![]() A careful reconstruction of the post-2011 failed transition based on some 17 years of fieldwork, putting Houthi grievances and offenses into a broader political context. Stacey Philbrick Yadav, Yemen in the Shadow of Transition: Pursuing Justice Amid War (Oxford 2023). It offers a detailed account of the local complexities of the Houthi conflict and its historical background and underscores the absolute imperative of understanding the highly local, personal, and non-ideological nature of internal conflict in Yemen. This book is based on years of anthropological fieldwork expertise both on the ground and through digital anthropological approaches. From the civil war to the Houthi conflict these transformations involve the same individuals, families and groups, and are driven by the same struggles over resources, prerogatives, and power. Its origins must be sought in the political, economic, social and sectarian transformations since the 1960s civil war and their repercussions on the local society, which is dominated by tribal norms. Yet, as experienced by locals, the Houthi conflict is much more deeply rooted in the recent history of Sa'dah Province. In the West the Houthi conflict, which erupted in 2004, is often defined through the lenses of either the Iranian-Saudi proxy war or the Sunni-Shia divide. To quote from its abstract: Tribes and Politics in Yemen tells the story of the Houthi conflict in Sa'dah Province, Yemen, as seen through the eyes of the local tribes. The gold standard for deeply informed research on the Houthi movement. Mareike Brandt, Tribes and Politics in Yemen: A History of the Houthi Conflict (Hurst/Oxford 2017). Here, I am going to focus on books: here’s seven great books to add to your library and dig into if you want to better understand Yemen, the Houthis, and the long-running American military campaign. But for now, let’s take one of those patented MENA Academy steps back: what should you read if you want to understand who the Houthis are, how they came to power, and what they hope to achieve? There’s a lot of commentary and policy analysis out there, some outstanding (like Elisabeth Kendall’s outstanding primer just published the other day - start there if you’re new to Yemen) and a lot of flaming piles of trash. There will be much to say about the policy issues, the regional implications, and the metastasizing Gaza war soon. The real question is what happens next: do the Houthis settle for a similarly demonstrative response in order to safe face while avoiding escalation, as Hezbollah has often done in response to Israeli attacks, or do they escalate the scale or target of their attacks? If the attacks on shipping don’t stop, will the US continue and expand its airstrikes? Will it, god forbid, decide to go all in and attempt to topple the Houthis through a military campaign - picking up the mantle of the failed Saudi led war which caused the humanitarian catastrophe that a very different, pre-Gaza Joe Biden once criticized so passionately? Yemenis suffered so much from the long years of war following the 2015 Saudi-led intervention the shaky twenty month truce that has allowed for some humanitarian relief is one of the Biden administration’s quiet successes that its airstrikes now put at risk. The US-UK airstrike itself was more symbolic than meant to actually degrade or destroy Houthi capabilities. It strikes many observers as just another dangerous step down the path towards regional escalation which the Biden administration ostensibly wants to prevent - just, that is, as long as it doesn’t require actually stopping the Israeli war on Gaza which is its cause. But it’s also easy to see that such a military strike is unlikely to achieve its goals. It’s easy to see why the US felt it needed to act: the Houthi attacks have had a palpable effect on global shipping which the US has made clear it could not ignore. Few Yemen experts (or anyone else who knows the region) expects that the air strikes will have any serious impact on Houthi capabilities or its grip on power. The attack came following another Houthi attack on Red Sea shipping in the face of an American ultimatum, as it struggles to reassure shipping companies and break the de facto blockade imposed by Houthi attacks on shipping with the avowed goal of demanding an Israeli ceasefire in Gaza. Last night, the US and UK launched a large-scale targeted bombing campaign against Houthi targets in Yemen.
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