AfonsoAlves
Full Member
- Joined
- Jul 16, 2023
- Messages
- 2,526
They have existed for a *long* time. Much of the initial period of time, as far as I'm aware, they were a purely religious group, as opposed to political or military.
This changed as time went on, in response to both local and regional events.
Which think tank exactly are you basing this on? Particularly as American defence politicians have stated that Iranian influence over the Houthis is greatly exaggerated?
The houthis were fighting the government as early as the early 2000s and were winning some victories and controlling some land from even back then, despite the involvement of the Saudis, who of course perceive any contrarian Shia activity near them as impossible to tolerate. This increased in the chaos following the Arab Spring revolutions.
Nobody has denied that the houthis receive some support and weapons from Iran.
As to your other point, yes I (and I imagine most reasonable people) would condemn a similar attack on a CIA operative in Tobruk? Surprised you think most people would just consider it part of the game, especially if the country undertaking the strike is another sovereign country.
The reality is hundreds of western spies in geopolitical rivals countries have been caught and summarily executed in the 21st century without a single peep or protest from the respective Western governments.
Everyone at the state level accepts this is how the 'game' works. In the West, captured spies are usually jailed for life but the really egregious ones doing some really unsavory stuff just get disappeared.
I understand that what Israel did was highly unorthodox and they're playing stupid games, but imo the standards are difficult to apply for IRGC because they're an official declared Terror Organization in the view of the West + Israel.
I think the best way for me to sum it up was when I was stationed at Lask they flew a guy over from DSTO to do SERE training which, for our specific roles, basically amounted to, "If you ever find yourself in a position where you are captured, this training will help you survive for as long as possible because we will not help you."
We were a bunch of mid-level paper pushers