The unforgivable Houthi crime

The targeting of King Khalid International Airport in the Saudi capital, Riyadh, was not just a passing military attack in the Houthi escalation record. Rather, it was a crime that reveals the extent to which the Houthi militia has reached in violating the security of civilians and turning vital installations into targets for its missiles and military adventures. The attack on a civilian airport that receives travelers of various nationalities is neither a heroism nor a strategic achievement, no matter how the militia’s propaganda machine tries to market it. It is an assault on civil life, the sovereignty of a state, and the stability of an entire region, and a blatant expression of a militia mentality that sees the terrorization of innocents as a means to impose its political will and compensate for its inability to build a state that respects humans, institutions, and borders. The leader of the militia, Abdul-Malik al-Houthi, bears grave political and moral responsibility for this aggressive approach. A leader who monopolizes decision-making and presents himself as a reference for war and peace cannot evade the results of his militia policies, nor can mobilizational speeches and ideological slogans grant him immunity from accountability. Missiles do not create legitimacy, drones do not build a state, and the ability to threaten airports does not give their owners the right to determine the fate of peoples. What the militia calls victories are in reality nothing more than a demonstration of its ability to sabotage and its inability to present a viable political project. Perhaps the most dangerous thing this behavior reveals is that the Houthi militia deals with the Saudi border as an open arena to export its crises and blackmail the region in terms of security. In doing so, it is trying to transform its limited ability to cause harm into political influence that exceeds its real weight. But it ignores an established strategic fact, which is that the ability to sabotage is not equivalent to the ability toGovernance, and that threatening airports does not create a respectable regional power, but rather establishes the image of a militia that has no political tools except weapons and no means of negotiation other than threats. The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia is not just a country neighboring Yemen. Rather, it is a fundamental pillar in the security of the Arabian Peninsula, the stability of the global economy, and the movement of energy and international trade. Therefore, targeting its civilian facilities represents a threat whose repercussions extend beyond the Kingdom’s borders to affect the security of the region and the interests of the international community. Saudi Arabia has the right to protect its lands, residents, and vital facilities by all legitimate means. Effective deterrence also requires combining defensive force, diplomatic action, legal prosecution, drying up sources of illegal armament, and holding those responsible for the attacks accountable. If Saudi Arabia confronts the Houthi threats with its political weight and defensive capabilities, the brotherly Yemeni people are paying the heaviest price for the adventures of this militia, as every missile it launches into the neighborhood carries with it the potential for a new escalation, deepens Yemen’s isolation, and squanders the chances of peace and reconstruction. The fatal irony is that the Houthi militia, which claims to defend Yemen, is pushing it towards further exhaustion, and which speaks in the name of sovereignty, making the Yemeni decision hostage to regional tensions, and which claims to protect the people, presents it with more war, poverty, and collapse. Yemen is larger than the Houthi militia, more ancient than its ideological project, and broader than its slogans. It is a nation that deserves a state of institutions, not the authority of weapons. Its children deserve schools, not mobilization camps. Its youth deserve job opportunities, not open fronts. Its people deserve a future not determined by the calculations of the militia leader, Abdul-Malik al-Houthi. One of the most severe forms of political absurdity is thatThe fate of an entire people becomes hostage to a leadership that invests in the continuation of crises and searches for its legitimacy in the arenas of confrontation instead of ballot boxes and state institutions. This approach cannot be separated from the military and political relations that bind the Houthi militia to foreign countries and the support and military expertise they provide. However, this connection does not absolve the militia leader, Abdul-Malik al-Houthi, from responsibility for his decisions. Whoever claims to have national decision-making cannot evade the consequences of using Yemeni lands as a platform to threaten the neighbourhood. The sovereignty that the militia praises loses its meaning when the homeland turns into a card in regional conflicts for which the Yemenis pay the price in terms of their security and their future. Targeting civilian objects is not a political dispute that can be justified by slogans, but rather a serious violation that requires investigation and accountability in accordance with international humanitarian law. What is required from the international community is not statements of condemnation that are repeated and then fade away, but rather a serious stance that ensures that those responsible for attacks on civilians are held accountable, prevents the flow of illegal weapons, and obliges any political settlement with security guarantees that prevent a recurrence. Threats. A peace that leaves the tools of military blackmail in place is not a real peace, but rather a postponement of a more dangerous crisis. The militia leader, Abdul-Malik al-Houthi, is required before the Yemenis before others to answer a question that slogans cannot hide: What did Yemen gain from turning its lands into a missile platform? What national sovereignty is achieved when neighborhood security becomes the target of military adventures while the Yemeni people suffer from poverty and the collapse of services? What victory can be celebrated if its outcome is an exhausted country, a people burdened with tragedies, and a future hanging on the possibilities of war? The time has come forThe Houthi militia realizes that the security of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia is not a negotiating card in the hands of the militia leader, that the lives of civilians are not material for military show, and that the sovereignty of states is not subject to the mood of armed groups. The Kingdom has the legitimate right to protect its security and deter attacks on its lands. The Yemenis have the right to restore their state and their future away from the militia’s control. The most condemning fact for the Houthi project will remain that the militia that claims to defend Yemen has made its people pay the price of wars they did not choose, and has made the security of its neighbors vulnerable to adventures that only serve the continuation of its influence. As for Abdul-Malik al-Houthi, his speeches will not be able to obscure his political responsibility for this path. History does not measure leaders by the number of missiles they launch, but rather by the security, dignity and stability they leave behind for their people. There is no glory in terrorizing travelers, no heroism in targeting airports, and no legitimacy derived from fear. Whoever turns homelands into battlefields, neighbors into targets, and civilians into victims does not achieve a historic victory. Rather, he writes a bleak chapter in the record of political, moral and legal responsibility.