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.