Common enemy brings Iran, Saudi Arabia closer
Relations between Saudi Arabia and the Shiite movements in Yemen, namely the Houthis, have fluctuated over the years but may turn into a Saudi-Iranian rapprochement as a common enemy threatens both sides.
On Sept. 26, 1962, the Yemeni revolution rose to topple the Shiite Zaydi Imamate and installed a republican system of government in its stead. During the same time this year, Zaydi forces, known as Houthis, entered the Yemeni capital Sanaa, took control of key government institutions and declared the fall of the Sunni, Salafist and Muslim Brotherhood-oriented government.
The irony is that the political struggle that raged back then made Saudi Arabia an ally of the Shiite regime that ruled Yemen at the expense of the predominantly Sunni opposition, which was backed by Egypt. At that time, Saudi Arabia made military and economic efforts to keep the Yemeni Shiite monarchy in place, but it was finally ousted by supporters of the republican regime.
Riyadh later sought to safeguard and expand its influence in Yemen by exploiting the religious card through the promotion and backing of the Wahhabi ideology in Yemeni society. In that context, many religious, social and political organizations with Salafist aspirations were established with Saudi support. Most prominent among them was the Yemeni Congregation for Reform, which was formed in 1990 by a variety of Salafist, Wahhabi and Brotherhood factions. The party brought together tribal and community leaders within an Islamist framework striving to install an Islamist rule in Yemen that espouses Salafist standards common to the Wahhabi and Brotherhood ideologies. It also received enormous Saudi financial backing and maintained good relations with the international organization of the Muslim Brotherhood.
With the rise of the Houthi movement during the early 1990s, Saudi Arabia stood with the factions opposing this movement. These factions were composed of the President Ali Abdullah Saleh-led Yemeni government and the Congregation for Reform, which sometimes allied itself with that government and other times only backed it. Saudi Arabia intervened on more than one occasion, both militarily and economically, against the Houthis and participated in repressing them in their northern bastions.
