Yemen: Between Crisis and Loyalty
When former President Ali Abdullah Saleh was killed by the Houthi group, many believed that Yemen’s landscape had entered a new phase, that the conflict was nearing its end, and that the balance of power had begun to shift decisively against the Houthis. Subsequent military developments across multiple fronts lent further momentum to this belief.
Many bet that successive victories would pave the way for the recapture of Sanaa and the restoration of state institutions, perhaps coinciding with the symbolic revival of September 26 as a national occasion affirming the meaning of the republic and the state.
Yet neither of these came to pass. Saleh’s blood was not avenged, military gains were not consolidated, and everyone was surprised by what happened on the western coast. Amid narratives ranging from accounts of military repositioning to claims of a “conspiracy” that escalated to accusations of treason, confusion reigned.
In my view, the core of the Yemeni problem is largely tied to what can be termed the “problem of loyalty”—that is, the question of political allegiance priority: the state or the group, the nation or the leader, institutions or centers of influence?
This is not exclusively a Yemeni issue, but a phenomenon experienced by many countries, particularly those that suffered for long periods from weak state institutions and the erosion of equal citizenship. States do not enter a phase of genuine stability until allegiance to the state becomes the overarching framework within which social, political, regional, sectarian, and tribal loyalties are organized.
Experiences of countries that successfully built modern institutions have shown that real transformation begins when citizens become citizens first, before being affiliates of a group, region, or leader, and when the state becomes a umbrella for all its children, not a tool wielded by one side against another.
When loyalties are multiplied, the state begins to lose its capacity to make independent decisions, institutions gradually turn into arenas for competition among forces and elites, and personal, tribal, religious, or financial influence becomes more impactful than legal texts and constitutional institutions.
The rise of the Houthis offers a clear example of the dangers of the disintegration of the state concept. The group, which started with limited capabilities, managed within a few years to expand from a narrow geographic scope in Saada, through Dhamar, to Amran and then Sanaa, transforming into a key player in Yemen’s power and war equation.
However, reading the Yemeni landscape solely from within is insufficient. Divergent regional visions were among the factors that complicated the crisis. Without a unified, clearly defined strategy that subsumes differences and divergences in favor of the strategic depth of the Gulf and Arab world, Yemen will not escape the grip of the Houthis and those behind them.
What is required today is to prioritize general security and strategic interests over narrow calculations that may come at an unjustifiable cost to those who observe and analyze the situation with a single perspective. Yemen clearly and unequivocally needs regional consensus to support a unified and strong Yemeni state, alongside a Yemeni consensus on the form of the state and its future.
