not, I don't think, the case in Yemen so much. Or if at all. But nonetheless, this sort of clash between a modernizing, centralizing modern nation state and the traditional customary tribal way of life, the tribes had to be crushed. They had to be subservient somehow absorbed into the new way of doing things. But in Yemen, the two structures just coexisted. I mean, surely that's essentially incoherent or destabilizing.
- [14:38]
B
Well, I mean, it did happen in South Yemen during the communist regime that ended with the unification in 1990. The communist regime did crush the tribes and it actually carried mass atrocities against tribal leaders. It executed many of them. It also confiscated their land. Many of them fled the country and some of them fled to the north. So we've had that in, in South Yemen, of course.
- [15:03]
A
That's right. So Yemen wasn't spared that process. And I guess that's one of the reasons why to this day, this quote unquote, South Yemen, which when I look at it on the map, it's more like East Yemen in my mind. But anyway, South Yemen is different from North Yemen, maybe largely because of that reason sometimes.
- [15:20]
B
But even with that, it's really fascinating to see that the tribal system has actually survived and it adapted and it wasn't crushed completely. When unification happened and all those anti tribal policies in the south ended, the tribes sort of reemerged, the tribal system reemerged. Now you see tribes resolve conflicts, simple conflicts, complex conflicts in the south as well. In Abyan, in Hadhramout, in Shabua, in Lahaj. Even in Aden, people seek tribal mediation to solve conflicts because the formal justice system has collapsed in 2014. So in Yemen, it doesn't only coexist with the formal system, it actually complements the formal system in the north. Former president Ali Abdullah Saleh. Most officials come from tribal background and they've learned that this tribal system not only can be, you know, it's also useful. It did help them sort of diffuse tensions with local communities that sometimes resulted from, you know, things from lack of governance to drone strikes that kill local tribal leaders. But I'll tell you a fun fact. So a tribal arbitrator verdict, according to the Yemeni arbitration law that was issued in 1993, is equivalent to a Court of First Instance sentence. So if you have a tribal verdict and you want to challenge it in the court of the of law, you cannot go to a primary court. You have to go to an appeals court to do that.
- [16:57]
A
Ah, it's, it's. So the state, it really is incorporated into the state in that way.
- [17:02]
B
Absolutely. But it also Remains flexible. It has the flexibility of the tribal system, which is very useful because, again, it's based on reconciliation, compromise, you know, and sustaining relationships and social cohesion. So it involves a lot of apology for the wrongdoing, compromise, mending relationships. And that's really useful in a context like Yemen, where the rule of law almost doesn't exist, but at the same time, you know, it's recognized by the form of law.
- [17:34]
A
So, Nedwa, help me understand this. Now, I'm just gonna speak kind of honestly here. I look. I look at you, and you have this amazing style. You're an extremely stylish woman, right? You're, you know, modern woman. You're living in the States. You went to university. You've worked in the think tank world. You know, you have cool glasses. You just, like, look like someone who I would more usually expect to be anti traditional tribes. So what I wonder if maybe I could challenge you to kind of make the case for the salience and the goodness or the utility or the value of tribes. So imagine you're speaking to just your fellow Western person, maybe even your fellow Western woman, and say, no, this is what you really need to understand. This is what being a member of a Yemeni tribe gives you.
- [18:28]
B
Yes. So I'll tell you my story, how I came to this, because I am from dais. I also came from that perspective, came to the tribes from that sort of perception that the tribes are the source of problems in Yemen. I had that perception at some point in my life and not so long ago, let's say 21 years ago. Well, that's so long ago, isn't it?
- [18:53]
A
Oh, dear. Let's not go there.
- [18:55]
B
Okay, let's not go there. But anyway, and at some point, I did write, when I wrote my MA dissertation, I did write that the tribes are a big problem, you know, in Yemen and all of that. And I was one of those people. Right then in 2005, I was offered by NDI, by Robin Madrid from NDI. She was my former boss. He's now my really good friend still. And she. She said I wanted to manage the Tribal Conflict Program. And I'm like, ooh, okay, I like the challenge. So I took it as a challenge. And then I started working with the tribes, and I was just amazed by how sophisticated they are, even when they disagree, how they carry themselves, how they respect each other, even when they have conflict amongst them. And I was just blown away. Compared to, like us in dais, we literally yell at each other all the time. But then I came to Also learn about the tribal law, because it was part of a study that I was involved in as part of this project or that project. And I met with many tribal leaders, many tribal women and men, young, old, traveled to tribal areas, and I came to appreciate how the tribal system. And you have to understand some of these areas. When you go like Al Jove, it's like you jumped 800 years back, like, absolutely no development.
- [20:14]
A
Oh, you're talking my language now. Nadwa.
- [20:16]
B
Yeah. I mean, Al Jov had no court, no schools, nothing. Okay. Yet these areas were relatively stable, and that's because of the tribal system. And I argue that the tribal system is the reason that Yemen has not descended into chaos. I mean, if you look against all odds, this is the poorest country in the region. Ten years of war, two thirds of the population are in need, yet the crime level is very low. And then I did research on the relationship between the tribes and Al Qaeda.
- [20:49]
A
Oh, that's interesting. Okay, tell us more about that. So Al Qaeda associate, well, maybe largely with the Hadramout and places in southern Yemen in the desert, but also in Abyan, and. That's right. So down towards Aden, there was sort of Al Qaeda activity down there.
- [21:05]
B
I mean, they're spread out in different areas in, like, small cells. I think the reason why and the research I did, I started doing the research when Al Qaeda took Rada in Baida in 2012. I've done a little bit of research before, but I devoted my time to do that research in 2012, and I have a report that was published in 2018 on that particular subject. I did a lot of interviews. I compiled cases, I gave examples. And I think the conclusion of that study is that tribes in Yemen are the main reason Yemeni society is resilient against groups like Al Qaeda. And the main reason why Al Qaeda could not maintain control over areas geographically, because the tribes are. They don't like ideologies, radical ideologies, I guess.
- [21:54]
A
They don't like anything that destroys their own solidarity, that seduces members of the tribe, maybe young male members of the tribe out, and in a way, encourages them to join another tribe, an ideological tribe.
- [22:06]
B
Exactly. Because ideologies bring instability to tribal areas. And their peace is very fragile because it's based on compromise. Okay. And the younger generation are becoming more and more difficult to sort of control, really, because most of the problem in tribal areas or conflicts happen because of young people. Young people, they just go and they block a road. It's not the tribe that blocked the road. It's a Young person. And then. But his tribe is responsible to undo what he did.
- [22:34]
A
Tell me about it. Nadwa. I mean, I wrote, I had the good fortune to ride a train today in the uk and the young people might. My God, they're nightmares.
- [22:42]
B
They are nightmares. So even in Yemen, everywhere, they're good too. But they can be.
