By Josh Phillips

Visiting PPE Student at Oriel College, Oxford

On 10 March 2023, Iran and Saudi Arabia agreed to re-establish diplomatic relations and re-open their respective embassies, fulfilling mediation talks initiated by Iran in 2021 and marking the end of a seven-year rift between the two nations. The agreement was announced after China-mediated talks via a joint statement released on Iranian and Saudi social media, which also stated that Riyadh and Tehran had agreed to activate a security cooperation agreement signed in 2001. This development in Middle Eastern geopolitics has many implications, but one notable regional dynamic that should be discussed in light of this change is the Yemeni civil war, in which Iran and Saudi Arabia support rival sides. While the recent agreement may serve to reduce tensions in the ongoing conflict, the pact will not be enough to resolve the profound differences between the many combatants of the civil war, making the continued search for other avenues to peace and conflict mitigation a necessity.

Relations between Iran and Saudi Arabia have been historically characterized by rivalry and conflict, which makes the recent reestablishment of diplomatic relations significant. The decades-old feud between the two Middle Eastern powers is significantly exacerbated by religious differences. Iran is heavily Shia Muslim, while Saudi Arabia, one of the largest Islamic states in the Middle East and home to two of Islam’s holiest cities (Mecca and Medina), sees itself as the leading Sunni Muslim authority. This religious schism is reflected in the wider arena of the Middle East in other actors that have Shia or Sunni majorities, some of whom look towards Iran or Saudi Arabia for guidance. Two such groups are the Iran-backed Ansar Allah, or Houthi, rebel group in northern Yemen, and the Saudi-led anti-Houthi bloc in the country’s south, who Iran and Saudi Arabia support respectively.

The Houthi and anti-Houthi religious orientations align with Iran and Saudi Arabia – the Houthis are Shia, and the anti-Houthi bloc is largely Sunni. The Houthis represent a Zaydi Shia minority that used to be the dominant power in Yemen and seek to revive Zaydi leadership as a counterweight to encroaching Sunni ideologies. The anti-Houthi bloc is comprised of groups of actors whose interests are in opposition to Houthi control of Yemen e.g. the internationally recognized Yemeni government in Aden, led by the Presidential Leadership Council; the southern separatists, also known as Herak or the Southern Transitional Council; and Sunni Islamists. The Yemeni conflict has been portrayed as a proxy war, pitting an Iran-backed side against Saudi-backed adversaries. This, however, is an oversimplification – the war in Yemen has been, and remains, a multipolar conflict with regional and local components, rather than a clear-cut fight between two sides. The groups that oppose the Houthis each have individual motivations and goals outside of opposing the Houthis, as well as varying external supporters. 

There are a huge number of adversarial relationships in Yemen, which often leads groups to choose the lesser of two enemies to work with against the greater adversary. It is the classic strategy epitomized by the aphorism “the enemy of my enemy is my friend.” For example, while many in the anti-Houthi bloc would align with the internationally-recognised government in opposing the Houthis, in reality few forces fighting the Houthis are actually pro-government. Their alignment with the government is shaky at best, as evidenced by the southern separatist forces refusing to report through a chain of command led by the government. Similarly, many of those aligned with the Houthis are not pro-Houthi but rather anti-Saudi – for example, the late former president Ali Abdullah Saleh, who allied with the Houthis after his successor Abdrabbuh Mansur Hadi was elected, suppressed them brutally while in office and only backed them in a “marriage of convenience” against the new government and Saudi-led coalition. 

Examining the individual motivations of the various actors in Yemen further demonstrates how the “enemy of my enemy” strategy takes effect. Take two of the actors in the anti-Houthi bloc – the internationally-recognised government, supported by Saudi Arabia and much of the wider international community; and the Southern Transitional Council, which is directly sponsored by the UAE. These two groups have a mutual interest in opposing the Houthi coup, but they have differing reasons for their opposition. The internationally-recognised government seeks to retake the capital Sana’a from the Houthis to re-establish itself as the legitimate government of a unified Yemen, whereas the southern separatists oppose Houthi violence and control in southern Yemen due to their desire to return Yemen to its former two-state form. These two diverging desires, which is but one of the examples of the instrumental fractures in Yemen, are respectively supported and opposed by different local actors, such as Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates (UAE), making the lines of the conflict even harder to draw. 

In this way, separating the participants of the civil war into two parties – the Houthi bloc and the anti-Houthi bloc – is a useful generalisation in analysing overall dynamics of the conflict, but in reality, these blocs are internally diverse and possess competing interests and priorities. Thus, while some would assert that the agreement between Iran and Saudi Arabia will lead to an agreement between their two proxies, the new Iran-Saudi relations will not be enough to pacify the opposing sides within the Yemeni nation itself. The war is far more diverse and complicated than a two-sided proxy war, with each side having its own motivations and desires, and will not be immediately resolved through the Iranian-Saudi reconciliation.

Saudi Arabia, exhausted from its extensive anti-Houthi investments, has actively pursued a negotiated end to the war – or at least its involvement in it – since early 2022. In this way, Houthi-Saudi peace talks are not a new concept, but it is doubtful that these peace talks will be significantly influenced by the new Iran-Saudi relationship. Even though Saudi Arabia would greatly welcome an end to the conflict, Iran’s support for the Houthis has enabled it to build significant influence in the south-west of the Arabian Peninsula, and it is unlikely that Iran would abandon this important tool in its portfolio. Additionally, an Iran-Saudi alliance has no direct effect on the Houthis’ goal of controlling Yemen through the spread of Shia ideology, meaning that the Houthis will continue their occupation of Sana’a and their militant push southwards. This agenda inevitably clashes with the Herak secessionist group, who wish to split from the North. Thus, the conflict between the Houthis and the Saudi-backed coalition will continue, secessionist demands in southern Yemen will persist, and a Houthi-Saudi agreement would see the violence shifting further towards a purely intra-state conflict rather than ceasing.

In 2022 alone, the Yemeni Civil War saw at least 1066 incidents of human rights violations against civilians, some of which have been identified as war crimes. These incidents have caused widespread damage to vital infrastructure, including hospitals, schools, and service facilities, which has crippled the lives of millions of Yemeni residents. It is clear that this crisis needs to be addressed. As Iran and Saudi Arabia are proxy leaders of the Houthi and anti-Houthi groups, it seems as though an Iranian-Saudi relational normalization should create peace in Yemen, but this is unlikely. In light of this, it’s worth questioning the roles of external regional powers in any Yemeni peace deal. In a Chatham House discussion on the conflict, participants noted a proliferation of conflict with external regional involvement, and investigated whether a peace accord would be successful if Saudi Arabia and Iran played no part in the talks. The longer the conflict goes on, a participant argued, the greater the risk that Yemen’s future will be determined by external powers, as has happened in Syria, which should spur all Yemeni factions to find an agreement among themselves. Regardless of how future intra-Yemeni and Houthi-Saudi talks develop, it is clear that while the new Iran-Saudi partnership will undoubtedly have significant impacts on the geopolitics of the Middle East and the world, a conflict that will continue despite the agreement is the Yemeni Civil War, whose competitors’ deep-rooted motivations for fighting are much stronger than the sentiments of the proxies that support them.