Today’s Middle East, basically a battlefield between two opposing powers, is for many becoming an impossible place to live. Saudi Arabia and Iran are engaged in a series of proxy wars causing endless problems among Muslim states and the grassroots, where de facto animosity is increasing on both sides of the war front. Sectarianism is proving itself the only language spoken, but it is also clear that the heart of the struggle is political and involves history imported from hundreds of years ago to the present.
Yemen is the struggle’s newest arena. There the Saudis are leading a coalition arrayed against Iran’s close ally, Ansar Allah, the movement led by Abdul-Malik al-Houthi, the Zaydi Shiite leader and descendant of a family from Saada, near the Saudi border. Over the course of a few months, forces led by Houthi advanced to the Yemeni capital, Sanaa, and the southern capital, Aden, forcing Saudi-backed President Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi to step down. The Houthis view him as the main hurdle to national unity.
