Comment by nixon_why69
1 day ago
I think you're underrating how much you've bought the framing from US/neoliberal media, though. Try to put yourselves in Hezbollah or the Houthis' shoes, you wouldn't think of yourself as a pawn, you'd think of yourself as full-agency humans with interests and allies. Sunni power is against you so you ally with the Shia power.
For example, Iran never directly intervened in Yemen, they limited themselves to sending weapons, but the Saudis did a SHITLOAD[1], to the tune of 10k troops, hundreds of sorties and a "war crimes" section on the wiki page. Yet somehow the IRGC is the most salient group in this conflict to you, despite not doing any direct fighting?
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saudi-led_intervention_in_the_...
The Houthis are literally Nazis. They run a race cult. They use child soldiers. As with Hezbollah in Lebanon, they're a religious minority that nonetheless exercises de facto control over security in their country. Iran trained and armed them; the Houthis are explicitly Khomeinists.
Now you're talking. They have agency, motivation and accept help where they can get it.
And I'm not saying they're good guys but the next step is weighting their atrocities on the same standard as those committed by the Saudis with our support.
Characterizing the Houthis as a race cult is bizarre. They are a Zaydi Shia group which Iran has cultivated over the years. But they were around before that relationship and would not disappear if that relationship was severed.
Also it's dishonest not to include the actions of the Saudis and the UAE when discussing the Yemen conflict. As well as the sustained U.S targeting support in bombing the hell out of that country.
I don't know what's complicated about this. Yemen is neither a religious nor an ethnic monoculture. Ansar Allah operates a caste system inside of it. Not all Zaydiyya align with Ansar Allah. More than half of Yemen is Sunni. There are ethnic underclasses in Yemen that are literally kept as chattel slaves.
You have never, ever seen me on this site stick up for Saudi Arabia. I feel like this is a big way people get themselves into trouble thinking about MENA. In most of these conflicts, there isn't a protagonist.
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