- [22:46]
A
Of course they are. I love young people.
- [22:48]
B
The thing with the tribal system is that they have that collective responsibility notion, which is why that's their antidote to problems. So they come as a collective. For example, if there is an infiltration of Al Qaeda into one of their areas, and usually it's one member of the tribe that invites Al Qaeda members, it's not the tribe. When they say al Qaeda provides safe haven, or tribes provide safe havens to terrorist groups, not the tribe. It's like one person in the tribe usually. And then most of the time, so the tribe would come, they discuss, like the elders in the tribe, the tribal sheikhs, and then they give that person a choice. You either kick these people out or you go, you live with them. And in most cases, these Al Qaeda members, they leave with these tribesmen or without them into, like, mountainous areas that are not near, you know, where the tribal people live. And so again, you know, I came to appreciate the tribal system. I also came to understand that it's not, not quite to the contrary to the perception they're not in conflict with modern state. They complement modern state. I mean, look at the West. The west started doing court annexes and mediation. Okay. Because the courts are so loaded. All right? And we do it in Yemen. It's the culture.
- [24:03]
A
Yeah. And I guess Westerners now, I mean, the West, Western states, Western countries are going through a period of transition. Let us say there's lots of problems going on. And people say that there is a lack of solidarity, there's a lack of communal communitarian feeling, all these things, which, you know, I guess tribalism doesn't lack that. But also what you're saying is that these tribes are not, as we might think, they're not just like wreckers. They're not chaos merchants trying to destroy. They're actually trying to sustain and maintain structures of, of interrelationship, co relationship, co dependence and things like that.
- [24:41]
B
Yeah, and think about it. I mean, tribes in Yemen are heavily armed. They have so many arms, okay? Small arms, medium arms. But you rarely hear about a violence in tribal areas or crime, because even though they have arms, there are very strict laws, tribal laws, tribal, you know, rules against, you know, even pointing a Gun or a knife against somebody, you'll have to pay, like, heavy amends. Tribe has to pay heavy amends, collective responsibility.
- [25:13]
A
And so therefore, there'll be dynamics in tribes of, like, shame and honor dynamics where being shamed by the tribe is a real punishment in itself, and it creates a culture of honor. Now, I mean, I guess all of this does have a shadow side, doesn't it? It's not just sunshine and roses all the time.
- [25:30]
B
Absolutely.
- [25:30]
A
I mean, honor dynamics can get out of control, status seeking and all that sort of stuff. And I guess every now and then people might, you know, there are sort of clannishness might grow within tribes to try to upset established hierarchies and stuff. I mean, that happens, doesn't it?
- [25:47]
B
Well, I mean, it's a fluid system, okay? So when you go to a tribe, there's no one single shaykh for the whole tribe. There are different shaykhs within a tribe, okay? And anybody can actually resolve conflict. If you are a teacher, you don't come from a sheikh le family, but you've earned respect within the community. People can come to you to resolve conflict. You don't have to have a certificate or you don't have to have an inheritance as a tribal judge or tribal sheikh. Obviously, the one thing that upset the tribal structure over the past 30, 40 years is politics. When you talk to tribal leaders, they tell you political parties kind of ruined a lot of things in tribal areas because they brought competition that are not fair, they brought corruption, they brought unfair competition and all of that. And that can upset the tribal structure. Different leaders in different times, they propped members of tribes with money and influence to make them sheikhs. And this happened. This happened during Saleh. This happened with the Houthis, with others. So there is, I think, introducing elements like political parties, democracy, and now the war. I mean, all these things can upset the tribal structure. And these cause conflicts within tribes between different families, sometimes different people, different tribes sometimes.
- [27:11]
A
So it's interesting. We sort of think that the tribes are the problem, that they are upsetting something pure and rational, the state. But it seems from what you're saying that it can also be seen the other way around. It's the state that is upsetting the tribes. And so when we look at the way tribes are dysfunctional sometimes now, it's like, well, that dysfunction is a result of the state. It's not the tribe that are the result of the state's dysfunction. It's the other way around. It's the state. That's the response, response responsible for the tribe's dysfunction. This is sort of what you're saying.
- [27:43]
B
Yeah. No, I can tell you that in Yemen, the state was never pure or rational. You know, that's why we're in here. That's why we're here in the first place.
- [27:50]
A
Let's actually talk about where we are here. I mean, you won't believe this, Nadwa. You won't believe this. Dear listeners, I did not ask Nadwaan to talk about tribalism in Yemen. I'm just myself so interested in the subject because, you know, it's so foreign to a guy who grew up in the California suburbs like me. Tribalism of that kind. We had our goths and geeks and jocks and all this stuff. But it's a different sort of tribalism that. Now, let's talk about now. The Houthis. Now, I, I don't want to rehash the history of the Houthis. People know in general, they started in the 90s. There was a movement called the Believing Youth, a Zaydi revivalist initiative. Now, the Zaydis are a branch of the broader Shia tradition within Islam. They are not the same as the 12 or Shia, but somehow in mysterious, slightly secretive ways. As the late 90s gave way to the early naughties, this movement, the Believing Youth, sort of began to orbit the family of the Houthis, the Al Houthi family. Hussein Al Houthi and other people, and his younger brother, Abdul Malik Al Houthi. And at some point, connections were made with the Iranian regime and the irgc, and a militant movement grew that clashed with the Ali Abdullah Saleh government over a series of wars across the Nadi, the final one of which in 2009 involved Saudi Arabia, a kind of harbinger of what was to come. Then the Arab Spring breaks out. There's tremendous instability. An initiative sponsored by the GCC and other global partners begins in Yemen, trying to put the pieces of the state back together, possibly along more liberal, democratic, just lines, possibly federal, possibly lines that respect the tribes and respect the interests of everyone. That was the goal. Again, extremely murky and complicated, complicated story. But that process ended to some extent, was destroyed by the Houthi movement, who in the summer of 2014 began to move southward from their mountain strongholds in Sada. They came down. They eventually took over the country, starting a civil war. The Saudi government intervened in that war on the side of the UN legitimately recognized government, got a UN Security Council resolution authorizing the formation of, of an Arab coalition to try to reinstate that government that to this point has not succeeded. And the Houthis now, for a long time, Nadwa have been there squatting in Sana', A, consolidating their hold on the country. So that's my little summary.
- [30:23]
B
That's a brilliant summary.
- [30:25]
A
How many Houthis are there right now? Because the Houthis are like a movement. I mean, I think of them, and maybe I talk to Amen too much, frankly. I think of them as like a cult that has conscription to the cult initiation rituals into the cult. It's a religious, millenarian, apocalyptic cult. It believes certain, to my way of thinking, wacky things about Abdelm Al Houthi, the leader. But how many of these guys are we talking about?
