In Yemen crisis: Houthis not just Iranian surrogates. Likely to come to the negotiating table.

    In a previous post, I warned against assuming that the Houthis in Yemen were just a terrorist surrogate for Iran a la Hezbollah. True, they .get supplies from Iran, and are Zaidi Shia, as is Iran. But they are not religious fundamentalists. They are not just surrogates for Iran. They are not like Hezbollah. Their identity is Yemeni and have had no difficulty allying with the Sunni former President Ali Abdullah Saleh. The Houthis also differ from many of the militant Sunni and Shia groups that have dominated the Mideast scene of late. In fact, part of Houthis raison d’etre was to militarily oppose the Al Qaeda affiliates in Yemen. Unlike the Islamic terrorist groups in the region, they reject the jihadist Salafi and Wahhabi philosophies that posit that aggressive and violent terrorist acts against the West and others whom they feel are opposed to their brand of Islamic fundamentalism are justified by Islam. Yemen is an amalgamation of North Yemen and South Yemen created on May...