Both the Middle East and the West Have Misunderstood and Underestimated the Houthis for Too Long

Last week, the Asian Football Conference announced that next year’s annual tournament, scheduled to take place in Saudi Arabia in January and February, has been postponed until December, due to the dangers posed by Houthi drone and missile attacks. Besides launching munitions at its larger neighbor, the Iran-backed jihadist group controls a large segment of Yemen, is fighting a decadeslong civil war to seize the rest, and might soon cause serious economic disruption in the Bab al-Mandeb Strait—possibly even choking off the alternate routes diverting oil traffic from the Strait of Hormuz.