- [31:09]
B
That's a great question. And I completely agree with Ayman and Bara, by the way. The Houthis are a cult. They're a death cult. There's been a lot of things written about the Houthis, and I think they're widely misrepresented in Western literature, whether that's academic or think tank or. Because people tend to look at the Houthis from a, a pragmatic lens. This group is ideological to the core, and we can talk more about that. So the ideological group that are the core of the Houthi movement are not really great. I don't know what the number is, but they're really small. These are the people who believe in the ideology. And then from that you have like the larger group, we call them Utah. So people who, maybe the translation would be Houthi affiliates. So they're not really ideologues, but they benefited from the Houthi system. They, they took positions in the army or government, or they benefited financially from the Houthis war economy or something like that. And so I think their supporters are small.
- [32:10]
A
When you say the core, the true believers are small in number. By small, do you mean like 50? Do you mean like 10,000? What are we talking about?
- [32:21]
B
I don't know. So maybe they're in the hundreds, maybe they're in the thousands. Well, we're talking about the people who believe in the cause. Okay? We're not talking about the decision makers within the movement, because that's a different discussion. They're not many. And the Houthis are not popular in Yemen because they're very aggressive, they're very repressive. And they also don't respect tribal traditions, including Yemeni traditions, Yemeni culture. So they're not many and they're not very popular. But they do have, have A lot of power. They have a lot of weapons, and they don't care about how people perceive them. They rule with repression, with heavy hand, with iron fist.
- [33:04]
A
And part of that not caring what people think about them is if I remember Bara saying that there is something in the Houthi movement that romanticizes a kind of Zaydy aristocratic dream, a sense that Zaydism is a natural God, ordained aristocracy that makes them literally superior to other people.
- [33:27]
B
Yes. I mean, Bara articulated it very, very well. I highly recommend your listeners go back and listen to the five episodes with Bara. But that's absolutely true. I mean, the Houthis. The Houthis ideology is an extension of the Zaydi tradition. And the Zaydi tradition is not really religious. It's religious, political, and it's a supremacist ideology that Al Bayt people who descend from the Prophet Muhammad, have a divine right to rule over. Well, in case of the Zaydis, it was Yemenis. But with the Houthis, they took the revolutionary ideas from Iran. And compared to the Zaydis in the past, the Houthis are more transnational. They think globally. They don't think about themselves as only representing Yemenis. They see some themselves as representing the Muslim nation.
- [34:17]
A
I see. But that sounds to me to be crazy, Nedva, because the Houthis come from Saada, a city, an ancient city, no doubt a beautiful city, at least maybe before it was pommelled to high hell by the Saudi coalition and other interventions. But it's in the far north of Yemen. It's not exactly like, you know, forgive the term, a Mecca for, like, global Islam. How can they have this. This conception? What is their view of themselves, and what is their view of Abdelm al Houthi?
- [34:48]
B
So Badr al Din Al Houthi, who was Abd al Malik Al Houthi's father, believed that the imamate had to continue, believed that the 1962 revolution that overthrew the imamate in Yemen believed that it was a mistake and that that was still their right to retake. So Abdelmak al Houthi, Hussein al Houthi, all these ideologues, grew up with this concept that their divine right had been taken away from them in 1962, and they're destined to retake it now. Affiliating with Iran gave them that sort of transnational jihadist resistance. Resistance, okay. So it kind of fueled that sentiment.
- [35:32]
A
So to put it in terms that maybe like American listeners or Western listeners understand, it's almost like 40 years after the Civil war in America and the KKK is going strong because some southern men thought, no, the war was ours to win. And the righteousness of the great lost cause and the beauty of our hierarchical patrician slave society. And in fact, Zaydi society was traditionally a slave society as well. So this, this, it's sort of like that. And they get together, they create an underground militant movement, they're going to claim back what's theirs and what was wrongfully and really against God taken from them.
- [36:15]
B
Yeah, that's a great analogy. And in fact, you're not the first one who says crazy. You know, that's crazy when I talk about the Houthis because again, people look at the Houthis from a pragmatic lens, because ideology like that doesn't make sense to Westerners.
- [36:30]
A
Well, except when you think of it in terms of the kkk, which doesn't make sense to most Westerners. But at least we know. Well, you know, it is crazy. I mean, they're our kind of crazy, I guess. So we understand it. But your kind of crazy or Yemeni kind of crazy is a bit foreign to us.
- [36:44]
B
But also there's an inherited ideology that groups like Iran and the Houthis are doing resistance against Western imperialism. And so there is a level of romanticizing with the Houthis and Iranians and their proxies. So I think that influences a lot of the narrative about the Houthis out there.
- [37:02]
A
So, I mean, obviously we've talked about on conflicted, the ideological roots of the left wing part of this larger ideology, the, you know, the sort of third worldism and then how it morphed in the 60s and 70s into postcolonialism and then fused in some places with Islamism to create various strange hybrids. And the Houthis is kind of one of those. Although I guess in their own texts, their own poems, their own hymns and things, they're probably pretty straightforwardly Zaydi. But what about Abdelm Al Houthi? So a couple of weeks ago, on what I thought was one of our best episodes ever, Eamon just sort of spilled the beans about what the 12 or Shia IRGC movement thinks about people like the new supreme leader Mojta Baha Mane, that he's al Khorossani, the destined man for from Khorasan who is in his mind destined to confront on the field of battle the Sufyani in Syria, who is now Ahmad Ashara, according to this story, the great enemy of the Mahdi. But according to Ayman, these 12 Rashiyas consider Abdulmilik Al Houthi to be Al Yamani, the man from Yemen destined to help the Khorasani defeat the Sufyani. But what about the Zaydi Houthi movement itself? Because maybe they would think, well, considering Abd al Malik al Houthi just Al Yamani, that's not enough. He's gotta be more. So what do the Zaydis think or the Houthis think about Abdul Malik al Houthi?
- [38:28]
B
I've actually written about this last year about the ideological underpinnings of the Red Sea attacks. So Abdul Malik Alhuthi is Alam Al Huda. Okay. He's the banner of guidance. Okay. And he is Masoom. He doesn't make mistakes.
- [38:42]
A
Oh, like infallible. Like the Pope or something. When he pronounces things ex cathedra. Abdul Malkhouthi infallible. It's funny because I know I've seen his chubby, very infantile face and heard him speak, which doesn't seem infallible to me, but, you know, I'm biased. Possibly.
- [39:00]
B
His people love him. So this small circle of ideologues around Abd al Malik Alhuthi who believe in him and he himself, they believe that he is Al Mahdi, who's destined to march his armies into Mecca and Medina.
- [39:13]
A
Oh, he thinks he is the Mahdi.
- [39:15]
B
Yes. Receives the oath of allegiance in Mecca. Yes. And Medina. And then marches his armies from Yemen, Levant and Iraq and takes Jerusalem.
