천하天下

If we define a state based on Max Weber's theory of the monopoly of violence over a specific territory, the Houthis are closer to a state than to rebels. They effectively govern the northern Yemeni highlands, including the capital Sana'a, and the Red Sea coast, operating taxes, conscription, and courts, and asserting their will on the outside world with missiles, drones, and a naval blockade. The Houthis' military power is different from that of Somali pirates. Pirates are plunderers who sweep shipping lanes and flee, while the Houthis are a political entity with territory, ideology, and alliances.

However, nomenclature is never pure. If the Houthis are not content with northern Yemen and seek to impose their egalitarian Shiite Islam on southern Yemen and Saudi Arabia, it is more accurate and cooler to still call them rebels. The moment they are recognized as a state, the Houthis become responsible for maintaining the status quo. Only by remaining rebels can they remain a force that shakes the existing order—the Riyadh monarchy, the Gulf oil elite, and Washington's alliance circuit. The name itself is already politics.

When the Houthis took control of the Red Sea and, in concert with Shiite militias in southern Iraq, struck Saudi Arabia with drones and missiles, oil prices surged again. In the Middle East of 2026, with the Strait of Hormuz blocked or threatened, Saudi Arabia's alternative route was the Red Sea. The East-West pipeline flows to Yanbu, and if Yanbu is shaken, global oil prices are shaken. If prices rise, central banks act. The United States, where Kevin Warsh, a former outside director of Coupang, sits as the Fed chairman, receives the fragments of drones launched by a Middle Eastern mountain force in the abstract language of interest rates. A world where Yemeni coastal batteries simultaneously affect Seoul's shopping baskets and New York's bond market has already arrived.

후티의 사우디 공격은 수니와 시아파의 내전을 예고한다. 그러나 그것만은 아니다. 이것은 마호메트의 사촌이자 사위인 알리와 그의 아들 후세인의 죽음을 소환하는, 이슬람 종갓집이 누구냐는 역사의 전쟁이다. 이란과 사우디 사이의 지정학적 패권전쟁이다. 중동의 기득권 세력과 피억압 세력 사이의 계급투쟁이다. 미국을 추종하는 사우디·걸프 국가들과 미국을 거부하는 세력들 사이의 인정투쟁이다. 네 겹이 한 전선에 겹쳐 있다. 후티를 “이란의 대리인”이라고만 부르는 말은 편리하다. 그러나 그 편리함 때문에 예멘이라는 공간의 독자적 무게가 지워진다.

Let's look at a map of Yemen. Yemen is located in the southwestern part of the Arabian Peninsula. It is a crossroads connecting the Red Sea, East Africa, the Indian Ocean, and the Gulf. The narrow strait of Bab-el-Mandeb is a lifeline connecting Asia and Europe to Suez, and whoever controls that lifeline also controls the price of goods. The Roman Empire kept an eye on Yemen's Mocha port to bring in silk and spices from India. The Red Sea was once the Mediterranean Sea for Jews. Some of the Jews who rebelled against Emperor Hadrian and were pushed out of Palestine moved south and integrated into Yemen's maritime trade network. In the late 4th century, the Himyarite Kingdom abandoned polytheism and adopted Judaism, or a strict monotheism close to Judaism, as its state religion. In the 5th and 6th centuries, this Jewish kingdom of South Arabia pushed back against the influence of neighboring Christian tribes and the Eastern Roman Empire. Justinian moved the Christian kingdom of Aksum in Ethiopia across the Red Sea to attack Himyar. The pretext was the persecution of Christians in Najran by the Jewish king Yusuf Dhu Nuwas (Dhu Nuwas). Aksum's army crossed the Red Sea, and the Jewish kingdom of Himyar fell. However, the people of that land did not disappear. The tribes of Yemen and South Arabia later contributed a large force to the Islamic conquests that pushed the Eastern Roman Empire and the Sasanian Persian Empire out of the Middle East. Yemen was not a periphery of Islam, but an engine in the process of Islam becoming an empire.

