The Daily - What the Houthis Really Want

Episode Date: January 18, 2024

Attacks by Houthi militants on shipping in the Red Sea, a crucial global trade route, once seemed like a dangerous sideshow to the war in Gaza. But as the attacks have continued, the sideshow has turned into a full-blown crisis.Vivian Nereim, the Gulf bureau chief for The Times, explains what cause is served by the Houthis’ campaign.Guest: Vivian Nereim, the Gulf bureau chief for The New York Times.Background reading: Undeterred by strikes by American and British forces, the Houthis targeted more ships in the Red Sea.Washington is grappling with how to stop a battle-hardened foe from disrupting shipping lanes critical for global trade.For more information on today’s episode, visit nytimes.com/thedaily. Transcripts of each episode will be made available by the next workday.

From New York Times, I'm Michael Barbaro. This is The Daily. Over the past few months, attacks by Houthi militants on global trade and the Western military, which once seemed like a dangerous sideshow to the war in Gaza, have become a full-blown crisis. Today, my colleague, Golf Bureau Chief Vivian Neron, on what the Houthis really want. It's Thursday, January 18th. There's a marked escalation of tensions along one of the world's busiest shipping routes. Houthi militants claimed responsibility for yet another attack on a container ship. The latest target of Yemen's Houthis, Norwegian tanker Strinda, struck by a missile.

A U.S. warship shot down 14 drones fired by suspected Houthi rebels in Yemen. The escalation of attacks have encouraged a series of shipping companies to announce they would suspend their movements through the Red Sea. A United States official tells CNN the U.S. military has carried out strikes on multiple Houthi targets in Yemen. This war could be escalating big time. The Pentagon confirms it has carried out more strikes against the Yemen-based Houthi rebels,

the third assault on the group in recent days. Houthi leaders said this aggression will not go unanswered, threatening to keep on attacking those ships that are passing through the Red Sea. President Biden saying he will not hesitate to act further if that continues. Vivian, over the past few weeks, as militants in Yemen have carried out this really unusual military campaign against commercial ships in the Red Sea and have basically crippled this trade route and triggered a very significant military response from the U.S. and its allies, the question I think all of us have had with increasing urgency is, what exactly has motivated these militants, the Houthis,

to do this? What do they want? And how do these attacks in the Red Sea serve that cause? Well, the Houthis' stated motivation has, from the start, been all about, you know, the Palestinians and Gaza and sort of forcing Israel to end its siege on Gaza. They have for a very long time kind of centered opposition to Israel and hostility towards the United States and the Palestinian cause in their narrative and in their ideology. And they've really been kind of bringing that up. They've essentially been saying, you know, look at what Israel is doing to the Palestinians. No one is standing up for them. None of the other Arab governments have really done anything. You know, they're not doing an oil embargo. They're not going to war.

And that we essentially, and they represent themselves as, you know, the Yemeni government, we are the only state in the region that is doing anything about this, that is taking on Israel and the United States. So the way that they're pushing all of this messaging out to the world is through this incredibly robust wartime propaganda. They produce these music videos and songs and poems. You know, they're very active on social media, especially on X and TikTok. What exactly do these social media messages

that they're putting out say? They've released really catchy songs in Arabic. They kind of say things like, oh, you know, we're Yemeni, but our blood is Palestinian. They have done things like put up, you know, Twitter polls essentially saying, you know, who are you on the side of? Are you on the side of genocide in America or are you on the side of, you know, the brave Yemenis fighting genocide and standing up for justice essentially? And that's a Twitter poll that they put out in English.

Wow. Kind of just trying to sort of speak to a different audience. So that has become, again, a very important tool for them. So what the Houthis say they want, and what's captured in these propaganda videos that you just described, is to use these attacks to pressure Israel and Israel's allies, primarily the U.S., into ending Israel's military operation in Gaza.