- [39:28]
A
I see. So he's gonna muster the forces of goodness and fight the forces of evil in Syria. I guess. Expecting the return of the Mahdi. Well, he's the Mahdi, so he's gonna expect the return of Jesus in Damascus.
- [39:44]
B
Exactly. Because, like, for Shia Twelvers, the Mahdi returns because he'd been hiding in some cave in Iraq for, like, I don't know how long. But for Zaydis, it's the Mahdi is born out of Prophet Muhammad bloodline. In this case, Abdul Malik Al Houthi is.
- [40:00]
A
Oh, because there was no great occultation in the Zaydi movement. There is none of that. The 12th Imam disappearing? A bit more like the Ismailis. The Imam, it continued down the generations. Exactly.
- [40:12]
B
So that's how he see himself. That's why when he talks, he talks with such authority and he addresses the Muslim nation in the world. Okay. And now with Hezbollah gone, Khamenei gone, Assad gone, he really sees himself as the leader not only of the axis of resistance, but the Islamic nation.
- [40:33]
A
Wow.
- [40:34]
B
I mean, you're dealing with the guy with that mentality and the people around him think that he is Al Mahdi.
- [40:40]
A
Okay, then Nedwa, how then? So you say that there's this very, very small group of inner circle people who believe that this guy who seems all, again, he seems to me, he looks to me like an overgrown baby. That's just how he looks. I'm being objective here. So this guy, they think he's the Mahdi and all this stuff. Okay? And then there's maybe, let's say a thousand. There's a thousand people that really believe it that are around them. And then there's let's say 10,000, 50,000. Now, maybe fellow travelers or people who benefit from the system, but they have dominated now North Yemen, the most populous part of a very populous country for, you know, 12 years going on. It's a long time. So how are they managing to do it? Given how it seems to me how kind of crazy, maybe not very intelligent they are, how have they managed it?
- [41:31]
B
Well, different reasons. But to tell you something, I don't blame the Houthis to think that way because look at them. Twelve years ago they were in Saddam, and look at them now. I mean, how, how much that evolved from like a small insurgency in North Yemen into a group to be reckoned with. They've disrupted the Red Sea. And I'm no big fan, by the way. I'm just telling you, like when they see how they've evolved over the past 10 years, they've defeated the Saudis, that's their perception. They've defeated the Emiratis, who, by the way, are the tagout agents in the Middle East. Okay?
- [42:09]
A
Oh, the taghut. Yeah, the great tyrants, eschatological tyrants, the Emiratis.
- [42:13]
B
They've defeated Israel, they've defeated the US They've defeated the uk. I mean, they've defeated everybody. And for these groups, winning means survival.
- [42:23]
A
Oh, God.
- [42:24]
B
So it doesn't matter how much they lose. If they survive, that's a win. Because they think long term. They think 20, 30, 40, 50 years from now. Oh my God, not an election cycle.
- [42:34]
A
Okay, well, it's like, it's like Dune. It's like what Eamon says, that these belief in prophecies, belief in fuels movements and makes them strong.
- [42:44]
B
Yes.
- [42:45]
A
And when you hear the prophecies and then you see what's going on, you sometimes get shivers yourself and you think, gosh, is it maybe true? Like, if it is true that Mujta Bahmane believes that he's the Al Khurasani and yet he was there he was there when, during the assassination attack, his father dies. He's like mortally wounded and yet survives. And apparently that's what the Al Khurasani is supposed to be. And you sort of think, wow, maybe it's true. So the Houthis, in their own minds, they have reason to believe that this is all coming true.
- [43:14]
B
That's the reason behind the resolve, you know, their moral resolve. Okay. But at the same time, the practical reason why they managed to control one, they've inherited Yemen state structures, including military bases. So they've inherited a lot of weapons which they use to control the society. And they would have taken all Yemen if the Saudi Arabia, the led coalition, did not intervene in 2015. And that would have put them in a really strong position to influence the entire region. At the same time, the Houthis are ruling the country through this supreme structure of nine people. It's called the Jihadi Council.
- [43:51]
A
Jihadi Council.
- [43:52]
B
That sounds Jihad Council.
- [43:54]
A
Jihad council, yeah.
- [43:56]
B
It's led by Abdelm Al Kalhudi. But the two main aides who are the real decision makers are an IRGC commander and his deputy is a Hezbollah officer. And it's modeled after a Hezbollah system as well. So the Houthis manage not only to survive, but to expand and to control the Yemeni population and to manipulate the international community and to conduct successful cross border attacks because IRGC is on the ground supporting them. IRGC and Hezbollah, until today day. Abu Raza Shahlai, which is, you know, a very prominent Quds Force commander, has been in Yemen since at least 2010. According to sources, he's still in Yemen. He left in 2023 for a short period, but he went back to Yemen to help the Houthis. And they managed to control in the north because they don't care about governance, they care about repression. They repress people the way the Houthis see Yemen. And you have to think with their lens, okay? Yemen is a recruitment camp. That's where they recruit their fighters, their Jihadi army, that they will march towards Jerusalem.
- [45:11]
A
And how do they recruit them? What means do they employ to convince young men to join the party?
- [45:17]
B
They have a very rigorous mobilize they call mobilization and recruitment system. And they have it in every structure, government, neighborhoods, villages, at all social, social levels. They use schools now. So when you go to schools now, the curriculum has changed. They've made over 500 changes to school curriculum to sort of instill this jihadist ideology. Anti us, anti Israel, pro jihad, you know, Abdelmak Al Houthi is like, God, all of that nonsense, okay? At the same time, this is a country where two thirds of the population are extremely poor. They're hungry, so they exploit poverty. Many other recruits, they do it for the food basket because that's the only means to feed their families. Or you send your son to fight with the Houthis in exchange for a food basket so that you can feed the rest of your children. So they use. Use coercion, they use influence, and they use. In the tribal areas, they kind of force tribal leaders to recruit fighters for them. But at the same time, two things the Houthis are doing in Yemen, North Yemen is tribal, right? And the Houthis perceive the tribe as a threat because the tribal structure is the reason why Yemen never really had this kind of dictatorship that you saw in Iraq or Syria or Libya. Right?
- [46:39]
A
So the Houthis are not tribal. They're different.
- [46:41]
B
No, they're not. They're not tribal. They're not a tribe. I see people saying the Houthis are not a tribe and they're not tribal. They grew up in tribal areas, but they grew up by Sayyids, you know, as Hashemites, who are a separate class. Okay? They're sort of higher than tribes in terms of class. They're a protected sort of segment of the society, but they're not tribes.
- [47:01]
A
I see. They're like lords in England.
- [47:04]
B
They're like lords, exactly. They intermarried with tribes over time, you know, but they're separate sort of social cast.
- [47:14]
A
So in like, Harry Potter terms, they think of themselves as like, what's. What's the Slytherin people that terrible, you know? Do you know. Do you know Harry Potter? I don't know.
