The fall of the Assad regime deepens the concerns of the Houthi militias.. Is their end near?

The revolutionaries in Syria have decided the battle to overthrow the regime of Bashar al-Assad, the most important members of the Iranian axis, which also includes the Shiite Popular Mobilization Forces, the largest component of the Iraqi government, the Lebanese Hezbollah, and the Houthi militia, in addition to other militias that Iran formed in Syria before the fall of Assad over the past 14 years, such as the Zainabiyoun and Fatemiyoun Brigades, among others.

Hezbollah was subjected to severe blows at the hands of the Israeli occupation during the period from September to last November, during which it was forced to sign an explicit surrender agreement that included its withdrawal to the south of the Litani, ending the concept of the unity of the arenas that its slain leader Hassan Nasrallah promoted, assassinating its entire military leadership, dismantling its military wing and limiting military activity to the Lebanese army.

On November 27, a few hours after the signing of the truce agreement between Hezbollah and the occupation, the revolutionaries in Syria launched a lightning battle from their last stronghold in Idlib, northwest Syria. Within several days, they stormed Aleppo, Hama and Homs and reached Damascus. Assad fled in a shameful manner from Syria, his regime collapsed, and Iran only succeeded in withdrawing its forces, elements and militias at the mercy of the Syrian revolutionaries’ weapons.

With the assassination of Hassan Nasrallah and most of the first and second rank political and military leaders, the end of the unity of the arenas, the escape of Assad and the collapse of his regime, the control of the revolutionaries over Damascus, and the inability of the Shiite mobilization in Iraq to intervene, the Iranian arms or what it calls its resistance no longer have any presence in the most important strongholds near the occupation that it relied on for decades to give acceptable legitimacy to its hegemony over the Arab East.

While he was emphasizing last week the continuation of the Iranian axis, which they call the axis of resistance, before the fall of the Assad regime, the Houthis’ sense of collapse increased with widespread Yemeni hopes for a popular revolution to remove him from power in Sanaa with the success of the Syrian revolution, the demonstrators in Taiz raised it earlier in Damascus and tomorrow in Sanaa.

On Thursday, the Houthis were agitated by the fall of Assad and the defeat of Iran, and were extremely angry, vowing to crush any internal movement against them. The militia’s spokesman, Mohammed Abdul Salam, appeared on Al Masirah TV after the Houthi speech, speaking in a tense and anxious tone, borrowing the phrase of the regimes that were previously overthrown, saying: “Yemen is not Syria, and the Houthi militia has 200,000 fighters to confront the transfer of the Syrian model to Yemen.”

Ansar Allah spokesman Mohammed Abdul Salam, in response to his opinion regarding what is being circulated that what happened in Syria could happen in Yemen:

The collapse of the Syrian regime happened because a national army with a combat doctrine was not built. If the Syrian army had held out for one week, the situation would have changed.

Yemen is not Syria, and who should be worried or afraid is... pic.twitter.com/yTPhyGdnJ8

— Sameer Alnamri (@sameer_alnamri) December 12, 2024

Weakness indicators

Only two days after the liberation of Damascus, the Houthi militia presented a new partial plan to move negotiations in Yemen to the United Nations, which stipulates the formation of a new economic committee to supervise the resumption of oil exports, whose export platform in Ad-Dabbah was destroyed by the Houthis two years ago, and the distribution of its revenues to salaries and other services under UN supervision, without clarifying the mechanism of quotas and distribution after it wanted the lion’s share of it as part of a package of economic measures at the expense of the government’s interests.

The UN envoy to Yemen, Hans Grundberg, made provocative statements at the Doha Forum after the liberation of Damascus, saying that the roadmap that was supposed to be signed in late 2023 - and which was in the Houthis' favor according to most Yemenis - could no longer be signed or implemented.

On social media, the Houthi leaders’ discourse, from Abdulmalik al-Houthi to Hussein al-Ezzi, Mohammed al-Bukhaiti, Abdulmalik al-Ajri and others, focused on the need to stop the internal wars now, without taking any other steps to resolve the conflict. However, they launched a series of threats, with al-Ezzi saying they were ready for war, and with al-Ajri saying: “We are preparing nine bullets for the agents and one bullet for the occupation.” The Houthi threats did not accuse their opponents of terrorism as usual, but rather developed the term “Brotherhood” and incited Saudi Arabia and the Gulf against them, considering them loyal to Turkey.

Iran's position

Iran's positions on what happened in Syria were conflicting. They admitted their withdrawal, the defeat of their ally Assad, and their inability to intervene to save him for several reasons. Then, in the past few days, they developed a language that says "the armed opposition instead of terrorist groups," accusing Turkey, the occupation, and the United States of helping to overthrow Assad. They also accused Assad of failing to solve the chronic problems of his regime, and held him responsible for the defeat, but they considered the repercussions of the defeat dangerous for Iran's own security.

Ali Khamenei, Iran's leader and supreme leader, said that his country was unable to send aid to Assad, after accusing him of being responsible for his defeat, but he said that the axis of resistance remains, but not in a material way, but in a position, feeling and beliefs. Khamenei indirectly accused Turkey, saying, "A neighboring country of Syria participated with the Israeli occupation and the United States in the conspiracy to overthrow Assad... They want to occupy northern Syria."

Yemeni researcher Ibrahim Jalal says on the "X" platform, "The region is witnessing a redrawing of the map of influence and control at an accelerating pace, due to variables that impose limiting the role of Iran and its regional arms after two decades of empowering Shiite political Islam at the expense of the national state."

Jalal continued: "Iran's allies in Baghdad and Sanaa fear a similar fate to Hezbollah and Assad after Tehran began to rearrange its priorities internally at the expense of its allies."

A source close to the Houthis in Sanaa told Yemen Youth Net that the Houthis are shocked by what happened to Assad, even as they threaten to continue naval attacks. This shock is deepened by the wide Arab support, including the Islamic Resistance Movement Hamas, officially, popularly and in the media, for the Syrian revolution, which has led to the complete isolation of the Houthi narrative.

For the Houthis, the Syrian earthquake is like the erasure of a whole year of regional ambitions that had been growing since October 7, 2013. Especially since what happened to Hezbollah was portrayed as a victory, and this fallacy almost passed, despite it being the most severe blow. The Houthis finally returned to Yemen, but he returned exhausted, afraid and crying out in anger at these transformations, in an indication of the extent of the concern about a similar fate.