Articles

The pro-Iranian Yemeni Houthi militia advanced rapidly this week toward coastal areas along the Bab el-Mandeb Strait on the Red Sea, in an offensive bearing Iran’s hallmark and placing particular pressure on Saudi Arabia. Iran, for its part, did not respond to the Israeli military’s destruction of the strategic Ali el-Taher site in southern Lebanon, which was built over 20 years with support from the Revolutionary Guards. The most significant development in the Middle East during the week of September 7–13, 2026, was probably the rapid advance of the pro-Iranian Houthi rebels toward Yemeni areas on the coast of the Bab el-Mandeb Strait in the Red Sea. This came despite ongoing clashes with pro-Saudi government forces in a country that has been divided and at war for years.

By taking control of the port of Mokha, the Houthis have enabled Iran to take a major step toward controlling the Bab el-Mandeb Strait. The strait is the essential gateway to the Red Sea and the Suez Canal. The “Islamic Republic” has used the Houthis as part of the war it is waging against the United States and Israel, a war it has also extended to the Arab Gulf states and Jordan. Foremost among these countries is Saudi Arabia, which now considers itself to be fighting a war along its long border with Yemen while simultaneously coming under attack from Iraq. This is no longer merely a test for Yemen’s “legitimacy,” whose very fate is now in question. It is also a test for the Arab world and the Gulf, especially since the “Islamic Republic” has not hesitated to use Yemen to pressure every state in the region.

Would we dare draw a parallel between the respective careers of two deposed dictators, namely Adib Chichakli and Bashar al-Assad? Both ruled Syria with an iron fist (1), only to beat a miserable retreat, abandoning their followers to the wrath of the people. The first slipped away in February 1954; the second was spirited out, without fanfare or fuss, in December 2024. The same pattern, seventy years apart! But the comparison does not end there. Both dictators, after all, tried to regain a foothold in Syria from a Lebanese base. In denial, neither could bring himself to doubt his popularity among a people he had brutally repressed, nor the enthusiasm Syrians would supposedly display should he ever return to power.

It was time to put the record straight on relations between Morocco and its Spanish neighbor, with which it has traditionally maintained good ties that have deepened significantly over the past four years. The Moroccan Ministry of Foreign Affairs was keen to recall the key stages in Moroccan-Spanish relations and the positive turning point reached in 2022. That year, King Mohammed VI received Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez. It is worth recalling that Spain, after the United States, played a pivotal role in affirming Moroccan sovereignty over the Sahara and in supporting the view that the only viable option is broad autonomy within the framework of Moroccan sovereignty.

In April 2003, Mohammed Saeed al-Sahhaf gave the world one of the greatest political performances in the art of denial. On April 7, American tanks had entered the heart of Baghdad, their images broadcast across television screens worldwide. Yet Saddam Hussein’s information minister stood before reporters and declared—with the confidence of a man who possessed information unavailable to the human eye—that there were no Americans in Baghdad and that the invading forces were being crushed and annihilated. Two days later, on April 9, Baghdad fell. Al-Sahhaf was not merely lying. He was providing a psychological service to an audience no longer capable of confronting the truth. That is precisely what makes him so contemporary in Lebanon.

Iran-backed Houthi rebels seized Yemen's Red Sea coast and the islands in the Bab el-Mandeb Strait on Friday, following a lightning offensive that strengthens their grip on this strategic passage linking Europe and Asia. Neighboring Saudi Arabia, the world's largest crude oil exporter, now finds itself caught in a vise, with the Strait of Hormuz, on the other side of the peninsula, having been sealed off by Tehran since the war in the Middle East began. Saudi authorities also announced the temporary closure of the East-West oil pipeline following the attacks. Since the start of the war in the Middle East, Riyadh had stepped up its use of the pipeline, which connects Abqaiq, near the Gulf, to the Red Sea port of Yanbu, to bypass Iran's blockade of the Strait of Hormuz.