Yemen’s Houthis: Iran’s proxy on the Red Sea

The Houthi militia speaks for only a sliver of Yemen. It reflects neither the country’s political diversity nor its social diversity and it is far removed from the will of the Yemeni people. Most Yemenis reject a project they see as tied entirely to Iran’s regional agenda.

At its core, the militia’s system is openly racist. It claims a divine right to rule and casts aside republican values, democracy and equal citizenship. In their place, it promotes dynastic and ethnic privilege, justified by claimed descent from the Prophet’s family and the Hashemites, a model that mirrors the clerical regime in Tehran. Aware that this project could never win popular support through politics, the militia turned to Iran to impose it by force. Tehran, for its part, saw in the Houthis a ready-made instrument for its destabilizing ambitions in the region.

The militia has relied on violence ever since. It continues to wage war on Yemen’s land and people, targeting above all those who refuse to bow to its rule. Taiz, a civilian city, has lived under siege for 12 years, enduring destruction and hunger. The situation has deteriorated to the point that chemical substances have been used in the Al-Shaqab area of Taiz governorate.

Tehran, for its part, saw in the Houthis a ready-made instrument for its destabilizing ambitions in the region
Noofal Gawad

Iran’s control over the Houthis cannot be dismissed. According to confirmed information from a diplomatic source close to the Iranian regime, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps holds the reins of the Houthis’ military, security, political and economic affairs, leaving only limited room for internal politics.

Commanders from the IRGC, the Quds Force, Hezbollah and Iraq’s Popular Mobilization Forces oversee the militia’s military, security, logistics and finances. Officials directly control the missile and drone units and no projectile is fired without approval from IRGC and Quds Force personnel stationed in Houthi-held areas. Events on the ground show a relationship of dependence, not a conventional alliance. The international community should therefore treat it as a regional security issue, not an internal Yemeni dispute. International reports also point to the presence of Hezbollah-linked operatives and experts in Houthi-controlled territory, led by Abdul Reza Shahlaei, the IRGC’s representative there.

All of this shows how deeply Iran uses its military ties with the Houthis to harm not only Yemenis but also the security and stability of Saudi Arabia.

Yemen’s natural place is within the Arab and Gulf sphere, not alongside Iran’s clerics. Yet the militia has tied itself firmly to Tehran.

The Houthis are not Iran’s partners. Like Hezbollah and the Popular Mobilization Forces, they are a proxy of the IRGC and the Quds Force, carrying out the tasks assigned to them under Iran’s expansionist plan for the region.

Yemen’s strategic value is clear. It overlooks the Bab Al-Mandab Strait, one of the world’s most important trade routes, as well as the Red Sea and the Arabian Sea. It shares borders with Oman and Saudi Arabia, a regional heavyweight politically, economically and religiously. Yemen cannot be secure or prosperous without strong, stable ties with its Gulf neighbors, with Saudi Arabia first among them.

The Houthis are handing Bab Al-Mandab to Tehran on a silver platter and ordinary Yemenis are paying the price
Noofal Gawad

That explains Tehran’s interest. Iran already wields influence over the Strait of Hormuz. An armed group loyal to it near Bab Al-Mandab gives it a second chokepoint and more leverage over global trade and energy security. Any threat to Red Sea shipping reaches far beyond Yemen, unsettling oil markets, maritime traffic and a host of international interests. Iran can thus pile pressure on its rivals without fighting from its own soil. This is exactly what it is doing now, in plain sight.

The strait is only part of the picture. Yemen’s location allows Iran to use the Houthis to threaten Saudi Arabia’s borders, economic facilities and oil export routes. Events in 2026 have made this plain. As shipping through Hormuz was disrupted, the Kingdom’s Red Sea export route grew in importance and, with it, the exposure of ships and facilities along that route to Houthi threats and attacks. Iran’s pressure now extends from the Gulf to the Red Sea through a network of allied armed groups, with the Houthis its most obedient proxy.

The result is that Yemen, once part of the Arab world’s strategic depth, is becoming a battleground for Iran’s interests. The Houthis are handing Bab Al-Mandab to Tehran on a silver platter and ordinary Yemenis are paying the price.

Yemen has seen many attempts at peace: the National Dialogue Conference, then talks in Geneva and Kuwait. UN-sponsored negotiations in Kuwait between April and August 2016 collapsed without a deal because Tehran withheld its approval. In 2014, the group signed the Peace and National Partnership Agreement, only to tear it up and seize state institutions by force. The pattern repeats itself: the Houthis join political talks but keep their weapons to impose facts on the ground, always with an eye on Iran.

Yemenis, especially in Taiz, have paid dearly. Saudi Arabia has faced missile and drone attacks on its territory, including King Khalid International Airport and the holy cities of Makkah and Madinah. Shipping in the Red Sea remains under constant threat.

In my view, studies that play down the prospect of a military solution overestimate the group’s staying power. This is especially true given that it shows no real willingness to make peace, accept the Yemeni state or join a political partnership free of the gun within a Yemen committed to its Arab identity and to good relations with its neighbors, not to hostility toward them.

History shows that states can defeat extremist groups, though by different means. Sri Lanka, with international backing, crushed the Tamil Tigers in 2009. Angola ended the National Union for the Total Independence of Angola insurgency in 2002. Peru broke the hold of the Communist Party of Peru in 1992. Daesh was defeated in Iraq. The Houthi militia belongs among such terrorist groups.

Supporting the Yemeni state and its institutions, while protecting civilians, is therefore essential to ending the Houthi threat to Yemen, the region and international shipping, and above all to halting Iran’s destabilizing strategy against its neighbors.