The ultimate ambition for the Islamic Republic is not merely control over the regional “Shiite Crescent,” but the resurrection of a chimera of the Persian Empire based on Khomeinist ideological principles.

While most of the Western world is preoccupied with Iran’s role in Iraq and Syria, Yemen—the “forgotten conflict”—remains an integral and growing theater of operations for the expanding Iranian sphere of influence.

The Houthis of Yemen are much more than the nemesis of Saudi Arabia. They are radicalized Shiites with Persian roots. While they come from a once peaceful Zaidi tradition, they are increasingly a global menace. They have threatened the UAE and Israel and have expressed hatred for the US.

By taking advantage of side conflicts between other Yemeni factions, such as the separatist Southern Traditional Council (which has broken with the fragile Riyadh agreement and declared autonomy in part of Aden) and the local Muslim Brotherhood branch (known as the Islah Party and Brigade), the Houthis have been expanding their territorial control while making a political power grab. They are essentially displacing the internationally recognized Hadi government, which is now in exile.

With the rise of the Houthis, Yemen has become a global hub for ballistic missile import, terrorist operations, and centralized corruption and money laundering. While many analysts have recommended a strategy to separate the Houthis from their Iranian masters and funders, this advice has largely fallen on deaf ears. This could be due to the sheer commitment and level of coordination required for such a task, the US move away from participation in long-term strategic operations, or the differences and miscommunication among the anti-Iran Arab states. In any case, as the Houthis consolidate their control over the country and gain international legitimacy while integrating into the broader network of Iran’s other regional and international proxies, this approach is becoming increasingly difficult to implement.

The relationship between the Houthi movement’s founders and the Islamic Republic predates the current civil war, which started with the “September Coup.” Tehran’s strategy of exporting the Islamic Revolution took root when it figured out a way to do so cheaply, without having to spread its military everywhere: by coopting Shiite-leaning local grievance groups, separatist movements, and ostracized factions. By doing this, Iran could build entire armies of followers. As the expense of foreign adventurism began to add up, Iran turned these affiliates into effective fundraisers.

Iran has transformed its Lebanese proxy Hezbollah into a lethal quasi-formal military that also runs criminal schemes around the world. Hezbollah can be thrown into any theater of war to supplement the IRGC and other Iran-backed forces. Hezbollah is also used to train other forces. Groups like the Houthis were promised eventual power and control in exchange for complete fealty not just to Iran as a power but to Khomeinist principles.

After Hezbollah, Iran set about training similar forces in Iraq, Syria, and Nigeria, and is even eyeing converts in Latin America. While Hezbollah runs Iran’s shadow economy through a globalized organized crime network, the Houthis supplement this effort by fundraising for Hezbollah.

Their relationship evolved over time, with the Houthis morphing from a separatist movement allegedly confronting state corruption into a miniature model of Iran itself. It has a similar approach to governance, a colonialist frame of reference for running the country, and a deep-rooted racism applied to policies with increasing formality.

The Houthis practice preferential treatment in the distribution of humanitarian aid in the territories they control, using it as an incentive to recruit followers for their militias. A recent and broad-reaching example is the “Khums” tax, which exacts 20% of all public and private property as a tribute to the “Hashemites,” descendants of the tribe into which the Prophet Muhammad was born. The tax has been widely condemned by most of the country as discriminatory, outdated, and religiously unfounded.

It does in fact have previous applications in Yemen’s past, even if the origins of the idea may be obscured by history.

Dr. Arwa Khattab, an academic writer and human rights activist based in Berlin, spoke at a recent symposium about a much earlier era in which the tax was applied in Yemen. The Houthis are using that earlier instance to justify their reimposition of the tax as compensation for past alleged discrimination.

The tax was first introduced 1,300 years ago by the Imam Yahya Ibn Hussein. It came in the context of a power grab by local self-declared Hashemites who were issuing fatwas and rulings to help them consolidate power and wealth. Later, Imam Abdullah Ibn Hamza would use it to confiscate the property of 100,000 members of the Mutafiya sect. In the 17th century, Imam Mutawakkil once again imposed the measure. The last time this forcible confiscation of funds took place was during the period of imams, from 1918 until 1962. During that time the Yemenite people suffered multiple famines, but the money was nevertheless demanded of them and the grain they were forced to hand over rotted in the imam’s warehouses.

The timing of the Houthis’ imposition of the new tax is no coincidence. Up to this point, they have been making illicit profits by looting hospitals, diverting humanitarian aid, and running schemes. In April, however, members of WHO announced they would be cutting aid to Yemen by half due to the inability to track where it was going and to allegations of the Houthis’ systematic appropriation of the resources.

