Former Baker Institute Scholar
The deepening civil war in its southern neighbor poses more challenges than solutions.
With insurgent leader Abdul-Malik al-Houthi and his Zaidi tribesmen in Yemen’s capital of Sana’a for the first time since 1962, Saudi Arabia faces a growing dilemma on how to manage the deepening crisis south of its 1,100-mile porous border with its southern neighbor at a time when it is confronted by crises around most of its borders. Its natural boundaries to the west along the Red Sea and to the east along the Persian Gulf offer the kingdom little security from its main adversary, Iran, which has meddled in its internal affairs, and its eastern neighbor, Bahrain. The kingdom faces further security challenges along its northern border with Iraq with ISIL and more broadly, with its competition with Tehran in the Levant.
Riyadh has always viewed Yemen’s large population, poverty, competing armed tribes and families with historical ties to Saudi Arabia, and limited central government a potential threat. The Shi’a Houthi insurgency in the North, which has been accused of receiving Iranian support, and al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) plotting against the kingdom have been of particular concern.
Riyadh’s balance of supporting opposing tribes and families through financial support and security assistance, which advanced its interests and ensured its security, collapsed with the deterioration of Yemeni President Saleh’s regime in 2011. The UN and the Gulf Cooperation Council’s (GCC) subsequent search for an effective leader to replace Saleh has been a mixed endeavor. While the U.S. has continued its counter-terrorism operations against AQAP, the Obama administration has left finding a political solution to its regional partners. With a few former political allies in the North aligning with the Muslim Brotherhood, Riyadh has engaged Abd Mansur Hadi, Saleh’s deputy, with the hope that the new Yemeni president could lead the state through this post-Saleh period of transition, dialogue, and potential constitutional reform.
The Houthis’ seizure of power in Sana’a this past September, which was met with little resistance, upended Riyadh’s strategy and empowered two of its opponents, al-Houthi and potentially, Saleh, who has strong ties with elements of the military, which may have aided the Houthis. Al-Houthi has used this opportunity to expand his control of northern Yemen, including Al Hudaydah, the second largest port, and has focused on the Marib oil fields. In the short term, the fighting between Houthis and the AQAP has weakened and distracted both groups from focusing on Saudi Arabia and the GCC. However, AQAP, as noted by the recent Paris attacks, is still a potent threat.
In the long term, Riyadh faces the larger challenge of finding a new political solution to counter Tehran’s attempts to further encircle Saudi Arabia through the empowerment of the Houthis. The kingdom’s ability to contain the Houthis depends on how well Riyadh can find capable new partners in the North to balance the Houthis.
One possible route is the current rocky constitutional negotiations. Despite objections from former President Saleh and his allies, the Houthis, and tribes in the South seeking independence from Sana’a, the proposed constitution — resulting from the National Dialogue process — offers a pathway to keep the state united and dilutes the power of these groups who pose a challenge to the kingdom’s security and interests. However, the Houthis’ obstruction of the process so far, including the kidnapping of President Hadi’s chief of staff Ahmed Awad bin Mubarak this past Saturday, has made these negotiations quite difficult.
If this process isn’t successful, engaging Ahmad Saleh, who former President Saleh has positioned as his successor, may be a potential avenue to weaken the Houthi position in the state. President Obama should raise Tehran’s support of the Houthis in any future negotiations surrounding the normalization of relations between the U.S. and Iran. Finally, while a united Yemen is preferable, an independent southern Yemen could be a potential solution if southern tribes and families are able to contain AQAP and the Houthi expansion south. In all these cases, Saudi Arabia and its regional and international partners face a number of strategic risks that aren’t easily managed or contained.
Andrew J. Bowen, Ph.D., is the scholar for the Middle East at the James A. Baker III Institute for Public Policy at Rice University.
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