With the fall of the Assad regime in Syria and Hezbollah in Lebanon defeated and increasingly isolated, attention turns to the Houthis in Yemen. Perhaps the strongest remaining Iranian proxy force in the region, the Houthis are certainly the most active in terms of their attacks on Israel and also on international shipping in the Red Sea.
With confrontation between the Houthis and Israel, and perhaps America too, seems set to escalate, this will likely raise questions of whether the regime in Sanaa will prove as frail as its former partner in Damascus.
Like Assad’s regime, the Houthis are a corrupt organization representing a narrow segment of the population, leaving the majority mired in poverty. This poverty stems less from war or sanctions and more from systemic corruption, nepotism, and deliberate isolation. These regimes facilitate depredation of the populace via a common tool kit: bribes demanded by underpaid officials, monopolized industries that benefit insiders, and rigged systems for the import of goods, as exports play little role in the ravaged economies of Iran’s satellite states.
Reform of state institutions is implausible, as their dysfunction is a deliberate choice to ensure that the regime’s core supporters enjoy economic and social preeminence.
The high levels of corruption and exploitation made both the Assad and Houthi regimes deeply unpopular, forcing them to depend on brutal security apparatuses to maintain power. Indoctrination through media and education, framing these governments as anti-colonial defenders of national independence, grows less convincing as public suffering at the hands of the regime worsens and as dependence on foreign sponsors, especially Iran, increases.
Despite these parallels, key differences between the Assad and Houthi regimes suggest their trajectories may diverge. The Houthi leadership is younger and more energetic than Assad’s aging cadre. For example, Houthi intelligence chief Abulhakim al-Khaiwani is under forty, while his Syrian counterpart, Hossam Louka, was nearing sixty-five before Assad’s fall.
Moreover, ten years after taking Sanaa, the Houthis remain in the early stages of a revolutionary extremist movement. In contrast, the Assad regime had become a stagnant, ideologically hollow dynasty after fifty years in power.
The Houthi leaders also differ in their likely response to a challenge. Unlike Assad, who ultimately fled to Russia, Houthi leaders may return to guerrilla tactics in Yemen’s mountainous regions rather than abandoning their exile movement. Many senior Houthis have rarely, if ever, left Yemen, probably making them more inclined to resist until the end rather than seek refuge abroad.
While the Houthis’ long-term survival remains uncertain, their regime faces a growing legitimacy crisis. Cracks in its foundations are widening, and the leadership increasingly relies on brutal violence to suppress dissent. Eventual collapse seems likely but is not necessarily imminent.
Decisive action by regional and global actors opposing Houthi terrorism could accelerate their downfall. The U.S., Israel, and their allies should intensify political, financial, and military pressure on the Houthis. Cutting off their ability to divert humanitarian aid would significantly weaken their financial position.
Instead of subsidizing a regime that perpetuates terror and destabilizes the region, the international community should allocate resources to helping its victims and those who are trying to resist it, including Yemeni refugees abroad and Yemeni forces in southern Yemen who are fighting back against the Houthis.
The current crises facing Lebanese Hezbollah and Iran’s Quds Force make this an opportune moment to pressure the Houthi regime. While the Houthis may have once drawn confidence from Tehran’s backing, they are likely re-evaluating that assessment in light of recent recent events in Syria.
This may create an opportunity to pressure the Houthis into halting their Red Sea attacks. Still, even this would be a temporary respite, not a real solution to the long-term threat the Houthis pose to other states in the region, not to mention their subjects.
This raises the question: How might the downfall of the Houthis occur?
Real change in Yemen would require three key developments.
First, change would require a rise in public anger from grievances held by the Yemeni population, probably related primarily to economic conditions but perhaps also to anger at the imposition of their religious views at odds with the beliefs of the majority of the population.
Second, there would need to be a loss of favor or support from key elite constituencies, which could be Houthi bureaucrats or allied tribes on whom the regime relies to suppress dissent.
Third, instability would have to drive a wedge within the leadership class, driven by external pressures on the regime or internal power struggles; power struggles could arise organically within the predatory and secretive regime, but they might be accelerated by sudden, significant events, such as the death or assassination of key figures within its leadership.
Together, these factors would leave the regime in a state of disarray, unable to keep its ruthless hold on twenty million Yemenis. That could, in turn, create a momentum that the regime would find increasingly difficult to reverse.
How this process unfolds is not under the control of anyone and certainly not of any force outside of Yemen. However, the Syrian experience suggests that continued pressure and coordination with opposition forces will be more effective than trying to negotiate with a regime devoted to internal repression and external aggression.
Like Assad, the Houthis will someday lose power, and Yemenis will remember who helped them in their hour of need and who did not. Keeping up the pressure, military, political, and economic, is critical. Denying the regime legitimacy and opportunities to divert foreign aid is a key component of that effort. Assad’s experience shows that these tyrants do not last forever and that investing in long-term diplomatic relationships with them is a losing bet.
Ari Heistein is an advisor to Israeli startups seeking to sell to the U.S. federal government, a consultant on issues relating to Yemen, and a nonresident fellow at the Counter Extremism Project. He has previously worked in business development for an Israeli cyber intelligence company and served as a research fellow and chief of staff at the Institute for National Security Studies in Tel Aviv.
Nathaniel Rabkin worked as an Arabic translator and interpreter for the U.S. military in Iraq’s Wasit province in 2008-2009 and as an analyst embedded with the Department of Defense’s Human Terrain System in Anbar province 2010-2011. He has also performed work for several business and security consultancies and NGOs operating in the Middle East. He worked from 2013 to 2020 as managing editor of Inside Iraqi Politics, a political risk newsletter.
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