The New Yorker:

The country spent decades cultivating the Axis of Resistance, but, as the war continues, the Houthis and other allied forces have plenty of reason to stay out of it.

By Sudarsan Raghavan

On February 28th, just hours after the United States and Israel struck Iran, Abdul Malik al-Houthi, the supreme leader of Yemen’s Houthi movement, gave a speech denouncing the attacks as “a blatant, criminal, and barbaric act targeting the Muslim Iranian people.” He expressed “complete solidarity” with Iran and urged the entire Muslim world to apply pressure, of all forms, on the U.S. and Israel. The following day, at his behest, tens of thousands of people in Yemen took to the streets to protest the killing of Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. They carried portraits of the cleric and condemned America and Israel, using language that mirrored the Houthis’ motto: “God is great, death to America, death to Israel, curse on the Jews, victory to Islam.”

The Houthis, a Zaydi Shiite Islamist rebel group, which the U.S. has designated as a foreign terrorist organization, are among Iran’s most powerful and resilient allies. They are a key part of the so-called Axis of Resistance, an informal Iran-led military coalition in the Middle East. During his speech, al-Houthi suggested that the Houthis were ready to lend military support to Iran: “We are fully prepared for any necessary developments,” he said. And yet, as the war continues into its second week, the Houthis are essentially M.I.A.

Iran’s other proxies, meanwhile, have done little to bolster Tehran in the war. Hezbollah, the paramilitary group in Lebanon, got involved in the conflict, disregarding the state’s sovereignty and firing missiles and drones from Lebanese territory at an Israeli military site near Haifa. The projectiles fell short, but Israel carried out retaliatory strikes in Beirut and across Lebanon, killing at least six hundred people, including ninety-one children, injuring more than a thousand, and displacing some eight hundred thousand. In Iraq, pro-Iranian Shiite militias have attempted a series of small-scale drone and rocket attacks at Israel, and have targeted U.S. forces and personnel in Erbil and Baghdad, and in Jordan. 

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