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VI. The War Against Iran (February-June 2026): the “Limited Intervention” A Late and Symbolic Entry On February 28, 2026, the United States and Israel attacked Iran. Very quickly, Tehran largely closed the Strait of Hormuz, reducing Gulf exports to a trickle. Many expected the Houthis to open a second front at Bab el-Mandeb. They did not. Their involvement was cautious, gradual and late: it was not until March 28, one month after the war began, that they fired their first missiles toward Israel, as though they had waited for the moment when their entry would have the greatest impact. Their operations were limited to missile and drone launches toward Israel. Their military effect was modest, given the distance and the effectiveness of Israeli air defenses. Above all, they avoided high-impact fronts: no campaign against shipping in the Red Sea, no strikes against the Gulf monarchies or regional energy infrastructure. The media dimension compensated for this: each launch sustained the image of a “resistance” force loyal to the Axis. These launches were suspended with the Islamabad Memorandum, concluded in June between Washington and Tehran.

III. From Saada to Sanaa: The Paradoxical Alliance and the Seizure of Power The Erosion of the Saleh System For more than three decades, Ali Abdullah Saleh governed through a system of tribal patronage. He relied on a pact concluded in 1978 with Sheikh Abdullah al-Ahmar, leader of the Hashid confederation, and General Ali Mohsen al-Ahmar, commander of the 1st Armored Division. His own clan, the Sanhan, a branch of the Hashid confederation, held the key military and security commands. This system rested on oil revenues, which accounted for as much as 75 percent of state resources in 2002. The decline in production, around 40 percent after that peak, reduced the resources available for redistribution. Lesser sheikhs saw their subsidies cut or even eliminated. At the same time, the Houthis had resources of their own and a legitimacy independent of the tribal structures. They were therefore able to recruit among frustrated tribes, particularly within the Bakil confederation, which had long demanded equality with Hashid.

II. Zaydism: A Doctrine of the Living Imam and Revolt A Singular Branch of Shiism Shiism ( shī‘a , “party” of Ali) regards Ali ibn Abi Talib and his descendants, the “People of the House” ( Ahl al-Bayt ), as the legitimate successors of the Prophet. Over the course of succession disputes, it split into several branches: the Twelvers, who form the majority in Iran, Iraq and Bahrain and are also strongly represented in Lebanon; the Ismailis; the so-called “extremist” currents ( ghulāt ); and the Zaydis, today concentrated in northwestern Yemen. Zaydism takes its name from Zayd ibn Ali, grandson of Hussein, who rose up against the Umayyads and died a martyr in 740. His nephew Ja‘far al-Sadiq, who would become a major reference for the future Twelvers, refused to follow him. The split occurred precisely over this point: whether to follow the imam who takes up arms against injustice, or to wait. Zayd maintained close ties with the Mu‘tazilite Wasil ibn Ata, while Abu Hanifa, founder of one of the major Sunni schools of law, studied under him and supported his revolt. This proximity explains why Zaydism has long been described as “the most Sunni of the Shiisms.”

In September 2026, the Houthis seized control of the Yemeni shore of the Bab el-Mandeb Strait and struck Saudi Arabia’s oil heartland. This shift brought to a close the phase of “controlled escalation” observed at the outset of the US-Israeli-Iranian war and opened a direct confrontation with Riyadh and its new allies in the Mecca Pact. To understand it, one must return to the religious, familial and social roots of a movement born in the mountains of Saada. Introduction On September 11, 2026, Ansar Allah fighters planted their flag on the island of Mayun (Perim), in the middle of the Bab el-Mandeb Strait. In three days, they had captured Hays, al-Khokha, the port of Mokha and then the district of Dhubab, wresting some 5,400 km² from forces loyal to the internationally recognized government. Three days earlier, their missiles had struck Abha Airport, King Khalid Air Base and Aramco facilities in Abha and Jizan, in the heaviest attack against the Kingdom in years.

