Arc of crisis

How Houthi anger with Israel is reshaping the Middle East conflict

- Patrick Wintour

Last summer, as Washington tried to coax Saudi Arabia towards the grand bargain of normalisation of its relations with Israel, diplomats in Riyadh were much more focused on securing a different peace deal on its southern borders with one of the most successful insurgencies of modern times - the one led by the Houthi rebels of Yemen.

With an informal ceasefire holding inside Yemen, and after months of private talks mainly mediated in Oman, on 14 September a Houthi delegation flew to Riyadh, where they met Prince Khalid bin Salman, the defence minister and brother of the crown prince.

Major differences remained to be settled, but it seemed as if, after decades of fighting, peace was to come to the country, and largely on the terms dictated by a group that did not really exist as a political force inside Yemen until the early 2000s. Saudi Arabia was finally going to cut its losses on the disastrous offensive it launched in 2015 to push back the Houthis. Yet 23 days after the Riyadh meeting, Hamas broke through the border with Israel, massacring Israelis and sparking a chain of events that last week left Yemen exposed to a two-day attack from US and British submarines and warships on the Red Sea.

The attacks on Houthi bases in Yemen, as well as ratcheting up the tension in a region already gripped by violence, took Yemen further away from elusive internal peace.

Two factors are adding to the complexity of a region riven by conflict: the Houthis' support for the Palestinian cause, and the way Yemen's geography helps shape political dynamics. As the writer Iona Craig observes, Yemen is a quintessential example of geopolitics the place where geography and politics come together.