- [47:21]
B
I have. I can't remember. I watched it a long time ago.
- [47:24]
A
The guy. They have. They have white hair and they're super sort of. They hate Muggles or whatever. Yeah, whatever that name. You know, the younger listeners are going to be shouting at me for forgetting the name of this, but they think of themselves like the. So they're above the normal rabble, and they consider the tribal way of doing things a rabble way of doing things. They're against it.
- [47:42]
B
It's not because they consider it a different way. It's because they see the tribes as a threat to their existence because tribes are anti ideology, and the Houthis are driven by ideology. And the tribes played a major role in overthrowing the imamate. Two things that the Houthis focused on since they came to power. One, dismantling the tribal structure because the
- [48:04]
A
tribes are often Sunni.
- [48:06]
B
It's not thing. It's more like a, it's not, it's not because, because the tribes in the north are also zadi.
- [48:12]
A
I see. So there were zaydes who wanted a future out from under the imit, but they're socially zaydes.
- [48:18]
B
They're not like it's, it's, it's a very subtle difference between this, but it's not religious, it's not religious or secretarian. It's more like social. So they focused on dismantling the tribes. They've killed dozens of tribal leaders, blew up their homes, which is, is, it's a form of insulting tribal leadership when you.
- [48:38]
A
I would say so.
- [48:39]
B
So it degrades the. And then they also appointed supervisors in every area. And these supervisors have, they have more resources, they have more power, they use oppression. So they sort of, for the most part they kind of overshadow tribal leaders authority in tribal areas. But the more dangerous, which takes me back to recruitment, the more dangerous thing that the Houthis have been doing systematically since they took Sana' A and even before in areas they continue controlled, is indoctrinating younger children. They take children as young as 7, they focus on age 7 to age 14 or 18. And in addition to indoctrinating them in school, now every school has students in school, have to do have to take certain ideological courses apart from the, the curriculum and they need to learn how to use weapons. But at the same time they also have what they call summer camps where they bring in children, boys and girls by the way, for months at a time, isolate them from their families and teach them with the ideology, teach them to fight all of these things. So in 2024 they graduated 1.1 million. In 2025, 1.25 million.
- [49:57]
A
Oh, wow, that's a lot of people. Well, see, I was going to ask you if the Houthi hardcore are so small and if they're clashing with the tribes which are large and networked and powerful and armed, why don't the tribes just throw them off? Why don't they fight them off?
- [50:18]
B
They tried, but the tribes are not much for the Houthis. The Houthis have state weapons. Yes, the tribes are armed, but their arms are modest.
- [50:25]
A
I see.
- [50:25]
B
I mean they'll have mortar shells, they'll have, have, they'll have medium sized weapons. And there's been revolutions against the Houthis. I mean there was a tribe in Hajjah, Hajur, that fought for two months and 10 days, but then the Houthis crushed the tribal rebellion and they went and they burned farms, killed men, destroyed homes. Charming took children. So. And for the tribes, I mean, one thing about the tribes, the tribes, they bend their head to the storm. So they try. But if the alternative is destroying their homes and killing their children and getting
- [51:04]
A
themselves killed, and their time reference is also long term, they're thinking, okay, this is a dark time, but we'll get through it. We've been around for 3,000 years. We'll get through it.
- [51:14]
B
Yeah. And the tribes survived. They survived the communist regime in the south. Yeah, yeah, they survived the Imam 8, which was as brutal as the Houthis, what the imam did back in the day. The imams would take children of tribal leaders as hostages. These children would be very young, like as age, as young as five or six, and they'll be adults by the time they leave the imam's house.
- [51:38]
A
Yeah, well, that, you know, to be fair to the imam, it. That was a very common practice throughout the world, really, in the old days. You would take the young son of your rival and force him to grow up in your court. But listen, okay, so I'm sure the listeners are screaming at me, like, Thomas, ask her about now and the Iran war. So let's talk about it. You said that there are IRGC and Hezbollah commanders at the heart of the Houthi movement to this day, making decisions, especially, I guess, about the geopolitical and military moves. And I guess they're in contact with, you know, Tehran or wherever in Iran, talking to the IRGC leaders there even now. I mean, the last three years have been pretty dramatic for the Houthi movement after a few years of kind of stalemate stasis, where the Houthis, according to Aman, you know, were able to take advantage of some pretty poor decision making on the part of the Biden administration. The Houthis were basically getting money from the Saudis, a lot of money, kind of bribing them to stop fighting them. The Saudis felt they had no other choice, and it meant that there was a kind of status quo that was being maintained. And then, of course, the 7th of October, 2023 happened, and soon after that, the Houthis began to really flex their muscles and they attacked Israel, of course, very sort of dramatically. They came of age, if you like, and really entered the international arena in a big way. This was met by Operation Prosperity Guardian at the end of 2023, which was to protect Red Sea shipping because the Houthis had begun to disrupt that shipping Fired weapons, fired missiles and things, and drones at ships. But then when Donald Trump came to power again early last year, the administration launched Operation Russia Ryder, which Ehman says, and from all the reporting I can see was really devastating. A top military leader was killed. And I read that this man is the main liaison between the Houthis and the irgc. So I would have thought maybe Rough Rider might have severed that link. And if not Rough Rider, then certainly I would think maybe in the last three weeks or four weeks since the launch of this current war, that link would have been severed because the IRGC has been just decimated by Israeli and US attacks. So what's going on?
- [54:03]
B
All right, all right, so this is a really good question. Okay. Operation Rough Rider, Operation Prosperity Guardian, before, I think those were controlled damage by the US Government or damage control.
- [54:16]
A
Damage control, Damage control.
- [54:19]
B
The damage was done in 2018. The damage was done before that. When the Houthis took Sana' a and the sanctions, Saudis intervened. And I repeat, if the Saudis did not intervene, the Houthis would have taken all of Yemen, Iran would have taken all Yemen, and we would have ended up with much larger problem. Now, I'm not saying that the Saudis were angels. They've done their fair share of mistakes in Yemen, but we're looking at the Houthi and Iran side. Okay. In 2018, the Saudi led coalition, in particular the Emiratis, were about to take Hudaydah seaport.
- [54:56]
A
Oh, yes, this is this. I mean, Barak came on the show and told us about the Stockholm agreement, which he thinks was real bad. He actually, I think, lays the blame at the feet of the, of Jeremy Hunt, then the foreign minister of the uk. And anyway, he says that was disastrous because the Yemeni army, supported by the Emiratis and the Saudis would have taken Hodeidah and that would have really, that would have really screwed the Houthis.
