Yemen Was Delegated to Saudi Arabia—but Geography Refused the Delegation.

An ancient civilisation cannot be treated as a Saudi security problem.

Araweelo News Network | Associated Online Agencies

Author: Abdillahi Jama Ali – Qurus

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Yemen is not a new country that suddenly appeared on the map. Long before the modern states of the Arabian Peninsula took their present form, Yemen was home to organised kingdoms, cities, agriculture, irrigation systems and long-distance trade.
Sabaʾ, Maʿin, Qataban and Himyar belong to a much older political and economic history. Modern Saudi Arabia, by contrast, became a unified kingdom only in 1932. Oil subsequently transformed the balance of wealth and power in the peninsula, but oil did not rewrite history or geography.
That distinction matters.

A political tradition of its own
Northern Yemen also developed its own political and religious tradition under the Zaidi Imamate. Imam Yahya and the imams who preceded him belonged to that tradition. The modern Houthi movement came much later, but it emerged from the same northern Zaidi environment.
Northern Yemen was not brought under British colonial rule. British control was concentrated in Aden and the southern territories. The northern Imamate survived the departure of the Ottomans in 1918 and continued until the revolution of 1962.
This history is important because it shows that Yemen cannot easily be understood as an extension of another state’s security problem.

A childhood memory from Yemen
I remember something from my school days that I understood much better only years later.
Some of our exercise books were imported from Yemen. Their covers carried portraits of Arab political figures. I remember clearly Jamal Abdel Nasser and Abdullah Sallal. There was a third portrait, but I can no longer remember who it was.
At the time, they were simply pictures on schoolbooks.
Later I understood what those images represented.
Abdullah Sallal had led the 1962 revolution that overthrew the Zaidi Imamate and became the first president of the Yemen Arab Republic. The Yemeni Free Officers had been influenced by the Egyptian Free Officers movement and by Nasser’s Arab nationalism.
The revolution also became part of a much larger regional struggle. Egypt supported the Yemeni republicans, while Saudi Arabia supported the royalists. Yemen had therefore become more than a domestic political question. It was already connected to the wider strategic contest surrounding the Red Sea and the Arabian Peninsula.
My childhood exercise books were, in their own small way, carrying that political world into our classrooms.

The Houthis did not appear from nowhere
The modern Houthi movement is not the same thing as the old Zaidi Imamate. But neither can it be understood without the history of northern Yemen.
The movement developed in the 1990s and took its name from Hussein Badreddin al-Houthi. Its later relationship with Iran became an important part of the regional equation, but the movement also has indigenous roots in Yemen’s own political and religious landscape.
Reducing the Houthis simply to an Iranian creation risks overlooking that history.

Yemen’s people travelled far beyond Yemen
There is another part of the story that is often overlooked: the movement of Yemenis themselves. Hadhrami merchants established trading networks across the Indian Ocean and the Horn of Africa. They were active in places such as Berbera, Mogadishu and Kismayo, connecting the Arabian Peninsula with African ports and commercial centres.
That history also reached Saudi Arabia. Ahmed Zaki Yamani, whose family originated in Yemen, became one of Saudi Arabia’s most prominent oil ministers.
The lesson is larger than any individual example. The Arabian Peninsula has never been a collection of sealed political compartments. People, ideas, commerce and political movements have crossed its boundaries for centuries.

The Saudi calculation
Saudi Arabia is an indispensable actor in Yemen because of geography, the shared border, security concerns, wealth and regional influence.
But there is a difference between being a principal actor and being a substitute for the country itself.
For years, Yemen was treated to a considerable extent through the lens of Saudi security. Yet Yemen has its own history, political traditions, social structures and geographical position.

And geography is not negotiable.
Yemen sits beside the Bab al-Mandab, the gateway between the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden. What happens there can affect the Red Sea, the Horn of Africa, the Suez route and international shipping.
That makes Yemen simultaneously a Yemeni problem, a Saudi problem, a Red Sea problem and an international problem.
Yemen was delegated to Saudi Arabia—but geography refused the delegation.

A more troubling question
This raises a question that goes beyond Yemen.
Iraq, Syria, Iran and Yemen are very different societies and should not be treated as identical cases. Their histories, governments, conflicts and external relationships are different.
Yet the repeated involvement of major outside powers in the affairs of old Middle Eastern civilisations invites a broader examination.
Are Western powers repeatedly miscalculating these societies—or are they pursuing objectives that are not fully visible in the public language of international relations?
That is not an accusation. It is a question.
And it is a question worth asking because history has a long memory.
You cannot treat an ancient civilisation as if it were newborn simply because its modern borders are recent.
Oil changed the balance of power in Arabia.
It did not change Yemen’s history.
And it certainly did not change its geography.

By Abdillahi Jama Ali – Qurus .A former teacher, trainer, radio journalist, manager, Member of Parliament and Minister, He is now a writer, contributor  and political analyst, drawing on more than 50 years of professional, public-service and political experience. Abdullahi Jama Ali is also a contributor to Araweelo News Network / Associated Online Agencies, where he has published numerous articles and political analyses. His work focuses particularly on current affairs, governance, policy developments, and geopolitical dynamics in the Horn of Africa, offering readers well-crafted perspectives shaped by decades of professional, public-service, and political experience