That's what they claim this is all about. Yes, that's exactly what they say. Okay. So that's what the Houthis want everyone to see as their animating cause. Is that, based on your reporting, based on your long-term understanding of the Houthis, is it that straightforward? Is that the reality of what is really motivating them? No, I think their behavior and their motivations

are much more complicated than that. I mean, the Houthis ultimately want relevance. They want power. They have a lot of domestic aims. And in so many ways, the war in Gaza has really been just this huge gift from the sky for them. It enables them to achieve so many of their own aims. And I can't even describe to you how strange it is as somebody who's covered the Houthis for many years,

and they were this really just little-known group, to see how prominent they are and how much people who really know almost nothing about Yemen now talk about them and know who they are all over the world. Well, tell us that story of who the Houthis are, where they come from, and how the operation that they are now conducting that has really kind of menaced the Red Sea and much of the West and its economy, how it achieves its real goals. You know, it's funny. I actually went back into the Old Times articles to see if we'd written anything about the early history of the Houthis. And we had almost nothing on them before even the mid-2000s, which was interesting to me. Essentially, the Houthis history as a movement dates back to the 1990s. They take their name from their tribe, which is

this extended clan whose home territory is in the mountains of northern Yemen near the border with Saudi Arabia. And they follow a subsect of Shia Islam and say that they're descendants of the Prophet Muhammad. So when they began their movement, they were really sort of a cultural and religious revivalist group that later became quite political. They began to adopt the slogan that essentially goes, quite political. They began to adopt the slogan that essentially goes, death to America, death to Israel, a curse upon the Jews. So their core ideology is really anti-American, anti-Zionist, and anti-Semitic. But when it comes to their political goals in Yemen at that time, they were really interested in fighting the Yemeni government. They very much portrayed themselves as fighting

against corruption and fighting against foreign influence. And their rise to prominence really coincided with the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003. And they really absorbed that invasion, which was incredibly unpopular, you know, throughout the Middle East and among Arab countries. They sort of saw this as an incredibly destabilizing military incursion into their region that they did not support. And the Houthis really seized on that and on sort of general rising anti-Americanism and incorporated that battling foreign influence really deep into their ideology. Right. And of course, the war in Iraq was about as clear a case of a foreign power stepping into their neighborhood as you could possibly imagine.

of a foreign power stepping into their neighborhood, as you could possibly imagine. Right, yeah. And for them, you know, they really saw U.S. influence in their own country as well, because the, you know, longtime Yemeni ruler who they were fighting against was this U.S. allied autocrat. He had been in power for more than 30 years, very oppressive, very corrupt government, and very unpopular. And they were, for a long time, fighting against him. So Yemen is already in this really kind of destabilized moment around 2010 and 2011, when the Arab Spring arrives all over the region. There are these sort of revolutions toppling strongmen. And one of the strongmen who gets toppled is Ali Abdullah Saleh,

the Yemeni leader, in this sort of like fit of popular anger. Now, what happened over the next couple of years was really chaotic. And eventually the Houthis saw an opportunity. And in 2014, they seized control of the Yemeni capital of Sana'a. And they sort of installed themselves as the alternative. So now that this clan from the northern mountains of Yemen has taken over the capital and the institutions, I would imagine, of Yemen's government,

what does the world make of that? Well, it's something that pretty immediately made Saudi Arabia, Yemen's government. What does the world make of that? Well, it's something that pretty immediately made Saudi Arabia, Yemen's much larger neighbor to the north, very nervous and concerned. Why? The Houthis are essentially a militia, right? They're this kind of religiously inspired militia, and that alone was enough to make Saudi Arabia nervous. They have this very long border with Yemen. They did not want a militia on the other side of the border. But perhaps equally as important to that is the fact that the Houthis had become aligned with Iran, which is Saudi Arabia's regional rival. And Saudi Arabia was very worried about the idea of this Iran-influenced militia,

potentially Iran-supported militia, taking over this large chunk of its southern border and what that would mean and the sense of being sort of crunched in by Iran-influenced proxies from different sides. So basically, in early 2015, Saudi Arabia gets together a coalition of Arab governments, and the Saudi-led coalition starts a bombing campaign in Yemen. starts a bombing campaign in Yemen. A direct strike in broad daylight. It's too graphic to show in full, but the bodies being pulled out belong to three-month-old Samud and her three-year-old brother, Nabi.

A bombing campaign that much of the world eventually comes to see as really intensive, gruesome, and lethal. Right. Residents say Saudi warplanes have dropped more than 100 bombs in civilian neighborhoods over the past few days. Yemen was already one of the Arab world's poorest countries, and this war essentially pitched it into one of the world's worst humanitarian crises. United Nations officials are warning that Yemen faces famine on a scale the world has not seen in decades. They are talking of millions of victims. This has been a tremendous loss of life. There have been cholera outbreaks. It's a great humanitarian crisis. Many, many people are dying. It's this incredibly brutal war. The UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon has appealed for urgent action

to stop Yemen from descending into anarchy. Yemen is collapsing before our eyes. We cannot stand by and watch. And the US was actually quite important to that war in the beginning. The Obama administration provided military support and intelligence to the Saudi-led coalition, refueling planes. Of course, many of the weapons that they were dropping were American weapons. So again, this kind of starts to fuel that sense from the Houthis and from many Yemenis that they are being conspired against by foreign powers. they are, you know, being conspired against by foreign powers.

