Yemen's Historical Conflict and Current Crisis

There used to be two Yemens, one ruled by imams, the other

by communists. Now Saudi Arabia's airports are being hit,

Yemen

is under fire, and America could be drawn in.

So let me explain how all of those things connect.

North Yemen's capital, Sanaa, was the mountainous northwest, this

region. Small, crowded, high enough to catch a lot of the rain

that most of Arabia misses. Rain means fertile land,

hence why most Yemenis

lived there. For centuries, its highlands were ruled by Zaidi Shia

imams, a branch closer in law and practice to Sunni

Islam than to Iran's Twelver Shia.

South Yemen covered the south and the east, two-thirds of the land,

but a

fifth of the people, and its capital, Aden, had a superb

natural harbor. So guess who seized it in 1839

and held it for

128 years? If you guessed Britain, you'd be right.

The North escaped European colonization, but the South did not.

Then in 1962, army officers inspired by Arab

nationalism overthrew the newly installed imam in the north and declared a

republic. Eight years of civil war followed.

Egypt backed the Republicans. Saudi Arabia backed the Zaidi imam.

Remember that. Republicans won, and the old Zaidi elite lost power.

In 1967, Britain withdrew after a costly

insurgency,

and South Yemen became the Arab world's only Marxist

state, backed by Moscow. But as the Soviet Union weakened,

the South lost money and protection, while oil had been found

near the border, so unity became genuinely popular, and in

1990, the two Yemens merged under the northern

president, Ali

Abdullah Saleh. But four years later, the South tried to leave.

It lost. Southern officers were pushed out of their land, and it was

transferred to northern elites. Still a live grievance today.

Meanwhile, in Saada, a Zaidi revival movement

was organizing among the descendants of that elite that had been kicked out.

Many felt sidelined and threatened by Saudi-funded

hardline Sunni preachers teaching that their Zaidi faith was deviant,

and they called themselves Ansar Allah.

We call them the Houthis after the family leading them, and Iran

became their main backer. In 2014, the Houthis

seized Sanaa, and they ousted the internationally

recognized

government. Saudi Arabia began bombing Yemen in 2015

to restore that ousted government and to stop an

Iran-aligned armed movement gaining control on its

southern border. Fighting and humanitarian catastrophe ensued.

More than a decade later, the Houthis still hold the capital of

Yemen,

and they're attacking Red Sea shipping and now firing missiles at Saudi airports.