Dec 6, 2019

A key State Department official portrayed the Houthi rebels as independent from Tehran in a briefing with reporters on Thursday, a significant shift that flies in the face of years of US justification for its role in the war in Yemen.

“The Houthis’ de-escalation proposal, which the Saudis are responding to, shows that Iran clearly does not speak for the Houthis, nor have the best interests of the Yemeni people at heart,” the department’s Iran coordinator Brian Hook told reporters at the State Department. “Iran is trying to prolong Yemen’s civil war to project power.”

Why it matters: Since 2015, both the Barack Obama and the Donald Trump administrations — as well as a bipartisan coalition of Iran hawks in Congress — have used Tehran’s support for the Houthis to justify continued support for the Saudi-led coalition in Yemen despite the civilian death toll. The coalition’s defenders have sought to paint the Houthis as direct agents of Iran, rather than autonomous actors.

“The Houthi militia, which is Iran’s proxy in Yemen, is attacking Saudi Arabia’s southern border,” the late Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., then the chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, insisted during a Sept. 2016 debate on an arms sales to Riyadh. “It has carried out hundreds of cross-border raids into Saudi Arabia and has fired numerous missiles deep into Saudi territory. Make no mistake, this aggression is fueled by the Iranians.” The motion to stop the sale failed 27-71.

Several other lawmakers including then-House Foreign Affairs Committee members Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, R-Fla., and Rep. Steve Chabot, R-Ohio, made similar claims at the time.