And why, Vivian, does the United States get involved in this battle? Much of it seems to be because Saudi Arabia was such an important and is such an important U.S. ally. And the Yemeni government at the time, of course, was also U.S.-backed. So initially, the U.S. was supportive of this goal of restoring the legitimate Yemeni government. Over time, the U.S. support for the war really began to fray and become quite controversial. And you started to see a lot of political pressure in Washington for the U.S. to pull back its support and sort of fears that the U.S. was implicated in that destruction. and sort of fears that the U.S. was implicated in that destruction. And so basically from around 2018 and 2019 onwards, the war loses its international support.

And, you know, Saudi Arabia and the coalition members find themselves sort of on the back foot, and they gradually start to sort of pull back their involvement in the war. Got it. And where does this leave the Houthis? This essentially leaves the Houthis in power. It's really kind of incredible that they started as this underdog force, this ragtag militia fighting in flip-flops. And, you know, by 2021, 2022, they are essentially the dominant power in Yemen. And they're feeling quite confident.

They're essentially feeling like they won the war. So how do we get from this unlikely victory that the Houthis have over major powers, Saudi Arabia, the United States, to a campaign of bombing and attacks in the Red Sea that would seem to endanger all that the Houthis gained in that prolonged war? So you have to really remember that since they were founded, the Houthis have been a resistance movement. They've been rebels. That's been their entire identity. And so a rebel force doesn't really naturally then lend itself to becoming a government. They are now the powers that be in Yemen. There's nothing left for them to resist. So they're in this very uncomfortable position in a lot of ways as 2023 rolls around, and people are looking at them to provide basic services. They're looking at them

to provide electricity and water. They're looking at them to pay salaries for civil servants who, in many cases, have gone unpaid for years. And that's quite a lot of pressure on the Houthis. And no doubt to rebuild the entire country. And they also do need to rebuild the entire country, which is really in ruins. And all of that is quite expensive. And it's not really clear how they're going to navigate their way out of that. Right. This is sort of the context that October 7th rolls around in.

The Houthis are in this difficult position. They're facing this kind of prospect of transitioning into a peacetime government, which is going to be very challenging. And in that context, October 7th comes out of nowhere, and suddenly there's potentially an answer to a lot of their problems. Well, just explain that. How does Hamas attacking Israel, and Israel obviously preparing a ferocious response, how does that potentially solve all of the Houthi problems you just outlined? Well, it puts the Houthis at the center of this moment in the region where there is just anger all across the Arab world. And the Houthis really insert themselves into that. And they take it up

as an opportunity to really live out their narrative, to finally directly enter a war with Israel, you know, which is their declared great enemy. So once the Houthis directly enter this conflict, they're shooting missiles at Israel, they're attacking ships in the Red Sea, their popularity at home skyrockets. They find themselves in a situation where they can use this to recruit more fighters.

We can't stop! We can't stop! We can't stop! fighters. There are enormous rallies that they're holding in the streets of Sana'a of people coming out in solidarity with the Palestinians, you know, protesting against the Israeli bombardment of Gaza. They're just these huge crowds of people holding up their slogan, holding up images of the Houthi leader. And it's really quite a galvanizing moment for them. So ultimately, this, you're saying, is what the Houthis really want. This is that complicated set of motivations behind their decision to start hurling missiles into the Red Sea. The Houthis may say that what they're doing is just about defending the Palestinians and trying to end Israel's war in Gaza, but it is multi-pronged. And what the Houthis really want is a simpler way to win the hearts and minds of their own people

than being the government of Yemen. Right. I mean, the Houthis have pushed back against that narrative a lot. They're arguing that they're not doing this for popularity, that it's not about domestic reasons, you know, and they say this is a true moral crusade. We're fighting for justice. But the reality is that on the ground, they have benefited a lot in a lot of different ways. So it almost doesn't matter to what extent they believe the ideology that they're espousing. On the ground, there has been a massive benefit to them. And all of that means that the Houthis would seem to have virtually no motivation to stop doing what they're doing, battling the West in the Red Sea. Not at all. There's really no reason for them to pull back, and they're very comfortable fighting, and that's what they're doing right now.

