Reports from Yemen that express optimism and portray a new offensive against the Houthis as potentially successful may be part of a path to reshape the Middle East.
Some had assumed that the US and Israeli strikes on Iran in February would lead to a new Middle East. Under this concept, the Iranian regime would either collapse or be so weakened that the whole region would change.
The Iranian regime has withstood the blows so far. It’s possible that the regime won’t collapse and that it will continue on, in much the same way Saddam’s regime continued on throughout the 1990s.
If the Iranian regime doesn’t collapse, that doesn’t mean change is stymied. In fact, a blockaded and weakened Iran may not be able to support its proxies as much.
The Houthis have, to some extent, become the “last man standing” among the Iranian proxies. This is because they have not faced the pressure or the fighting that the other proxies have faced.
Iranian proxy forces heavily degraded
Hezbollah has seen its rocket arsenal badly degraded. Hamas has lost half of Gaza and many of its fighters. It can be argued that Hamas and Hezbollah are now weakened back to their 2002-2006 levels. They are still dangerous. However, they are different. Israel’s defense technology has also improved exponentially since the 2002-2006 era.
The area that is controlled by Hamas and Hezbollah is today quite small, considering the size of the Middle East. Iran, for instance, is around 150 times larger than Lebanon.
Hezbollah only controls several areas in Lebanon today. The strength of Hezbollah lies in its support among the Shi’ite minority in Lebanon. The Shi’ites also support Amal, another party. Amal generally runs interference for Hezbollah, tacitly supporting it in some ways, or at least excusing its activity.
Amal’s leader, Nabih Berri, was born in 1938 and has been Speaker of Parliament in Lebanon since 1992. With Hezbollah weakened and a potential leadership crisis in Amal, change in Lebanon is plausible over time.
Another pro-Iranian axis in the region is the Shi’ite militias in Iraq. They have some 100,000 fighters. They are divided into numerous brigades of various militias.
These militias also come under the government-backed Popular Mobilization Forces. The US is pressuring Iraq to rein in the militias.
Some militias might agree to place their arms under state control. Others are saying they will not. They want the US to fully leave Iraq by September 30. Then they say they may consider the changes to their armament. If they do agree to some changes, this could fundamentally reshape Iraq.
The spotlight now focuses on the Houthis. Cut off from Iranian funding, supplies, and Iranian know-how for missiles and some components, they may be weaker than before. Iran used to smuggle weapons to them using various types of ships. Now the US has a blockade off the coast of Iran.
Perhaps the ships have stopped. Saudi Arabia and its allies in the Yemen government forces may sense an opportunity. Optimism is rising in the Yemen government ranks and among supporters of the Saudi-led coalition in Yemen.
Houthis poor at city, coastal defense, but hard to dislodge from highlands
Michael Knights, an Adjunct Fellow at The Washington Institute for Near East Policy and an expert on Yemen and the fighting there, wrote on X/Twitter on September 7 about the challenges facing Yemeni forces fighting the Houthis.
He noted, discussing the Houthis that they are “serially poor at defending cities and coastal areas; but they would be harder to dislodge from highlands and no Yemeni offensive has ever successfully developed a ‘second echelon’ of forces to exploit an initial break-in onto the centrally massif. The Houthis only still hold terrain because of the weakness of Yemeni/int’l forces, not intrinsic Houthi strength.”
Knights has written two important books on the war in Yemen, including ‘25 Days to Aden: The Unknown Story of Arabian Elite Forces at War’ and ‘The Race For Mukalla: Arabian Elite Forces and the War Against Al-Qaeda.’
He also noted on X on September 7 that “the winning formula against the Houthis is a concentric attack on [more than] 6 fronts with air power intervening as needed. The Houthis have never successfully defended terrain, even plateau, under such conditions.”
The Houthis are now facing pressure. The question is whether they will begin to lose ground or if this offensive will stall. Even if it does stall, lessons may be learned.
Iran is having a harder time backing its proxies. This is a far cry from where Iran was a decade ago. It used to feel that it controlled much of the region. The IRGC Quds Force commander Qasem Soleimani had encouraged Moscow to intervene in Syria in 2015.
The Houthis were on the march toward Aden. Hamas felt confident in Gaza. Hezbollah was able to threaten Israel in Lebanon and Syria.
Now, much of that map of Iranian expansion in the region has changed. Iran has still seen successes. It didn’t collapse under US and Israeli airstrikes.
It has lashed out around the region and threatened US bases in the Gulf. It has launched 1,000 missile and drone attacks on Iraq and appeared to pre-empt a Kurdish uprising. Iran is still hollowing out countries in the region. However, it’s possible that some more of its dominoes may fall. Decades of Iranian investment in proxies is no longer paying off. Soleimani was killed in 2000 alongside Iraqi militia leader Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis.
Iranian proxies have fired their last shot in some cases. Recovery for them will take time. Pressure on them could lead to a lasting defeat for the proxies.
