Pessimists think of Yemen as the new Afghanistan or Somalia, while the optimists’ tend to see it as the new Egypt, or better yet, Tunisia. Situated somewhere between the two, there is also an opinion of growing prominence that recognizes in the new Yemen an awful lot of Lebanon. Most notably, Yemen, like Lebanon, is a proxy field for the region’s hottest “cold war”, between the Middle East’s two titans of theocracy: The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA) and the Islamic Republic of Iran. This in itself is not new, but the new political landscape shaping Yemen has upped its significance for both sides. Shortly after the Iranian revolution in 1979 the competition between KSA and Iran began in earnest for influence in, and over, Yemen. The regional rivals set about inciting strife between Yemen’s two main sects, Shafai Sunnis and Zaidi Shias, who had previously enjoyed a largely moderate
