Houthis and Khomeini: Who influenced whom?

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There is always talk about the Houthi group's subordination to the Iranian Khomeini regime, and that it is merely a human intellectual-political appendage... Is this description accurate and precise?!

The reality is that there is no doubt about the Iranian regime’s support and embrace of the Houthi group, and the evidence for it has been and continues to be seen and repeated.

Iran is a state and the Houthis are a militia. Iran is a huge state with vast capabilities, a vast area, a large number of human beings, and a huge, renewable arsenal of missiles, drones, and other military capabilities. From this perspective, Al-Houthi is affiliated with Iran, but he is affiliated with it from a purely intellectual perspective?!

Here we must highlight a precise idea, which is that Khomeiniism, with its Twelver Imami affiliation, was supposed to become a politically inactive movement, due to the Imami’s waiting political jurisprudence. Because what was stable in the Imami consciousness was that the legitimacy of rule, the establishment of “jihad,” the Friday prayer, and all the functions of the legitimate imam are suspended until the appearance of the imam of the time, and every flag raised before this is a pre-Islamic flag, but revolutionization and continuous revolution are a feature present in Zaidi political thought and action, due to viewing the function of the imam as a temporary and not an expected action. Here, it may be correct to say that it was Khomeiniism that was influenced by Zaidi culture, and not the other way around!

More important than all of these historical, intellectual and psychological ties between the two schools is the political, reconciliatory link, as he is the most prominent ruler, and from here we can understand this sudden Houthi influence, which from a pure rational perspective brings harm to the Houthi authorities in Yemen, but from the Houthi’s emotional, ideological, emotional perspective, all this agitation and screaming becomes an understandable and even obligatory act, in the view of the Houthi, of course.

It is necessary to delve deeply into the depths of the intellectual psychological makeup of the Houthi person who is imbued with this ideology, and not the “researched” person who was drawn into the group of the owner of Saada because of “worldly” interests and calculations or wrong estimates and readings. Hence, studying, examining and analyzing the necessary literature from Father Badr al-Din to Brother Hussein to Abd al-Malik al-Houthi, and all members of the solid core of this group, becomes a vital necessity. Study it deeply and coldly, and not extract some texts for the purpose of media mobilization - I am not against that, but that is not our purpose here - this patient and careful study paints for us a clear picture of who we are facing, and gives us indicators that can help us anticipate the Houthi’s actions and reactions. Is this the function of the Center for Studies on Yemen, for example?! Is there such a center in all the Gulf countries and the countries that are concerned with what is happening, has happened before, and will happen in the future in Yemen?!

In the end: illusions have no limit, and when illusion combines with political blindness and separation from reality with ignorance and psychological isolation, the result is a group that is dangerous to the world, to its people, and to itself... The result is: the Houthis!

Quoted from "Al-Sharq Al-Awsat"