As soon as it stops, it essentially leaves the Houthis back in a challenging position where they're going to have to figure out how to govern. They're going to have to figure out how to be in power and not how to be the rebels. For the Houthis, it is going to be much easier to keep fighting than it would be for them to govern a country that has been destroyed by decades of war. We'll be right back. It clearly puts the U.S. in a really complicated spot based on everything you just said, because at some point the U.S. has to respond to these attacks on ships, including U.S.-owned ships and U.S. military ships.

But the U.S. has to understand that any retaliation risks playing directly into the complicated motivations you just described. So how does the U.S. try to navigate that? Right. So for the first few weeks of these attacks, the U.S. does really appear to be trying to avoid entering into this conflict directly. There does seem to be some degree of recognition

that there's a real risk of escalation if they get involved and that the Houthis essentially could be legitimized by, you know, them attacking the Houthis, right? It's finally recognizing the Houthis as worthy of attack. So there's some resistance in the beginning toward that. There does seem to be a consensus at some point within the U.S. establishment that they do need to do something. And they eventually make this sort of statement with the U.K. and with this coalition, essentially threatening that if the attacks don't stop, they're going to respond. And that statement does seem to sort of lock them into action at that point because the Houthis have been very clear that they're not going to stop, that they absolutely have no intention of stopping.

And in fact, they've declared at this point that they would prefer a direct war with the United States. point that they would prefer a direct war with the United States. So once the U.S. does decide to retaliate, and it does so in a very forceful way, hitting dozens of targets inside Yemen that are controlled by the Houthis, how does the U.S. frame it? Well, the U.S. is very careful to try to frame this as having nothing to do with Israel and the war in Gaza. They're very concerned that essentially the Houthis are going to be able to weaponize this just to sort of deepen their narrative even more. And so they try to sort of frame it as a coalition response to protect economic interests, to protect global shipping, you know, and really try to emphasize the effect that the Houthi attacks have had on shipping and trade, you know,

particularly because they're passing through this incredibly important part of the Red Sea that leads to the Suez Canal. So when the U.S. responds, what President Biden is saying is, I'm not going to give you the propaganda tool of saying that this conflict is about what you, the Houthis, say it's about, which is Israel and Hamas and Gaza. It's about what you, the Houthis, say it's about, which is Israel and Hamas and Gaza. We are going to kind of strip all of this of that language and that symbolism. Yes, that is what they say.

That doesn't go over very well in the region or in Yemen. I mean, we pretty immediately were speaking to Yemenis who were saying, you know, even in territories that are hostile towards the Houthis, were saying that, oh, it looks like the U.S. just wants to attack them because they're defending the Palestinians. So immediately that U.S. effort to kind of parse this and frame it is seen as futile throughout Yemen. Yeah, it definitely falls flat in Yemen and in the broader Middle East. high level of anti-Americanism across the region right now, that it's very easy for the Houthis to spread this narrative and to gain popularity over it. Hmm. Regardless of how these attacks are being discussed or framed, do the U.S. coalition airstrikes work at all?

Are they doing what the United States wants them to do, which is to weaken the Houthis' capacity to strike ships in the Red Sea or in any way deter the Houthis from continuing to wage these attacks? They certainly do not deter the Houthis, who pretty immediately have started to stage attacks again and have vowed that they're going to be staging even bigger attacks. And they've said now that they see not only targets tied to Israel as legitimate targets, but any targets tied to American or British interests as legitimate targets for them to hit. So essentially, they are now widening the war. They're saying that this is a world war that we are excited to enter into now and we're ready for it.

Excited to enter. That's how they're framing this. Yeah, they are really honestly with pretty open delight. I mean, there was a post today on social media from one of their politicians basically saying, and I'll quote him, we're not worried about this battle, nor do we care about it. The missiles and planes that we were bombed with during the past nine years are the same ones that America has today. America was conducting this war against us undercover. And today we will confront it directly.

It's a positive thing because America is what brought destruction, siege, and poverty to our country. So instead of doing anything to contain the Houthis' aggression, the U.S. response, as perhaps many feared, risks, if not already is, expanding the threat of the Houthis. already is expanding the threat of the Houthis. And any future attacks from the U.S., which the U.S. claims it will undertake, is going to do the same. It's going to make things worse. Right. There does seem to be a real risk of further escalation at this moment.