I - The Importance of Immediate History and Its Definition Faced with the catastrophe we are living through, with an open war that is destroying and erasing the traces of life in South Lebanon, with the displacement it is causing and the economic and political collapse affecting Lebanon as a whole, faced also with the failures of the state and its institutions in dealing with the aggression and its consequences, particularly its failure to fulfill its duty to impose its sovereignty over all its territory, which was one of the fundamental causes of this war in the first place, and faced with its confusion in addressing the economic and financial situation, particularly corruption on the one hand and the educational future of the present generations on the other, I turned to the book Writing History , from the “History and Social Sciences, History and Memory” series, published by Afrique Orient in Casablanca in 2014. It includes a text by Bernard Paillard entitled “Immediate History,” meaning what takes place in the moment itself.

Editor's note: The following study is not meant to be read in one sitting, but in segments. The author apologizes in advance to the reader, but the academic approach followed could not allow for a split into several articles or a summary that would weaken its substance and nuances. Mea maxima culpa, therefore. In early April 2026, Israel circulated a “new” map of southern Lebanon, highlighting a zone of approximately ten kilometres north of the border inside Lebanese territory, coloured in yellow, representing the geographic space that its army has occupied since the beginning of its military offensive in March.

EDITOR'S NOTE: The study that follows, dedicated to a detailed analysis of the logic of war in the Persian-Iranian spirit and practice in the light of the current conflict with the United States, is not to be read in a single sitting, but in segments; the digital medium is no doubt ill-suited to the length of the text. It is more advisable to print the article and read it on paper. The author offers his apologies in advance to the reader for this inconvenience, but the academic approach followed cannot tolerate a break into several articles, or a summary that would dilute its substance and nuances. Therefore, mea maxima culpa .

It seems necessary to dwell for a moment on the insidious game played by Israel, acting as a puppet master, in the context of the geostrategic ambitions of the Iranian Islamic Republic. For half a century, Tel Aviv found in the “alliance of minorities” (Alawites, Christians, Druze, Lebanese Shiites, Kurds) a geopolitical buffer against the Sunni hinterland. The Israeli «periphery doctrine» (1950s-70s) was indeed based on an axiom: ally with minorities to break the Sunni encirclement. In this context, the Alawite regimes in Damascus — Hafez and then Bashar al-Assad — were declared but predictable enemies; ideologically stable; obsessed with their internal survival; and perfectly dissuadable. Israel preferred a cynical and rational Assad to a nationalist or Islamist Sunni Syria. And the Western world, both the United States and European countries, followed suit with the Hebrew state, purely out of utilitarianism. The henchmen of the Assad regime rendered so many good and loyal services to European intelligence agencies over the past four decades… why get rid of such an accommodating enemy?

For a long time, Iraq was the keystone of the Islamic Republic of Iran’s geostrategic maneuvers and ambitions. Without Iraq, nothing holds together: neither the land corridor to Syria, nor the sanctions-busting economy, nor the network of militias that provided Iran with strategic depth in the Gulf. Powerful Shiite militias (the PMF), financed, trained, and supervised by the Revolutionary Guards, controlled for years the border areas of al-Qaim/Bukamal, through which weapons, fighters, and technologies transited toward Syria and Lebanon. The Iraqi government, wavering, constantly oscillated between Washington and Tehran, yet Iranian leverage remained massive. Today, Iraq has become a field of contradictions: U.S. pressure is increasing to sanction pro-Iranian networks; militias have been weakened by the disorganization of the Syrian front; the recent internal dispute over the classification of Hezbollah and the Houthis—placed on and then removed from terrorist lists within a few days—clearly reveals confusion; and, last but not least, an Iraqi nationalism is taking shape that rejects Iranian interference as much as American dominance.

Iran's strategy is not solely maritime. It has been built, with almost Roman patience, around a land arc : Tehran – Baghdad – Damascus – Beirut. For twenty years, Tehran patiently constructed a “Shiite crescent” connecting Iran to the Mediterranean, under the control of the vilayet e-faqih , the Iranian spiritual guide. Thus, it has sanctified Shiite militias and taken control of border areas in Iraq; it gained decision-making ascendancy from 2012 in its partnership with the Assad regime, with the intervention of the Pasdaran and Hezbollah to protect the Assad regime (later shared with Moscow during the Russian intervention from September 2015; and, above all, with the peak, from 2008, of Hezbollah in Lebanon as an expeditionary force and strategic projection tool).