Yemen is Shifting the Balance of Power

Foad Mahdavi interviewed me on recent developments in Yemen. Above is the audio and video, and below is his post, followed by a transcript. -KB

Foadebate

Professor Kevin Barrett: ”Yemen is a fulcrum, and the balance of power across the entire region is shifting because of it.”🌐 I spoke with Dr. Kevin Barrett, a prominent American scholar of Islam and geopolitical analyst, about the developments in Yemen and its role in reshaping regional and global power dynamics. Barrett offers a unique perspective on Yemen—a land that is no longer a forgotten footnote on the Arabian Peninsula, but has instead become a decisive fulcrum in the Red Sea and across West Asia. Pointing to Ansarullah’s control over the strategic Bab al-Mandab Strait and the collapse of Saudi positioning, Barrett traces the roots of this astonishing victory not merely to weaponry, but to "Asabiyyah" (social cohesion) and popular solidarity—as conceptualized by Ibn Khaldun—pitted against demoralized mercenary armies. Despite billions of dollars in American weapons, these forces lack the will and motivation to fight; his analysis reveals how human will and faith triumph over the modern war machine.🔻In this conversation, detailing Iran’s asymmetric warfare strategy, he emphasizes that Yemen is by no means an Iranian proxy, but rather an independent, freedom-seeking ally. In fact, Iran and Yemen are two independent actors working toward a common goal. On a broader level, Barrett analyzes the emergence of a multipolar world order centered around Russia and China, set against the backdrop of the failure of US strategy in the region.▶ To watch the full interview and gain a deeper understanding of this issue, check out the video and share your valuable insights.@foadebate | Conversation About Tomorrow's World

Transcript

Foad Mahdavi: In the name of God, the Compassionate, the Merciful, hello everybody, hope you are doing great, welcome back to Fouadebate. For years, Yemen was treated as a footnote, a poor remote country on the southern edge of the Arabian Peninsula, written off as a proxy battlefield in someone else’s war. But look at the map today. Look at the Red Sea. Look at the headlines. Yemen is no longer a footnote. I’m sorry. It is a fulcrum. And the balance of power in the entire region is shifting because of it.

To help us unpack this, I’m honored to be joined by Dr. Kevin Barrett, an Arabist Islamologist, a former professor at universities in San Francisco, Paris, and Wisconsin, and one of America’s most prominent critics of the war on terror. He’s the host of Truth Jihad Radio, and False Flag Weekly News, and he has written and spoken extensively on the Middle East, Yemen, and the geopolitics of Thank you so much, Dr. Barrett, for being with us today.

Kevin Barrett: Thank you, Foad. It’s good to be back with you. You’re doing great work.

Foad Mahdavi: You’re welcome. Dr. Barrett, let’s get started with the most striking developments. In a matter of days, Yemeni forces under Ansar Allah command captured Muqa and strategic highlands overlooking the Bab al-Mandaab Strait. They now control Yemen’s entire Red Sea coastline. Just how significant is this military transformation?

Kevin Barrett: It’s extremely important. It currently actually shifts the balance of power in the ongoing war between the Israeli-occupied United States and Iran and its allies. Between the destruction of the east-west pipeline, bringing Saudi oil to be shipped out through the Red Sea, and now the Ansarullah control over the Bab al-Mandeb, this basically doubles the pressure on the United States and its erstwhile allies or vassal states in the region who have now even less reason to trust American promises of protection. So that’s the best case scenario for the Americans, that it will be limited at this doubling of pressure on them.

But in fact, it actually promises even more. Ansarullah forces have routed the Saudi mercenaries, showing that a real nation with a real history of civilization—and this is the real civilization of the Arabian Peninsula going back thousands of years—can defeat this gang of Bedouin warlords.

The Ibn Sauds made an alliance with the Wahhabis to set up the ancestor of the current regime in Saudi Arabia that’s misruling the Islamic holy places. And so now the whole balance of power in the Arabian Peninsula is in play, and we could see even more radical changes in the region than most of us had anticipated.

Foad Mahdavi: Right. And yet the Saudi-led coalition has spent hundreds of billions of dollars on American weapons, F-15s, Patriots, the whole arsenal. How does a movement that was once seen as a ragtag militia achieve this?

Kevin Barrett: That’s a fascinating question. I think one answer is that the Western media, which dominates global perceptions, has misportrayed Yemen as a kind of a civilizational backwater where everybody is addicted to chewing khat. We’ve gotten a picture of Yemen that’s very, very impoverished. And in fact, it’s true that Yemen has faced huge challenges, especially after the genocidal Saudi war and blockade that started a decade ago. But the Yemeni civilization is, as I said, the true Arabian civilization. And it is being revived even now against the Saudis.

And I think this illustrates The Ibn Khaldun theory of asabiya being crucially important in determining the outcome of historical struggles. Ibn Khaldun said that city dwellers, wealthy emperors and upper classes in the cities, become basically spoiled. They become too comfortab