Even the Ottoman Empire, which dominated the Middle East after the 15th century, could not fully conquer Yemen. It is said that when Selim ordered the governor of Syria to conquer Yemen, the governor expressed his reluctance. The reasons given were that it was an important place for trade but too far, the mountains were rugged, and the people were fiercely independent. Actual history is not much different from that. The Ottomans entered in the 16th century, gave up the highlands to the Zaidi imams in the 17th century, re-entered in the 19th century, and withdrew again at the end of World War I. Yemen was a land that could be occupied but not assimilated. One needs to know this much before talking about the Houthis. The Houthis are not a militia that suddenly appeared, but the latest name for the unconquered highlands.

Middle Eastern studies in Korea are very poor. In Britain, which long dominated the Middle East, elites at Oxford and Cambridge first read Byzantine history and then studied the Middle East based on that. Once one understands the administration, doctrines, and border tribes of the Eastern Roman Empire, the language, identity, and geopolitics after Islam do not stand alone. Representatives of that tradition are Toynbee and Lawrence of Arabia, who loved the desert. Of course, it is well known that Lawrence loved men's buttocks more than his homeland or the desert. This is why Western Middle Eastern studies are three-dimensional. They put culture, politics, language, and geopolitics into one perspective. In Korea, people who have mainly studied in Arab countries do Middle Eastern studies, so there are limitations in analyzing how the strata before the advent of Islam leave their mark on the present. Before Islam came in the early 7th century, the Mediterranean coast was dominated by the Eastern Roman Empire, and Iraq and Iran were dominated by the Sasanian Persian Empire. Just as Honam and Gyeongsang provinces remain as old fault lines in Korean politics, the schism between Shiites and Sunnis in the Middle East is still the framework of modern politics.

The conflict between Shiites and Sunnis is still the backbone of Middle Eastern politics today. However, its essence is not merely a debate over doctrine and how much of Muhammad's bloodline one inherits. The essence is the geopolitical change that occurred when Islamic conquerors occupied Persia after Muhammad's death in 630. Most of the peoples conquered by Muslim conquerors were Arabized. However, to protect their language, culture, and identity, Persians adopted Shiism, the Islam of the oppressed and subjugated. Shiism is a syncretic and messianic sect that believes in the advent of Maitreya. It accounts for about one-tenth of the world's Muslims, mostly concentrated in Iran, its neighboring Gulf states, and Syria.

After the Battle of al-Qadisiyyah in 638, the Sasanian Persian Empire collapsed, and its last emperor fled to the vicinity of Samarkand, even requesting reinforcements from the Tang Dynasty. The Umayyad Dynasty dominated the Middle East, but about a century later, Shiites in the Iranian region revolted, and Persian officials, engineers, and soldiers established the Abbasid Dynasty. Its capital, Baghdad, is on the outskirts of Ctesiphon, the Sasanian capital. Islam has a strong tradition of religious strictness and egalitarianism. For a long time, it has been associated with an image of relatively little personal violence and crime, even if political violence exists. During the Ottoman domination of the Middle East and the Cold War, the Sunni-Shia conflict was overshadowed. However, as the Cold War ended, that conflict was reborn as a confrontation between Saddam Hussein and Khomeini, and after the US removed Saddam, it re-emerged as a hegemonic rivalry between Saudi Arabia and Iran.

The US sides with Saudi Arabia. However, one of the hotbeds that nurtured Al-Qaeda, the main culprit of 9/11, and ISIS, was the Saudi monarchy. The monarchy has used radical Sunni forces to protect its oppressive regime and has prevented American democracy from permeating its society. Israel is joining hands with Saudi Arabia to counter Iran's military and economic power. In this context, Yemen's Houthis are not simply Iranian proxies. They are closer to an indigenous, grassroots resistance movement in the Middle East, and if we were to translate it into the language of our history, they are the Middle Eastern version of the Donghak Peasant Army. The difference is that the Houthis, with Iran's support, possess advanced military capabilities and considerable administrative power. The US seems to have little interest in the Houthi resistance spreading to Saudi Arabia and weakening the monarchy itself. America's interest is in containing Iran.