At the same time, the global context of the tax is more significant. The text of the measure that has been imposed by the Houthis—despite the lack of a parliament to approve it into law—allocates a portion of land and natural resources, including mines, to the Hashemites. It even diverts mandatory zakat (charity) away from the poor and toward the Hashemites. This could be seen as a ploy to fill Houthi war coffers for the sake of their ongoing efforts against the Arab Coalition, but the story is more complex. True Hashemite descent is very difficult to prove, but the simple claim of being a Hashemite earns a level of respect among Khomeinist followers. Hezbollah’s Hassan Nasrallah and even some of the ayatollahs claim to be of Hashemite descent.

Why the need for this sham? Iran is taking advantage of regional chaos and a vacuum of power to consolidate control over local resources and destabilized states, and is imposing the Khomeinist system of governance wherever it can. The ultimate ambition for the Islamic Republic is not merely control over the regional “Shiite Crescent,” but the resurrection of a chimera of the Persian Empire based on Khomeinist ideological principles. The object is to combine extreme nationalism and ethnocentrism based on a mythological perception of Iran’s history, as well as revolutionary Shiite Islamism.

However, to secure religious legitimacy in the region, particularly among Sunnis, Iran needs to gain access to Mecca and Medina, holy sites for all Muslim sects. Achieving that goal will not be easy given that not all Shiites, much less Sunnis, are on board with Iran’s geopolitical agenda. For that reason, Iran is seeking to reintroduce the concept of Hashemites as the sole religious and political authority (in the Islamist view). The idea is to delegitimize and displace governments in those Arab/Muslim majority states that are not governed by descendants of the Hashemites (Morocco and Jordan).

Saudi Arabia, Iran’s regional foil, is the ultimate target of this maneuver. Building support for Hashemite control will take time, but Iran is willing to align itself with any state, organization, movement, or entity that shares its agenda, if only until the goal of displacing inconvenient governments is accomplished.

The imposition of the Khums tax is the first step toward a systematic reintroduction of these principles to the region on a mass scale. Iran might have made successful inroads with this strategy due to the US withdrawal from regional affairs—or perhaps the US was forced to withdraw because of Iran’s overwhelming aggression, which made it impossible for the US to maintain a serious presence. Whichever of these is the case, Iran is continuing to expand its influence with little pushback. Even its seemingly localized proxies, such as the Houthis, are coordinating with better known militias and are becoming an integrated part of a network that presents a global, not just a regional, threat.

Article first appeared on The Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies.

Irina Tsukerman is a human rights and national security attorney based in New York. She has written extensively on geopolitics and US foreign policy for a variety of American, Israeli, and other international publications. She tweets under @irinatsukerman.

Since the 1960’s, Saudi has supported the legitimate government in Yemen, including the Zaidi Imams.

Upon reading Chris Murphy’s tweets, it is evident to me that much of the inaccurate information that has been presented to him has distorted the facts on the ground. As Ambassador to Yemen, I feel it is my duty to set the record straight.

1/ Okay, in a few tweets I'm going to try to explain what's going on in Yemen today, so you have some knowledge to counter this claim that America needs to bomb Iran because the Houthis bombed Saudi Arabia. It's complicated, but now you need to know.

— Chris Murphy (@ChrisMurphyCT) September 16, 2019

Since the 1960’s, Saudi has supported the legitimate government in Yemen, including the Zaidi Imams. The Kingdom consistently supported successive government since then irrespective of sect, ideology, and form of government so long as they are not militia operating out of the state’s organs.

Since the 1970’s, KSA strongly supported the Yemeni economy and implemented many development and infrastructure projects worth billions. For example, KSA installed the electric grid that powers all of northern Yemen. We donated $3.5B (50% of total donations) to the Friends of Yemen.

In the 1980’s, the Houthi movement was not yet formed. KSA did not send scholars to Yemen or build missionary schools, but rather, it built the Al-Salam Hospital in Saada in 1982, which still operates today. Also Zaidi scholars used to print Zaydi books in KSA.

The Iranian regime established the terrorist Hezbollah group in Lebanon, and found in it a useful way to advance their interests and regional terrorism.

Iran worked to copy the Hezbollah model and attracted extremist Yemeni figures, like Badr al-Din al-Houthi and his sons Hussein and Abdulmalik, later pushing Hussein to declare rebellion against the Yemeni state after the US invasion of Iraq in 2003.

The Iranian-backed Houthi militias raise slogans that carry the same Iranian extremist thought in terms of phrases, colors/symbols. Their books include extremism, hostility to America and a call for Jihad. As AlQaeda and ISIS, their school curriculum is a preparation for Jihad.

The Kingdom has not intervened in the face of multiple Houthi rebellions against the Yemeni government in 2004-2009, but rather called for addressing the dispute and contain the Houthis, who constitute a small minority within the Zaidi minority in Yemen.

