Ayoon Wa Azan (Maybe This or That or Something Else)

In 1996, I conducted an interview with King Hassan II in Bouznika, and on the sidelines of the discussion, we spoke of Arabian horses. I told him that Prince Khaled bin Sultan, the publisher of Al-Hayat, owns a large collection of pure breeds that always win prizes in international competitions. After the interview, the King took me to show me some of his own Arabian horses, and there, I asked him a question, which is frequently raised in the Levant: How many recognized Islamic sects are there? King Hassan said that Muslims have already settled this matter. I told him that in the Levant, we are still debating this issue, and he responded by saying: the Muslims are seven sects, the four sects and the Ithna‘ashariyyah' [Twelver or Imami Shi'ism], the Zaidiyya and the Ibadiyya.

Years later, a great Islamic conference was organized in Jordan, in which eight sects participated. I met Prince Zaid bin Hussein in Davos and asked him about the eighth sect. He said that it was the Dhahiriyya sect, which is spreading fast in Asia and particularly in its East.

Following the military defeat of the Khawarej, the Ibadis took refuge to the outer regions [of the Middle East], and the majority of the Ibadis live today in Oman, Algeria and Morocco. As for the Zaidis, they mostly live in Yemen, and the tenants of their beliefs are somehow in between those of the Sunnis and the Shiites. They are named after Zaid bin Ali Zayn el Abideen bin Hussein bin Ali bin Abi Taleb. However, they are not followers of the Jaafari sect nor are they waiting for the reappearance of the hidden twelfth Imam.

Ayatollah Khomeini, while waiting for this Imam, devised the concept of Velayat-e-Faqih [rule of the Imam], while Badreddin al-Houthi advocated the similar notion of Ihtisab [Ar. Reckoning] after having split along with his followers from the Zaidiyya sect. In fact, he travelled to Iran in the mid-nineties, and returned as an advocate of Imami Shi'ism, inciting the Zaidi Imams to disavow him.

The above was an introduction, and the following is a second introduction: the Huthis have been rebelling against the Yemeni government, and have recently managed to take their insurgency across the border with the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. After Badreddin al-Houthi and his son Hussein who accompanied him to Iran, we now hear about Mohamed Badreddin al-Houthi, and Abdul Malek, his youngest son.

In fact, the Huthi insurgency is not new; they previously bore arms against their government in 2004, and also in 2005 and 2006. There were confrontations taking place in 2007 and 2008 as well, which ended in an accord announced by President Ali Abdullah Saleh on 17/7/2008, the thirtieth anniversary of Saleh taking office.

To be fair to the Yemeni President, he did try to reach a political solution with them, and encouraged them to engage in the political process, following the unification of the country in 1990, when the door was open for a multi-party system. They won two seats in the 1993 elections, through Al-Haq party, which became Muntada Shabab al-Moumineen [Believing Youth Gathering] last year.

The crisis could have remained entirely an internal Yemeni affair, had it not been for the assault against the Saudi territories, which I found to be illogical in the beginning, because the Huthis are only a few and their weaponry is limited when compared to a large country with a strong army equipped with modern weapons, fighter jets, armoured vehicles and heavy artillery. As such, we saw how the battle was won faster than it began, and how the Saudi forces expelled the rebels in a matter of days. (I appreciate the objectivity of Al-Arabiya here because immediately after talking to Prince Khalid bin Sultan, the Saudi Assistant Minister of Defence on the frontlines, the television stations moved to interviewing a Huthi spokesperson who answered the questions of the very able presenter)

Against the background of all of the above, the Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki gave a strange statement, in which he warned against the interference by “other parties” in Yemen, while Iran itself is accused of meddling there, and warned against the exacerbation of the confrontations, while Iran is also being accused of doing just that. Mottaki then warned of the dangers of “supporting terrorist and extremist groups, both financially and politically”, perhaps meaning al-Qaeda; however, Iran is accused of supporting the Huthis financially, politically as well as militarily.

Following the bombing in Khobar in 1996 and the role of the Saudi Hezbollah in that attack (and Iran’s role in training and arming the latter group), Saudi Arabia did not turn in the Iranians to the Americans. This was done in return for a verbal agreement with Iran, in which it is pledged that no Iranian or Shiite terrorist attacks would take place against Saudi Arabia, both inside and abroad. Since 1996, Saudi Arabia suffered many terrorist attacks and attempts, but without ever accusing Iran, which means that the above mentioned understanding was still valid; however, the Iranian support for the Huthis came now to change the rules of engagement.

Perhaps, the Huthis have legitimate demands to their government. Perhaps the case here is that they have made a mistake in dealing with the government, by resorting to violence, finding themselves, as a result, in the face of a dead end and chosing to internationalize their cause by dragging a major regional country, such as Saudi Arabia to the conflict. They did that, in the hope that this conflict would be resolved through the intervention of regional and international parties.

In this case here, it might have to do with this, that, or something. Nonetheless, the fighting has negative impacts on the Huthis, their cause and on Iran behind them.