In this situation, the Houthis could make a small deal with the US to secure their power. Unlike Iran, the Houthis are not developing nuclear weapons, nor are they deeply tied to Russia like Syria was during the Assad era. If they manage the Red Sea well and align with American interests, the US could distance itself from the Houthi conflict to focus on Iran. Because of this, Saudi Arabia does not fully trust the US and is trying to strengthen its national security by dealing with Russia or China. The Saudi royal family's impatience creates opportunities for South Korean defense companies.

The Houthis emerged from the Zaydi Shiites in the northern Saada province. While Zaydis share roots with Iran's Twelver Shiites, their doctrines and political traditions differ. They uphold the legitimate leadership of the Prophet's family while fiercely maintaining the autonomy of mountain tribes and rejecting external domination. When Hussein al-Houthi launched a revival movement in the 1990s and 2000s against Salafization, Saudiization, and Americanization, the slogan was already complete: Death to America, Death to Israel, A Curse Upon the Jews, Victory to Islam. When Ali Abdullah Saleh's long rule collapsed after the Arab Spring, and the Houthis took over Sana'a in 2014-2015, they didn't just seize the capital; they also took control of the regular army, intelligence agencies, and missile stockpiles. The Saudi-led intervention failed to crush the Houthis. Instead, it pushed them into the 'Axis of Resistance.' The Houthis filled the void left by the attrition of Hamas and Hezbollah. Iran sent technology, components, and doctrine, and the Houthis combined these with Yemen's terrain and tribal networks to create their own weapons.

The decisive turning point that transformed an obscure mountain force into a power controlling the Red Sea occurred in the summer and early autumn of 2026. As a larger war surrounding Iran jeopardized Hormuz, Saudi crude oil was funneled through east-west pipelines to Yanbu on the Red Sea. The Houthis saw this lifeline. In July, attacks on Saudi-linked vessels and energy facilities resumed. On September 10, Mocha fell. The next day, the Hanish Islands and Perim (Mayun) Island in the middle of Bab el-Mandeb were taken. That port of Mocha, coveted by Rome, that sea which the Jewish kingdom used as an inland sea, that coast which even the Ottomans could not fully close, fell into Houthi hands. The Houthis do not claim to block all international merchant ships. They state that passage is free except for Saudi vessels. Selective blockade is more cunning. It holds the lifeline of one country without making everyone an enemy. This is why China is reportedly telling Iran to rein in the Houthis, and why there are reports of secret meetings between the US and the Houthis in Oman. The Houthis are no longer just a party to the Yemeni civil war; they are a variable in energy security.

The road ahead seems to have three paths. First, the path where the Houthis remain as the landlords of the Red Sea gateway. This path involves selectively attacking ships, negotiating with Saudi Arabia, the US, and China at different prices, and making the international community turn a blind eye to the de facto state of North Yemen. Second, the path of not stopping the southward advance and attacks on Saudi Arabia. This involves pushing into Taiz and Marib, cutting off the route to Aden, and continuously striking Yanbu and air bases. This path lowers the threshold for an all-out Sunni-Shia war. Third, the path of being pushed back to the highlands after over-expansion. The Yemeni government forces, Saudi Arabia, and external support reclaim the coast, and the Houthis are once again folded back into the mountains of Sa'dah and Sana'a. Whichever path is taken, Weber's criteria have already been met. The monopoly of violence operates in North Yemen. However, as long as the Houthis try to convince the South and Saudi Arabia of Shia egalitarianism, the designation of them as rebels fits better. This is because "rebel" signifies a war that is not yet over, while "state" is the name of an order that has already ended.

Understanding the Houthis is not about reading missile specifications. It's about understanding how Yemen, a crossroads, has swallowed and spat out empires for thousands of years without digesting them. Neither Rome, nor Aksum, nor the Ottomans, nor Saudi Arabia could fully digest those mountains. The Houthis are the latest symptom of that indigestion. The waves of the Red Sea, the oil price gauges, and the Fed's interest rates are merely translating that symptom into a global language. A war of lineage, a war of hegemony, a war of class, a war of recognition meet in one strait. The name of that strait is Bab-el-Mandeb, and the reason they are still called rebels is that they are not yet satisfied.