However, the Iranian regime pushed them to attack the Kingdom’s borders and kill border guards. KSA defended the southern borders while working on ending the conflict between the militias and the Yemeni government at that time.

By presenting the Gulf Initiative in 2011, which was accepted by the Yemeni government and all Yemeni political factions, the Kingdom was able to stop a civil war and enabled the peaceful transfer of power from the former President to the current President of Yemen.

The GCC Initiative was endorsed by UNSCR 2014 and the international community, leading to a national Yemeni dialogue that included all Yemeni components, including the Houthis.

Since 2012, the Kingdom has fully supported the political process in Yemen under UN auspices with more than $7 Billion, including 3.2 Billion for oil derivatives for the operation of power plants, 1 Billion for the Central Bank, and 3 Billion for development projects in multiple sectors.

After two years of support from the Gulf, the UN, and the US in ensuring the success of the political process/transitional the Houthis attacked cities in northern Yemen, in 2014, and violently took control of the Yemeni capital Sana’a.

Nevertheless, and during the Iranian-backed Houthi militia’s control of the Yemeni capital Sana’a, the UN presented the “peace and partnership agreement”. The Yemeni government, Yemeni political factions, and the Houthis signed the agreement on September 21, 2014.

The UN agreement granted six seats in the government of PM Khalid Bahah to the Iranian backed militia. Additionally, the agreement granted the Houthis a position of advisor to Yemeni President.

The international community supported the government of Khalid Bahah, which implemented the UN agreement. In January 2015, the Houthis reneged on the agreement and detained the Yemeni president and members of government, and took control of state institutions by brutal force.

In March 2015, the Houthi militia signed an agreement with the State of Iran to conduct 28 weekly flights between Sanaa and Tehran, which had been suspended since 2003. Aircrafts from Iran’s Mahan Airlines landed in the capital Sana’a.

The President fled Sana’a to Aden. He asked the Houthis to return to the dialogue table and stop the fighting, however, Iran ordered the Houthis to move south and control the Bab Al Mandab strait (Red Sea) and Aden (Arabian Sea).

On March 26, 2015, Operation Decisive Storm began. The Kingdom continued to support the efforts of the UN Special Envoy to Yemen in order to reach a political solution between Yemeni political parties in Biel and Geneva 2015.

In 2016, KSA invited the Houthis to the Saudi city of Dhahran Aljanoub on the border with Yemen, in order to establish a Truce Committee under the auspices of the United Nations and negotiated with the Houthis in Kuwait.

After more than 100 days in negotiations in Kuwait between Yemeni parties, the Houthis refused to sign and left the table.

The Houthis rejected all proposals for a political solution in 2017, including handing over the ports of Hodeidah to the United Nations, or returning to sit at the negotiating table, even shooting at the UN envoy’s car.

As a result of the military pressure by the Yemeni and Coalition forces, the Houthis agreed to return to the dialogue table and signed the Stockholm agreement in 2018.

The Iranian-backed Houthi militia refused to implement the Stockholm agreement and exploited it to continue smuggling Iranian-made weapons, missiles and drones through the Hodeidah port and abused its financial revenues to support their war effort against the Yemeni people.

Iran provided financial support and drone/missile technology to the Houthi militias and sent trainers to oversee their terrorist attacks against civilian targets in the Kingdom, including houses and schools, Riyadh and Abha airport, and a desalination plant.

Iran instructed the Houthis to reject all political solutions to the Yemeni crisis.

Since 2014 alone, the Kingdom has provided more than $14 billion in relief and development aid to Yemen and supported the Central Bank of Yemen with $2.2 billion to improve the exchange rate of the riyal.

The Kingdom currently employs more than 2 million Yemenis. More than 600,000 Yemenis fled the Houthi militia to the Kingdom, which granted them visas that allow them to work.

Yemenis in the Kingdom transfer more than $4 billion annually to their families inside Yemen, bringing the number of beneficiaries to more than half of the Yemeni people and KSA continues to grant work visas in the tens of thousands to Yemenis from all governorates.

Saudi Arabia continues to offer its full support for the efforts of Office of the Special Envoy of the Secretary-General for Yemen (OSE Yemen) in implementing the Stockholm agreement, and in reaching a comprehensive political solution based on the GCC initiative, the outcomes of the Yemeni national dialogue, and UNSC 2216.

Mohammed Al-Jabir is a Saudi Ambassador to Yemen. He regularly tweets under @mohdsalj

Article compiled from the series of Tweets Al-Jabir did refuting U.S. Senator from Connecticut Chris Murphy who raised dubious allegations against Saudi Arabia’s intervention in Yemen.