Middle East Forum director of policy analysis Michael Rubin argues that Iran’s internal factionalism makes diplomacy nearly impossible because it is unclear who truly holds power in Tehran. Rubin contends that while the US-led maritime blockade has hurt Iran’s oil exports, flooded land borders with Turkey, Azerbaijan and Turkmenistan have let Tehran resupply, so a tougher, more comprehensive strategy is needed.
Rubin says the Houthis are not simply an Iranian proxy but historic rulers of Yemen who now control strategic chokepoints after exploiting American and Saudi half measures. He warns that Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman faces rising internal risk and that the new Mecca security pact linking Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Pakistan reflects a Sunni bloc drifting closer to China than to the United States.
PERKINS: President Trump has stated that US forces will not attack Iran before, the midterm elections. The Islamic Republic is reportedly strengthening defenses around its nuclear sites and is preparing for possible renewed fighting with the US. Meanwhile, fighting has intensified between Saudi-led forces in Yemen and the Iran-backed Houthis terrorist group. And President Trump has said he’s considering joining the attack on the Houthis. So where is all this headed? Is the Middle East anywhere near being settled in terms of the conflict? Joining us now to offer his assessment is former Pentagon official, Dr. Michael Rubin, Director of Policy Analysis at the Middle East Forum. Dr. Rubin has had field experiences in Iran, Yemen, and Iraq, and he’s taught US Navy and Marine units about regional conflicts and terrorism. Dr. Rubin, welcome back to Washington Watch. Thanks so much for, joining us.
RUBIN: Hey, thanks for having me, Tony.
PERKINS: All right, we got a lot to talk about. Let’s start with Iran. Has there been any movement on the dim- diplomatic front?
RUBIN: There has not been any significant movement on the diplomatic front. Part of the problem is we really still don’t know who exactly is in charge inside Iran. What hasn’t hit the Western press too much is that the Iranians keep trying to impeach, the various cabinet ministers. It’s a big fight among the various factions. All we can say is that there’s a number of factions, each more hardliner than the last, and ultimately it’s hard to strike a deal with one faction when you’re not sure that they’re actually in charge.
PERKINS: I think that goes along with a statement that the President made earlier this week where he said, you know, “We may have gone too far in killing their leaders ‘cause we don’t have anybody to talk to.” I mean, it’s like trying to negotiate with the janitor. I mean, who’s in charge?
RUBIN: Well, you know, that’s a great point, Tony, but I’ll disagree with President Trump just a little bit. There’s always been factions in Iran. I think part of the problem was our strategy. What President Donald Trump should have done is make an offer the Iranians couldn’t refuse. If they did refuse, then that person is removed from the battlefield and you go on to the next one. But if you try to deal with a single person, for example, Donald Trump was trying to negotiate with the parliamentary speaker, Mohammed Baqer Qalibaf, what you need to do is systematically eliminate all the other factions. If you don’t, then ultimately you’re starting from scratch.
PERKINS: Hm. Good point. So the President has said that there’ll be no major military strikes between now and after the midterm elections. we’ve kinda seen this on again, off again before, and it’s only led to Iran kind of regrouping and regaining strength. do you have the same concern with this message being communicated?
RUBIN: I do have the same concern. I mean, certainly President Donald Trump is right that the sea blockade has been working. The problem is that as the United States and international partners have cut off Iran’s ability to export oil and import gasoline, the land borders of Iran, especially in the north, with Turkey, with Azerbaijan, with Turkmenistan, have flooded open, so in a way, the Iranians have been able to resupply over land. I’m not sure we’ve been doing enough to actually stem that flow. But the Iranian— Iran is a huge country. It’s about six times the size of Great Britain, and the fact of the matter is it’s gonna take a lot more than simply a maritime blockade to, grind them into concession.
PERKINS: So let’s, I mean, this is kind of all interconnected. Let’s turn to Yemen, where fighting has intensified between Saudi-led forces and the Houthis who are backed by Iran. President Trump has said he’s considering joining the attacks on the Houthis, but the terrorist group says that, the Houthis said there’ll be a swift and painful response if the US joins Saudi, the Saudi forces. I don’t know, for me that’s... For the Houthis to tell America to step back or you’re gonna be in trouble, I don’t know what to make of that.