- [55:22]
B
It was the Brits who spearheaded the Stockholm and Green. And that was, for me, it was a strategic mistake. We, Bara, I and so many other Yemenis advocated against it. And we were cast warmongers. And this whole notion of give peace a chance, and I am for peace, but the Houthis, for the Houthis, for Iran, peace negotiations are no more than an opportunity to sort of regroup, manipulate the international community while they regroup and they plan the next steps. So the Stockholm agreement prevented the government from retaking Hareda Seaport, which would have prevented the Houthis from threatening international shipping five years later. But the Saudis came under a lot of pressure. The Emiratis came under a lot of pressure. The Yemeni government came under a lot of pressure. And since then, the Yemeni government forces had been on the defensive until today. And the Houthis exploited the Stockholm agreement and expanded militarily inside Yemen, further weakening the government, which is, by the way, a US Ally. Western ally. And then they threatened international shipping.
- [56:29]
A
Yes. And then because of that, Operation Prosperity Guardian was launched, and then Rough Rider. And as I say, I thought those things, those two operations had really done a lot of damage.
- [56:39]
B
Both operations had done some. Particularly Rough Rider had done damage. Obviously, the Houthis lost the chief of staff, who was the. A liaison between the Houthis. I mean, he was a great loss for the Houthis, probably irreplaceable. It also disrupted their command and control. I'm told many of the Houthi leaders now, they communicate through paper messages.
- [57:06]
A
Oh, wow.
- [57:07]
B
Yeah. They don't use. And they're on the move. They're revamping their security protocol completely. But at the same time, let's not forget that for groups like the Houthis, all they need is to survive.
- [57:21]
A
Yeah, yeah.
- [57:22]
B
As you said, it doesn't matter how much loss they have. And they still. Even after Rough Rider, they sank two ships in the Red Sea.
- [57:29]
A
Yeah.
- [57:30]
B
So they still have the capabilities. And the Houthis command this huge smuggling networks in across the Horn of Africa and beyond.
- [57:40]
A
Horn of Africa, Yes.
- [57:42]
B
So they have. Okay. So they've established relations with Al Shabaab in Somalia. So according to the un, The Houthis now are the main supplier of weapons with Al Shabaab, which is Al Qaeda in Somalia. And aqap, as they're part of this Houthi sort of smuggling networks, AQAP and
- [58:02]
A
the Houthis work together. I thought that they were great enemies.
- [58:05]
B
No, they're not. Not. Not now. Not for the time being. The Houthis and Akip have been collaborating as early. Since. Since at least 2016.
- [58:16]
A
Oh, that's a long time.
- [58:17]
B
We Yemenis have. We. We Yemenis have sounded the alarm on that, and we were called conspiracy theorists. But now the evidence is overwhelming. The Houthis have provided both Al Shabaab and Al Qaeda with drones with other weapons training.
- [58:32]
A
And where do the Houthis themselves get their hands on drones? I mean, they can't manufacture drones, can they?
- [58:38]
B
They do. Yes. Now they manufacture drones, and they assemble missiles from materials that are available in the market.
- [58:46]
A
Oh, my goodness gracious. So the smuggling networks that the Houthis are plugged into or are you, are you saying they're actually, they're leading these networks or are this, I mean, obviously Iran is involved in this, but what about like Russia, other, other actors?
- [59:01]
B
So Russia has provided the Houthis with technology to strike ships in the Red Sea. China. China, a company that's, that's affiliated with the Chinese army, has provided with, had provided the Houthis with satellite images to target ships in the Red Sea. The Houthis send fighters to fight with Russia in Ukraine. So Houthis are benefiting from all these things.
- [59:26]
A
You know, it's funny, Ned, what people don't really understand. I mean, especially because politics gets involved and Donald Trump, love him or hate him, you know, he's a character. And so people just don't really get that. Even though you wake up in the morning and you go to your job and then you watch television, you eat your doordash and you go to sleep. Right. There is an actual war kind of going on. Usually quite cold now, very hot, but it's real and it is kind of global.
- [59:51]
B
Yeah. So you know, like you talked about how the Saudis, the ceasefire between the Saudis and the Houthis in 2012, sorry, 2022. And then when you read in reports and people say, well, the conflict has subsided and frontlines are relatively quiet, but the Houthis are building their smuggling networks and these networks bring in weapons, bring in drugs. Now the Captagon trade has moved from Syria to Yemen following Assad.
- [60:18]
A
Oh my goodness. Not captagon as well.
- [60:21]
B
Yes, and other drugs, human trafficking. It brings in operatives. The Houthis now recruit Africans from across the Horn of Africa. They train them, they send them back as spies in their countries. They plant sleeper cells in these countries. Again, they're thinking long term. And when I say the Houthis, I mean, let's just be very, very clear here. It's the IRGC behind the Houthis, which takes me back to the Red Sea. Attack attacks to the disruption of international shipping. Cross border attacks in Yemen are not determined by the Houthis. It's determined by the irgc. It's the IRGC that decides when to use that strategic weapon. And that's why the Houthis are holding now, because the IRGC did not tell them, did not ask them to intervene yet.
- [61:11]
A
And that is why. Because, you know, so again, back to this question. In the last four weeks, Iran has really suffered a lot, you know, and we understand that the military capabilities, capabilities of the IRGC and its command and control Structure has been very degraded. Now they still exist. They're still firing ballistic missiles. You know, don't get me wrong, it's not like they're totally neutralized, but they have been hit hard. And my understanding is that the. There was a kind of Axis of Resistance joint operation room run from Iran by the Quds force, by the IRGC's Quds Force. Now, do you have any idea if that operation room is still up and running? Has it been neutralized, destroyed, bombed to high hell, or is it still able to coordinate with IRGC operatives in Yemen and telling them, just hold off, hold off, we're not fighting yet.
- [62:04]
B
I don't know if it's still functioning. I don't have that kind of information. But I do know that in Yemen, there was a debate among the IRGC themselves helped within Yemen, and who are in Yemen working with the Houthis. And some of them were pushing the Houthis to intervene to fire missiles. Others were thinking more strategically because Iran is being bombarded. Okay? It's like you said, its capabilities are being obliterated. Many of their leaders are being killed. All the more reason, all the more reason for Iran to preserve the Houthis. Yeah, the Houthis. The Houthis are Iran. Iran's finest strategic assets with the most potential than all Axis of Resistance allies combined.
- [62:48]
A
You know what I was also thinking that if the Iranian regime collapses, what then happens? And I think like a rump. A rump, like remnants of the Iranian regime will move to those mountains and it will become like in the Middle Ages when the assassins were attacked and they all like, reached, relocated to that mountain fortress and they lived on for another 200 years or something. I think it could be like that.
- [63:13]
B
Absolutely. That's my theory. So my theory is that if the Iranian regime collapses completely, and let's assume there's a scenario when the Iranian regime collapses, a new regime comes on. Where will the IRGC go? Okay, it will go. In my opinion, Yemen is the best place.
- [63:31]
A
Oh, my.
- [63:32]
B
Because?
