WINEP: "Al Houthi like Hassan Nasrallah, is a vassal of Tehran... and Assad is bad too ... "

With STARTFOR, Al Hayat, and Asharq al Awsat who needs objectivity .... Schenker & the "Preponderance of evidence",/ here

".... Riyadh is not supporting Saleh out of altruism. The Houthis are based along the Yemeni-Saudi frontier. Given the history -- in the 1960s, Egyptian-backed groups executed several acts of sabotage in Saudi Arabia, including against the ministry of defense and a Saudi airbase near the Yemeni border -- Riyadh is understandably concerned about border security.

In November 2009, the Houthis crossed the border and seized a parcel of Saudi territory, prompting a swift military reply. Since then, the Saudis have skirmished with the Houthis on both sides of the border and have suffered significant losses. To date, more than 110 Saudi soldiers have been killed and six captured by Houthi forces. It has also been widely reported that a Saudi Apache helicopter was shot down by the rebels. Perhaps not surprisingly, Riyadh has blamed Tehran for Houthi military prowess.

The accusations have played out mainly in the Saudi press. In December 2009, the Saudi-owned London-based daily Asharq al-Awsat reported that "high ranking officials" from the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps along with Lebanese Hezbollah met with Houthi rebels to coordinate military operations against Saudi Arabia. More recently, the Saudi assistant defense minister hinted at Iranian involvement in the fighting, noting, "it is not possible that [the Houthis] obtained the weapons deployed against us themselves."

To date, little hard evidence of direct Iranian support to the Houthis has emerged. The Yemenis say they have proof they have shared with their Iranian counterparts, but they have not yet publicly presented their case against Iran...... Al-Hayat that the rebels were receiving financial support "from Shiite authorities in and outside of Iran." ..... STRATFOR -- claim that Iran's ally Syria has been facilitating movement of jihadists to Yemen, and that Iran itself has been funneling support to the Yemen-based Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula -- the potent group that sponsored the Christmas Day attempt to bring down a passenger jet over Detroit.....

That Ahmadinejad would defend the Houthis comes as no surprise. The Houthis call their philosophy "pure Shia" and openly declare allegiance to Tehran. When asked last year about the bond between Iran and the rebels, leading Houthi cleric Issam al Imad compared the group's leader, Hussein al Houthi, to Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah, a vassal of Tehran.

The preponderance of evidence suggests a significant relationship between Tehran and the Houthis. But even if Yemeni and Saudi claims of Iranian support to the rebels are overstated, given Tehran's track record, it seems likely that Iran is playing some role in fanning the flames of insurgency in Yemen.

Washington has not yet implicated Tehran. But the administration may be moving in that direction. On January 21, the commander of U.S. forces in the region, General David Petraeus, suggested that "some indicators" could point to Iranian involvement in the conflict. Then, on January 31, Assistant Secretary for Near Eastern Affairs Jeffrey Feltman told Al-Hayat that while Washington takes the accusations seriously, "we do not have evidence that the Iranian interference with the Houthis is as deep as is the case with Hezbollah." Feltman is among the finest and most candid of U.S. diplomats. So it is noteworthy that he does not outright deny Iranian involvement. In fact, his analogy seems to confirm it.

It is possible -- as Yemeni officials claim -- that U.S. efforts to date to downplay this issue are related to a desire not to undermine talks over Tehran's nuclear program. This explanation, while troubling, would comport with the Obama administration's hesitancy to back Iraq's accusations of Syrian complicity in the August 2009 bombings in Baghdad that killed more than 100, for fear criticism of Damascus would scuttle U.S. efforts to engage with the Assad regime....

In this increasingly complex and dangerous environment, the sooner Washington understands the degree to which the Houthi are Iranian surrogates, the better able the U.S. forces there will be to counter the threat and mitigate the risk of another failed Middle East state."