The war in Yemen is a microcosm of, and inseparable from, the simmering conflict in the Gulf. The escalation that returned to the front lines in mid-2026 has drawn Yemen back into a region caught in turmoil, unable either to return to the status quo ante or to move beyond a war that has yet to produce a decisive outcome for any party. The confrontation involving the United States and Israel on one side and Iran on the other intersects with competition over the security of maritime routes and with a Yemeni conflict that the 2022 truce has contained without resolving its causes. The Gulf states remain embedded in the war’s geography: they help finance it and bear its costs, while remaining on the margins of decision-making.
With fighting renewed along the western coast and in Taiz, and the Yemeni government announcing a campaign to retake Houthi-held areas all the way to the capital, Sana’a, Yemen is no longer a rear arena in this war. It has, in effect, become one of its active fronts, with consequences that reach beyond the country. This connection does not mean that Yemen can be reduced to an Iranian–Saudi conflict, or that its local actors have lost sight of their own motives and future ambitions. This is an essential analytical point: the emergence and trajectory of Ansar Allah, commonly known as the Houthis, cannot be explained as the product of an Iranian decision. The Houthis are a Yemeni movement with deep roots, networks, interests, domestic alliances and ambitions. They are also a political and military force that controls Sana’a and large parts of the north. At the same time, the depth of their relationship with Tehran should not be understated. Iran has provided them with financial, military and technical support that has helped develop their missile and drone capabilities.
The relationship between the Houthis and Iran cannot be reduced to that of a patron and an instrument that simply carries out its orders. It is an unequal partnership in which interests overlap, while the Houthis retain room for manoeuvre shaped by their own local calculations. In this context, a Chatham House study suggests that the movement has an independent Yemeni agenda and that Iran’s ability to direct its decisions is not absolute. This does not negate Tehran’s ability to benefit from Houthi pressure on its adversaries. It does, however, help explain why regional negotiations alone cannot resolve the crisis. Iran is an influential actor, but it cannot substitute for negotiations with the Houthis themselves.
Military Power Without a Political Settlement
Years of observing Houthi rule indicate that the movement can advance across Yemen and impose new realities on the ground. It can also disrupt and threaten maritime routes. None of this means, however, that it can govern the entire country. The rapid expansion of its military reach does not erase Yemen’s size, nor the fact that the Houthis can lose territory just as quickly. Nor does it erase the opposition they face amid Yemen’s social and political diversity, its difficult terrain and the presence of local forces with competing interests. In short, control of strategic areas has not automatically given the movement national legitimacy or the capacity to govern a unified Yemeni state.
It is equally inaccurate to say that the Houthis are not a political actor. They exercise de facto authority, maintain governing institutions and have taken part in negotiations. The more precise point is that they have yet to demonstrate sufficient readiness to move from administering an armed authority to practising politics through compromise, power-sharing and acceptance of multiple centres of legitimacy. The movement’s mobilising rhetoric and its inclination to settle disputes by force narrow the space for national agreements. The question, then, is when the Houthis will recognise that they must participate in a state whose decisions they cannot monopolise.
On the other side stands Yemen’s internationally recognised government, represented by the Presidential Leadership Council, in an exceptionally difficult position. International recognition gives the Council legal standing and enables it to represent Yemen at the United Nations. It does not mean that the government exercises effective authority across the country, or even that the forces in its camp are cohesive or loyal to it. While the main front lines remained largely frozen after the 2022 truce, the anti-Houthi camp was preoccupied with internal struggles over influence and representation between two competing projects: restoring a southern state and preserving a unified Yemen. The rapid shift in the balance of power in the south was followed by renewed fighting and further government losses along the western coast.
The Yemeni government’s position can be compared, in one limited respect, to that of the Free French government, which operated from London during the Second World War. The latter enjoyed external recognition and claimed to represent the French state, while facing difficulty exercising authority on the ground. Yet the analogy is imperfect and gives the Yemeni government more weight than it possesses in practice. It is not a unified authority leading a national resistance movement; its political and military landscape is more fragmented. Even so, the comparison highlights the gap between a state’s legal legitimacy and its actual capacity. Saudi support has been, and remains, crucial to the survival of the government and its institutions. So far, however, it has not turned recognition into effective sovereignty or military assistance into a unifying political project.
The South Is Not a Platform for Retaking the North
The situation in the south exposes the limits of any assumption that anti-Houthi forces and factions will automatically advance towards Sana’a to fulfil the government’s stated objective. Southern forces remain fragmented, while broad segments of the southern population favour a different vision for the country’s future, ranging from extensive autonomy to secession. Southern participation in battles against the Houthis therefore does not necessarily imply support for a unified national project to retake the north.
Saudi Arabia may have succeeded in curbing the influence of the secessionist project, but the fall of the Southern Transitional Council, or the loss of its former territorial control, has not erased the southern question or the region’s competing factions, interests and loyalties. A change in territorial control should not be confused with the resolution of the dispute over the state’s future. The prospect of the south governing the north also faces major demographic, geographic and political obstacles. The north has a larger population, its mountainous terrain is difficult, and the experience of a unified state has failed to produce a central authority accepted by all. Ignoring these realities turns calls for a “decisive victory” into slogans of general mobilisation rather than an assessment of the balance of power.
A Civil War Expanding Under External Patronage
Military victories by the Houthis or their opponents do not alter the nature of the dilemma. Advances redraw the lines of control and produce a shifting map of influence between the Houthis and the recognised government. They do not remove the causes of the war or ensure that a victor can govern the areas it controls. The Houthis cannot impose stable rule over all of Yemen, while the internationally recognised government, in its current condition, lacks the means to restore the state by force alone.
In this sense, Yemen’s civil war is fought by Yemeni actors but unfolds within a network of regional and international sponsorship and intervention. The war in the Gulf provides new resources and incentives for escalation, while making the security of maritime routes a central instrument of pressure. Yemenis across the country bear the direct costs.
The only potential benefit of this escalation would be for the parties to recognise the limits of their power. None appears capable of absorbing Yemen in its entirety, and no party can ignore the others. Even so, a return to dialogue is not automatic. It requires Yemeni political will, coordinated international support and regional backing that does not treat negotiations merely as a pause between rounds of fighting. Recreating the old state is no longer possible in Yemen. The country needs serious debate about its future form, the distribution of power and wealth, the place of the south, security guarantees and the relationship between armed groups and state institutions. The United Nations has previously proposed a process beginning with a temporary ceasefire and extending towards a broader settlement. But mediation will achieve little as long as the parties believe the gains of war outweigh those of politics.