- [63:34]
A
Well, because it's damned hard to conquer. Nadwa. That's the real thing.
- [63:38]
B
Geographically, it's brilliant. The state does not exist. The government is extremely weak, and the Houthis are already in Somalia. They do have camps in Somalia. They have bases. They have presence. Okay. They're working with Al Shabaab along with IRGC. We're talking about almost 5,500km of coastline that is poorly or impossible even to monitor. You know, and this growing into more sophisticated sort of shadow economic system that is based on Smuggling on illicit trade that's evolving. That with finance, all these asymmetric operations that the irgc, the Houthis, and groups like that have been carrying. And here comes the west with its traditional methods, airstrikes, drones, diplomacy, you know, all these things, things that don't work or even counter smuggling. Counter smuggling operations are impossible to counter. This growing sort of monster. I'm told by smuggling experts that for each ship that's interdicted, probably 100 makes it through.
- [64:53]
A
Oh, my.
- [64:54]
B
When Operation Rough Rider was bombarding the Houthis, they got. During that time when they were bombarded, they received the largest shipment of weapons since the beginning of the year. We're talking May 2025.
- [65:08]
A
Somehow a shipment of weapons got through.
- [65:10]
B
It went through. And this is not. This is one we knew, many others we didn't even know about.
- [65:16]
A
Oh, my Lord. I mean, what's going on? Has the west been sleeping at the wheel? Let's talk about that at the end. Let's talk about it at the end. You've just painted a picture of, like, the worst case scenario. The Iran regime fall, but a rump of true believers relocate to the mountain fortress of Northern Yemen, where they can, you know, live to fight another day. Like Dr. Evil, you know, or whatever. Dr. Claw at the end of an Inspector Gadget episode from the 80s. I am a child of the 80s. So that's the worst case scenario. Now, Eamonn says that in the meantime, the Saudis have been, you know, cajoled by the Houthis or, you know, manipulated by the Houthis.
- [65:53]
B
Cause he.
- [65:54]
A
He actually describes the Houthis as, like, gangsters. Like, they're just basically good at extremely extorting money from the countries around them that they might destabilize, especially Saudi. And that since the beginning of the war, at least $100 million, if I remember correctly, probably more now has been transferred to the Houthis to pay salaries, to keep the economy kind of on track and to bribe them not to intervene. Now, I'm sure the Houthis are perfectly capable of taking Saudi money and saying, okay, we won't join in while mobilizing at the same time. Is there evidence that the Houthis are mobilizing at the moment?
- [66:28]
B
Oh, yeah, They've been mobilizing towards the Saudi border. They've been mobilizing to the Red Sea. They've moved missile launchers, they've moved. They've laid sea mines across the Red Sea. They've been posing for the battle to join the fight with Iran. I Wouldn't say the Saudis, the Houthis manipulated the Saudis. The Saudis came under a lot of pressure by the international community to sort of, of end the war in Yemen, quote, unquote. I have a very. The, the concept of ending the Yemen wars is very problematic for me, and I've written about that extensively. The Saudis were under pressure. They, at the same time, there was also divergence between the Saudis and the Emiratis. They were not seeing eye to eye.
- [67:16]
A
Oh, yeah, we know about that. We covered it a lot.
- [67:18]
B
Yeah, we know how that ended. At the same time, the Saudis needed to focus on their vision 20, 30. So they needed the Yemen frontline to cool off a little bit. That's why they went into negotiations with the Houthis. My experience with the Saudis, not working with them, but observing the Saudis is that. And this was perfectly described by the Saudi. A senior Saudi official I talked to, and he's like, like I was explaining to him how frustrated I am with the Saudis, that they're just waiting for things to happen and get worse. And he said, look, our national animal is the camel. Camel is patient. We're patient like the camel. We're patient, patient, patient until we lose our patience and then we flip. And I think we've seen that happening in real time the last couple of months. So I think the Saudis are aware of the Houthis threat, but the Saudis tend to sort of play all cards before they use the, you know, the real cards. And I think eventually they will have to clash with the Houthis.
- [68:24]
A
But will the Houthis launch a war or join the Iran war on the side of Iran properly before that? I mean, do you think it's likely, like within the next week? What do you think is going to happen?
- [68:35]
B
I think they might, like I said, but I think their intervention will be calculated, will be measured, injured. Certainly Iran would not want the Houthis to join the fight to a point where it sort of invites Israeli, US, Saudi retaliation. But it could be just enough to create some destruction or just enough to sort of help the Houthis maintain their image as, you know, supporters and members of the axis of resistance, which is
- [69:03]
A
very important because I guess a lot of their supporters might think, hey, why aren't you, why aren't you joining? This is it. This is the big fight. The end of the world is happening and you're sitting out, sitting on the sidelines.
- [69:14]
B
Yeah. And these groups, you know, Iran, the Houthis, irgc, the Axis of resistance in general. They really rely on narrative and perception and maintaining narrative. So we could see Houthi attacks for that purpose. But I don't think that the Houthis will go 100%.
- [69:30]
A
What about the Yemeni government, Nadwa? I mean, the official Yemeni government, it has an army of sorts. It has, well, many capabilities since the problems that emerged at the end of December between Saudi and the Emirates and the extraordinary work of the National Shield Force that really compelled the Emiratis out of the country and united everyone around the Yemeni government, everyone outside of the north. Now, is the Yemeni government champing at the bit to militarily dislodge the Houthis, and are they being restrained by the Saudis, or, I sometimes wonder, after 12 years of exile, is the formal, the official Yemeni government, is it kind of used to this situation, living high on the hog from this situation? Are they actually motivated to fight the Houthis?