It's not clear how this is going to quiet down. Well, what are the options for the U.S. if armed conflict and retaliation is proving to be so ineffective? What is basically the way out of a dynamic in which responses from the U.S. and its allies are feeding the Houthi narrative and making the Houthis more popular at home and less likely to ever want to stop doing this? The U.S. definitely doesn't have a great option or menu of responses in terms of how it's going to address the Houthi threat.

However, one argument that we're hearing pretty consistently from regional American allies like Qatar and Oman, which is a neighbor of Yemen and knows Yemen very well, has been that the only way to address the threat posed by the Houthis is to resolve the underlying conflict that is inflaming tensions across the region. And that, they say, is the war in Gaza. And their argument essentially is that it is the war in Gaza that is spreading all of these tensions, that is causing all of these different forms of escalation, and that is giving the Houthis a

pretext for their attacks. And if you can resolve that underlying conflict, if you can reach a ceasefire and you can defuse that, then you will ultimately defuse all of the other problems that are going on in the region right now. My guess is that the U.S. rejects that logic because it might feel to them like a reward for what the Houthis are up to. You know, we're going to call for a ceasefire,

we're going to push for an end to Israel's battle against Hamas just to stop the Houthis from attacking ships in the Red Sea. Right. I mean, there's certainly a fear now in the region and beyond that the Houthis know that they have this power and that they're not going to simply stop using it, right? They know now that they can essentially, you know, hold global trade hostage by attacking ships in the Red Sea. And it's difficult to imagine them never using that card again if they know that they can play it. Right. And how should we think about that, Vivian? I mean, the reality that in a very short time, the Houthis go from the clan that they were to essentially the governing power in Yemen to now a force that is not just willing but able to menace all of Western commerce in the Red Sea? I mean, it's really a

remarkable rise. I mean, the Houthis were such an underdog, and I don't think any of us imagined that we would be in this position when somebody sitting in New York even knows who they are, right? They have just risen so quickly and they've defeated so many enemies that were so much more powerful than them that they essentially see themselves as finally, you know, in the divine right path now. They see God is on their side, you know, they have no fear partly because of that. I mean, the Houthis have been very upfront that they are absolutely not afraid of getting dragged into a long and extended war with the United States.

And they've explicitly brought up, you know, the precedents of Afghanistan and Vietnam and threatened that, you know, come on, come and enter Yemen, invade Yemen. We're ready for you. And you have no idea what is in for you, essentially. They're this guerrilla fighting force that has managed to withstand much more powerful entities for you, essentially. They're this guerrilla fighting force that has managed to withstand

much more powerful entities for years and years. And that has put them in this position where they really feel that they have nothing to lose. Well, Vivian, thank you very much. We appreciate it. Thank you. On Wednesday, the United States said that it would designate the Houthis as a terrorist organization

in its latest and so far fruitless attempt to pressure the group into ending its attacks in the Red Sea. The Biden administration had removed the Houthis from the U.S. terror list in 2021, saying the decision would make it easier for humanitarian aid to reach the people of Yemen. The latest designation would, among other things, block the Houthis' access to the global financial system and further isolate the group from Western institutions. We'll be right back. writer E. Jean Carroll has accused Donald Trump of defaming her, warned Trump that he could be thrown out of the court if he continues making comments that the jury can hear. The warning came after a lawyer for Carroll complained that Trump had been overheard calling the trial a, quote, witch hunt and a con job. And the next two Republican presidential debates,

scheduled for Thursday and Sunday night in New Hampshire, have been canceled because just one qualified candidate, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, has agreed to appear. Trump has refused to participate in any primary debates, and a few days ago, former South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley said that she would refuse to attend unless Trump did, leaving DeSantis as the only candidate willing to debate. Today's episode was produced by Asta Chaturvedi, Eric Krupke, and Ricky Nowetzki. It was edited by M.J. Davis-Lynn,

contains original music by Alisha Ba'itub, Marion Lozano, Pat McCusker, and Rowan Emisto, and was engineered by Chris Wood. Our theme music is by Jim Brunberg and Ben Landsberg of Wonderly. Special thanks to

Saeed Al-Battati and Hannah Porter. That's it for The Daily. I'm Michael Barbaro. See you tomorrow.