Few analysts or commentators have a more intimate knowledge of Yemen and the Middle East than Elisabeth Kendall. The distinguished academic – whose expertise includes militant jihadist movements, Arabic poetry, and Yemen’s civil war – has previously worked with the Office of the United Nations Envoy to Yemen, and has advised parts of NATO, the British Army, and the United States military. She is currently Mistress of Girton College, Cambridge, and chairs a grassroots NGO in east Yemen.
Elisabeth Kendall (EK) – Some really major things have changed in the region since 7 October. But would I say that it has been fundamentally reshaped? I think that is less clear just now, because there are so many persistent, intractable issues that haven’t changed. But let’s start first with what has changed. I think that one of the big ones is the tumbling of Iran’s longest-standing proxies.
This is a really big deal. For years, everyone has been focused on what the Iranian regime might do if one were to go in hard against it, via its proxies. And now, look: Iran has been significantly degraded militarily and reputationally, indeed humiliated, and at the same time its most immediate retaliatory levers have been all but incapacitated. We’ve witnessed the decapitation of Hezbollah in Lebanon, the decapitation of Hamas in Gaza, the weakening of the Shia militias in Iraq, and, of course, we’ve seen the fall of the Assad regime in Syria.
Although this last one wasn’t necessarily a direct consequence of Israel’s actions, the toppling of that regime weakens Iran massively, not just because Assad was a useful ally, but because it takes away Iran’s window on the Mediterranean; it takes away key smuggling routes. This means that it is going to be much more difficult for the Islamic Republic to rebuild or re-arm either Hezbollah or Hamas. Of course, we’ve also got new governments in both Lebanon and in Syria – they are quite fragile, but taking root. These are all really big changes.
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