Part 35: The Islamic Republic.

Added: 2026-05-22

[00:00:01]This is part 35 of the Islamic Republic.

[00:00:04]After the Houthis seized the capital in 2015, Saudi Arabia launched a military intervention backed by a coalition of regional allies, and Yemen descended into catastrophe. Air strikes devastated infrastructure. Food systems collapsed.

[00:00:18]Diseases spread. Ports became battlegrounds. Millions faced famine conditions. Children starved. Entire communities were shattered. The humanitarian disaster became one of the worst in the modern world. At the same time, increasingly evolved into another regional proxy struggle. Iran denied fully controlling the Houthis, and the relationship between Tehran and the movement [music] has always been more complex than many headlines suggest. The Houthis retained their own local leadership, tribal dynamics, and Yemeni political goals, but over time, Iranian support undeniably expanded through weapons, missiles, technology, drone technology, training, intelligence, and cooperation.

[00:00:58]Political backing was there, and this is where Yemen became different from [music] the earlier chapters in the series. Yemen could threaten global commerce, the Bab el-Mandeb Strait, the narrow waterway connecting the Red Sea to the Gulf of Aden. Follow along, because in the next part, [music] we go over Iran's new reach.