{"id":48561,"date":"2019-09-20T09:29:34","date_gmt":"2019-09-20T14:29:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=48561"},"modified":"2019-09-20T09:29:39","modified_gmt":"2019-09-20T14:29:39","slug":"how-the-houthis-overturned-the-chessboard","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=48561","title":{"rendered":"How the Houthis overturned the chessboard"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><a href=\"http:\/\/thesaker.is\/how-the-houthis-overturned-the-chessboard\/\">How the Houthis overturned the chessboard<\/a><\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The Yemeni Shiite group\u2019s spectacular attack on Abqaiq raises the distinct possibility of a push to drive the House of Saud from power<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/dxczjjuegupb.cloudfront.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/09\/043_dpa-pa_190910-90-032250_dpai-900x540.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-43400\"\/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">A Yemeni Shiite man holds his weapon and a flag with an Arabic inscription reading \u2018Disgrace is far from us,\u2019 as he takes part in a religious procession held by Houthi rebels to mark the first day of Ashura. Photo: Hani Al-Ansi\/dpa<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">We are the Houthis and we\u2019re coming to town. With the spectacular attack on&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Abqaiq\">Abqaiq<\/a>, Yemen\u2019s Houthis have overturned the geopolitical chessboard in Southwest Asia \u2013 going as far as introducing a whole new dimension: the distinct possibility of investing in a push to drive the House of Saud out of power.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Blowback is a bitch. Houthis \u2013 Zaidi Shiites from northern Yemen \u2013 and Wahhabis have been at each other\u2019s throats for ages.&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.amazon.com\/Tribes-Politics-Yemen-History-Conflict-ebook-dp-B079Z926NH\/dp\/B079Z926NH\/ref=mt_kindle?_encoding=UTF8&amp;me=&amp;qid\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">This book<\/a>&nbsp;is absolutely essential to understand the mind-boggling complexity of Houthi tribes; as a bonus, it places the turmoil in southern Arabian lands way beyond a mere Iran-Saudi proxy war.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Still, it\u2019s always important to consider that Arab Shiites in the Eastern province \u2013 working in Saudi oil installations \u2013 have got to be natural allies of the Houthis fighting against Riyadh.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Houthi striking capability \u2013 from drone swarms to ballistic missile attacks \u2013 has been improving remarkably for the past year or so. It\u2019s not by accident that the UAE saw which way the geopolitical and geoeconomic winds were blowing: Abu Dhabi withdrew from Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman\u2019s vicious war against Yemen and now is engaged in what it describes as a &nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/fanack.com\/united-arab-emirates\/history-past-to-present\/uaes-withdrawal-from-yemen\/?gclid=CjwKCAjwq4fsBRBnEiwANTahcI7JnalINl2Ey4ac_WZ-MBt9IrEcHsZmO7cXtTtCh1wMZPCIDXBK7hoC-u8QAvD_BwE\">\u201cpeace-first\u201d<\/a>&nbsp;strategy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">&nbsp;\u2026click on the above link to read the rest of the article\u2026<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>How the Houthis overturned the chessboard The Yemeni Shiite group\u2019s spectacular attack on Abqaiq raises the distinct possibility of a push to drive the House of Saud from power A Yemeni Shiite man holds his weapon and a flag with an Arabic inscription reading \u2018Disgrace is far from us,\u2019 as he takes part in a [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[4076,18938,862],"class_list":["post-48561","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-geopolitics","tag-pepe-escobar","tag-the-saker-blog","tag-war"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48561","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=48561"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48561\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":48562,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48561\/revisions\/48562"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=48561"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=48561"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=48561"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}