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Soriek  5mo ago (text post)   945 thread views

Transnational Thursdays 24

This is a weekly thread for people to discuss international news, foreign policy or IR history. I usually start off with coverage of some current events from a mix of countries I follow personally and countries I think the forum lives in or might be interested in. Feel free to drop in with coverage of countries you’re interested in, talk about ongoing dynamics like the wars in Israel or Ukraine, or even just whatever you’re reading.

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Yemen

Imagine declaring war on a sovereign nation and no one even notices. This is much the experience of the Houthis, who declared war on Israel Tuesday and started firing missiles to widespread same-day coverage from media behemoths such as amwaj.media, Indiatimes, and Greek City Times. This might seem like a bit of a joke (and probably largely is) given that the Houthis are a marginal fighting force and also over 1000 miles away from Israel, but they do actually have ballistic missiles capable of reaching that far. In fact, the Israeli Arrow air defense system claims to have already intercepted missiles they believe to have come from Yemen.

Regardless of Yemen’s own power level, this mostly feels a little unsettling as it's another domino leaning towards a larger regional war, though the Houthis should be understood as part of the same Iranian proxy network that includes Hamas and Hezbollah, which is different than a more traditional sovereign nation getting involved. Also interesting are the implications for Saudi Arabia, which has been normalizing relations with both Israel and the Houthis (and kind of sort of Iran) and is now in a crappy position for both:

Yemen has enjoyed more than a year of relative calm amid a U.N.-led peace push. Saudi Arabia has been holding talks with the Houthis in a bid to exit the war, as Riyadh focuses on economic priorities at home.

But Houthi missile and drone attacks on Israel have increased the risks of conflict for Saudi Arabia.

The most direct flight path for any drone or missile launched from Yemen passes over western Saudi Arabia near the Red Sea before flying over Jordan and into Israel.

The Saudi government communications office did not respond to a request for comment on the kingdom's concerns over Houthi attacks.

Iran has used a proxy to prove they can fire missiles at Israel from Iranian soil.

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