- [70:24]
B
Yes, they are. Every force in the south and in Yemen is motivated to fight the Houthis. It's who makes the decision. The Yemeni government was constrained by the south, Saudi, uae, sort of divergence in Yemen because the UAE focused on the south and the ports on the island, not so much on the north, particularly after they were not allowed to take Hudaydah seaports. And the Saudis sort of went inward. They focused on Vision 2030. They didn't really support Yemeni government militarily as they should have. And so that's the reason why the government did not move on the Houthis. Well, in addition to, of course, the international pressure by the US by the UN and the international community, which proved to be counterproductive, which is something we said in 2014. 15. But, you know, Yemenis are not really. We don't influence, you know, as much as Westerners do. But so right now, the evolving situation in Yemen is that Emiratis are out. The Saudis managed to contain the situation to a large extent. And I attribute that to the pragmatism of the Yemeni society, which is rooted in its tribal culture. Tribes are very pragmatic. Okay? The Saudis and the Yemeni government are now focused on restructuring the forces. Yes, these forces are not united yet. Yet unifying them under MoD and MoI is going to be a challenge. But at the same time, they all, all want to dislodge the Houthis because they all see the Houthis as a strategic threat to their own existence. So I think there is more opportunity now to bring in these forces together. To fight the Houthis. And if they do and they get the proper support from the Saudis, defeating the Houthis is not going to be difficult. Interesting, because even inside Houthi controlled areas, let's not forget the tribe tribes absolutely hate the Houthis. They're waiting. They're waiting for the government to move in and then they'll join. We've seen that happening in areas that were liberated by the government from the Houthis. So this is something that might evolve in the next months, could be sometime this year, but I think it's in the works. From my own observation now, there you
- [72:50]
A
are living in Washington, D.C. the belly of the beast, the heart of the great Satan. And I just wonder what your thoughts are on the kind of people who have been making the decisions from the Western side about Yemen. I think now since this war broke out, and, you know, I'm not saying Donald Trump should have, should have Definitely said on 28th February, go, let's start a war. Let's deal with this problem now. I don't know that, frankly. I mean, so many people think they know that. I don't know. I don't know what's right. I know that the Iranian regime and its network of proxies is just totally malign. And I don't mean Iranian people or anything. I mean, the regime which just seems to me to be a theocratic, clerical gangster, basically a terrorist group that's taken over a country, linked up with other terrorist groups that have, you know, succeeded in taking over parts of countries, and they're just totally malign. We should, should have dealt with them much, much, much more decisively a long time ago before they could grow into what they became. That's what I feel now. But I see, you know, on the Internet, I see people who just seem totally determined not to see this fact. They just don't see it. And I don't understand. Like, I don't like war. I don't like death. I don't like any of this. I wish for peace. Peace, love, joy, and rainbows as much as the next man, you know, but, like, these people suck nadwa. And they have been screwing over your country for a long time. So what is wrong with that class of people in the west who for so long have been developing the policies that have dictated the way the UN and the EU and these transnational kind of international law organizations and, and parliaments and all of this stuff, the decisions that they're taking, what's wrong with them? Why can't they see what's in front of our eyes.
- [74:51]
B
You put your finger on the pain. I've been frustrated with this for 10 years. Not just me, me and other Yemenis, the people who influence decision making in the west, in particular the US but also in Europe, are anti war activists. They're the anti war. I want to say cult. Let me just say cult because they have their own ideology and they interpret Iran's and the Houthis and Axis of Resistance actions as a reaction to what America and Israel have been doing. But they totally dismiss that Iran and the Houthis and these groups have an ideology. They're not anti imperial. They may be, they're anti Western imperialism, but they're in it for their own imperialist vision. They want to take Jerusalem and from Jerusalem, they want to establish a global Islamic state. From Jerusalem, they want to move to Rome. And their interpretation of Rome, today's Rome, this was supposed to be. This was a saying by Prophet Muhammad that, you know, at the end of day the Mahdi will come and then he will establish a good global government and, you know, take Rome. So they interpret Rome as Europe and, well, America. Okay, so how can you not see that? And again, because they dismiss ideology because like you said, ideology is crazy. But I think there's an inherited bias among think tanks and Western sort of intellectuals. The way they see Yemen, the way they see Iran, the way they see the Middle east, they see it through, through anti war, anti imperialism lens. And at the same time they have their own domestic agenda. They don't want the US to intervene in a war because that's been, that's proven very.
- [76:38]
A
But Ned, how can this be? I mean, I understand that when you go to university and you're 18 and you smoke some dope and you sit around and you think, wouldn't it be great if there was no war? And then you see wars happening and you just get angry and you think, this is terrible. There shouldn't be any war. So you go out in the street and you walk, wave some signs against the war and stuff. Okay, you know, I was 18, I was 19. I smoked some dope. I know what that was like. However, don't you grow up? And these men and women, you know, the men in ties, the women in nice, you know, pantsuits, they're like in their 50s. And they have been at the seat of many negotiating tables, negotiating with heads of state and ministers and having to deal with like non state actors. And they know these non state actors do. How have they managed to get to the climax of distinguished, quote, unquote careers, and yet still not see, still not see that the absence of war is not the presence of justice necessarily.
- [77:40]
B
Exactly. Exactly. And, you know, I think also part of it is many of these people speak from a place of privilege. You know, they don't know. Maybe they know what it's like to live under the Houthis. I mean, there's been so many, many reports, but maybe they just don't care. I don't know. You know, at some point I started believing that they just don't care, you know, because Yemenis maybe don't matter. The thing is, yes, wars are bad, but sometimes wars are necessary. I mean, can you imagine if Europe and the US Made peace with Hitler back in the past century?
- [78:14]
A
Or more importantly, can you imagine, like, if there had been no war ever?
- [78:19]
B
Yeah, I mean, again, war is fact of life.
- [78:23]
A
I guess that would be nice, I guess. But also, like, war just generated the structure, state structures. It just kind of. I don't know, I just think this kind of totally naive, you know, infantile way of understanding the world is just. But the thing is, it's like we're sawing off the branch that we're sitting on. You know, I don't really understand. We have to project power to defend structures of justice.
- [78:47]
B
And it's so naive because they prevented the government from taking Hodeida seaport in 2018 because they didn't want to create a humanitarian disaster, which I don't think was the real reason. The real reason was to prevent the Saudis and the government from taking Hodeida Seaport. And this whole notion that everything can be resolved peacefully. Not everything can be resolved peacefully with groups like Iran and the Houthis. These groups don't believe in people. Peace negotiations for them are a tool to buy time, buy time and regroup. And we've seen that manifest over and over and over and over. And the longer we. We wait, the cost will be even more so. Right now, the cost of military intervention in Iran is high. If we wait. Iran. Can you imagine Iran having nuclear weapon? We've seen. We've seen what Iran has done to Gulf countries, and it doesn't happen. Have a nuclear weapon. What would Iran with a nuclear weapon do to the world?
- [79:48]
A
No, I know.
- [79:48]
B
You know, there is no easy answer. And I don't like war. Nobody likes war. Even people who go and fight, they don't like war.
- [79:55]
A
Well, some people like war. Some people like war, you know, and actually, maybe we need some people who like war. In order to wage the war that sometimes needs to be waged. But Nedwa Dosseri this episode is too long and I'm so pleased that I finally got to have a real proper conversation. And this was totally unstructured. We just chatted now for an hour and a half and it's been fantastic. Thank you so much for coming on Conflicted. I really appreciate it.
- [80:20]
B
Thank you, Thomas. It's been really great and I'm so glad to come on your platform.
- [80:24]
A
I consider you a friend of the show, Nedwa. We'll get you back on and hopefully when we do, something will have shifted in Yemen and that country will be further down the road to being liberal, liberated from this menace. Let's all hope that.
- [80:39]
B
Amen to that. Amen.
- [80:41]
A
Conflicted is a message heard. Production Our executive producers are Jake Warren and Max Warren. This episode was produced and edited by Thomas Small.