{"id":7548,"date":"2026-09-13T15:08:31","date_gmt":"2026-09-13T15:08:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/nexacentre.com\/?p=7548"},"modified":"2026-10-17T12:16:53","modified_gmt":"2026-10-17T12:16:53","slug":"the-houthis-are-a-symptom-not-the-story","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nexacentre.com\/so\/the-houthis-are-a-symptom-not-the-story\/","title":{"rendered":"The Houthis Are a Symptom, Not the Story"},"content":{"rendered":"

Nexa Insight · Regional Analysis · Commentary<\/p>\n

Photo: MC3 Jonathan Clay \/ U.S. Navy, Public Domain (Wikimedia Commons)<\/em><\/p>\n

Great powers rarely fall in a single moment. They erode \u2014 one failed war, one broken sanction, one lost chokepoint at a time \u2014 until the pattern becomes impossible to miss. That pattern has been building for more than a decade, and it’s worth tracing from where it started to where it stands today.<\/p>\n

The Houthi movement, as we’ll see, is not the story. It is a symptom. And a symptom only makes sense once you trace the disease behind it from its origin.<\/p>\n

That disease has two sides: the accelerating decline of American power and influence in the Middle East, and the rise of a rival pole \u2014 China, Russia, Iran, and the wider BRICS coalition \u2014 now strong enough to contest Washington directly. Followed in order, the evidence for both is hard to miss.<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. It starts with Iran, from 2012 onward.<\/strong> Sanctions escalated steadily through the 2010s and hardened into full “maximum pressure” after 2018, backed by direct military strikes and the killing of Iran’s most senior military commander. None of it toppled the Islamic Republic or forced it to abandon its regional network. A weaker state absorbed the full weight of American pressure for over a decade and is still standing.<\/li>\n
  2. In 2015, the war on the Houthis began \u2014 and never finished.<\/strong> A Saudi-led coalition backed by the US spent years trying to crush the movement militarily. It did not work. The Houthis came out of that war stronger, not weaker.<\/li>\n
  3. In 2022, Russia invaded Ukraine \u2014 and was never forced to retreat.<\/strong> Sanctions, isolation, and Western arms followed, and none of it reversed the invasion. This is the moment multipolarity stopped being a theory in academic journals and became a fact on the map.<\/li>\n
  4. After 2022, the dollar’s grip started visibly loosening.<\/strong> A growing list of states began settling trade outside the dollar system, and China’s currency gained ground in places the dollar once had to itself. The dollar still dominates \u2014 but the direction of travel since Ukraine is unmistakable.<\/li>\n
  5. And this year, the Houthis delivered the newest proof.<\/strong> The Strait of Hormuz has been a recurring flashpoint since the start of this timeline, a standing reminder that Washington cannot cheaply guarantee safe passage through the world’s most important waterways. Now the Houthis have made the same point a second time \u2014 seizing Mokha and the island of Mayun (Perim) and planting themselves directly astride Bab el-Mandeb, one of the most important shipping chokepoints on the planet.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    Follow that line from 2012 to this week and the conclusion is structural, not accidental: the United States is being displaced from its position as the world’s unrivaled superpower and pushed toward becoming one of two or three great powers in a multipolar system. That is what the Houthi flag over Mokha actually represents.<\/p>\n

    For small and weaker states, the lesson is not sentimental \u2014 it is practical. Overdependence on a declining power is a liability. The realist response is to reduce that dependence, build genuine economic and political ties eastward with China, Russia, and their coalition, and where a full pivot isn’t possible, to hold firmly to neutrality rather than drift automatically back into Washington’s orbit.<\/p>\n

    The Houthis will fade from the headlines eventually. The disease they are a symptom of will not.<\/p>\n

    Abdinasir Hassan Timoweyne is Founder and Director of the Nexa Centre and Senior Lecturer in International Relations at New Generation University. He is the author of several published articles on Horn of Africa and Middle East politics.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    The Houthis’ capture of Mokha and Bab el-Mandeb isn’t the real story \u2014 it’s the latest evidence of a decade-long shift from American unipolarity to a multipolar world.<\/p>","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":7547,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_eb_attr":"","_uag_custom_page_level_css":"","_templately_pack_id":"","_templately_imported_at":"","_templately_source":"","_templately_import_session_id":"","site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"slim_seo":{"title":"The Houthis Are a Symptom, Not the Story - 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