RUBIN: Well, on one hand it’s also deja vu all over again, Tony. President Donald Trump had in- inaugurated a bombing campaign called Operation Rough Rider that lasted for 51 days. I was in Yemen shortly afterwards and the southern forces who were resisting the Houthis said they didn’t have warning when Donald Trump began this campaign and they didn’t have warning 51 days later when he stopped bombing, and that if there had been any coordination, maybe it would have been the anti-Houthi factions which had taken the Port of Mocha, which is on the strategic choke point, the Bab-el-Mandeb. When you look at the Houthis however, y- you gotta understand that they resupply in three ways. One is by sea, primarily through the Port of Hudaydah. The second is by air through Sana’a International Airport, which the Houthis now control. And the third is over land from the Sultanate of Oman. We’ve taken out the Sana’a Airport largely by bombing it. What there needs to be real discussion on is for the Omanis to shut down this land transit smuggling weaponry to the Houthis and at the same time there’s gotta be a blockade of the Port of Hudaydah through which a lot of Houthi munitions come. Basically at some point we’ve gotta stop with the half measures and go all in with our strategy, even if that doesn’t involve US boots on the ground.
PERKINS: S- so Dr. Rubin, has, have we kind of underestimated the Houthis and their capabilities, not necessarily to challenge America, but I mean, they’re, they’re targeting Saudi Arabia. I mean, i- is this more volatile than what we a- appear to, as we seem to see it, as we, our perception leads us to assume?
RUBIN: Well, Tony, I think that both Iran and its proxies have a habit, if I can make a poker analogy, of playing their cards, and they might have a pair of twos, we might have a full, a full house, and yet they manage to out-bluff us. In the case of the Houthis, the problem is that Saudi Ara- I mean, the Houthis, first of all, what Americans get wrong about the Houthis is they’re not simply an Iranian proxy. About 60, 70 years ago, the Houthis, or their ancestors I should say, ran Yemen. They had a Shiite imamate in Yemen. So when you talk to Yemenis, what they’re say is, “We don’t like the Houthis. They’ve been co-opted by the Iranians, but they are Yemenis. They’re gonna stay here even if Iran’s regime collapses.” So we need to recognize that. Now, the other thing to understand about the Houthis, however, is that initially you may remember Barack Obama, made a deal with the Saudis when the Houthis took over Sana’a that the United States was gonna help the Saudis with intelligence and help refuel Saudi planes as they bombed the Houthis. And then, of course, the progressive wing started complaining, and Barack Obama stopped doing that. Ditto with Joe Biden. When the Houthis start... And when there was talk, for example, of cutting off this port of Hudaydah I talked about before, Joe Biden listened to Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, and others who said, “You can’t do this because then people might actually go hungry for three or four days until the fight’s over.” Well, what the Houthis discovered was that... Or I should say what the Saudis discovered is that if the United States wasn’t serious about defeating the Houthis, and if we were gonna cave into progressive pressure, then what the Saudis were gonna do instead of defeating the Houthis was co-opt them. And basically, the Saudis and the Houthis struck a bargain, for quiet in exchange to an end of Saudi bombing. So what you basically have had are foreign forces, the Saudis particularly, try to co-opt the Houthis. The problem is when you co-opt Islamic ideologues, they will always stab you in the back. You can’t compromise with ideology. You have to understand that ideology runs s- is s- severe. and you see this with Donald Trump and the Iranians, and the Saudis are learning this lesson with the Houthis. You gotta stop playing footsie with these guys and just defeat them.
PERKINS: Well, I mean, when you think of ideology, Saudi Arabia, has this very radical ideology as well. S- so let me ask you this on the Houthis, what’s their objective? What are they... What are they attempting to do? What do they want to do?
RUBIN: Well, what the Houthis are trying to do right now, they never believed they’ve had it so good. They never expected that they would be able to take the port of Mocha on the Bab El-Mandab. By the way, they took the port of Mocha on the Bab El-Mandab because the people who used to defend that were people that were trained by the United Arab Emirates, and so Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman in Saudi Arabia put his own personal rivalry with the Emirates above common sense. so what the Houthis now believe is they have this amazing choke hold. Look, when you look at this from the Iranian perspective, from the Pakistani-Iranian border to the Bab El-Mandab on the Red Sea, that’s about 1,600 miles of coastline they more or less effectively control now. I’m afraid that the Houthis are now gonna go for more. We keep hearing about Saudi Arabia being an oil, gas power. Well, most of that oil and gas is produced in something called the Eastern Province along the r- Persian Gulf. The Eastern Province is the only part of Saudi Arabia that is majority Shiite. I wouldn’t be surprised to see an insurgency erupt in this part of Saudi Arabia with the Iranians, the Iraqi militias, maybe even the Houthis helping out. I wouldn’t be surprised to see, for example, all these foreign engineers who are helped, who help the Saudis produce their oil, including many Americans, I wouldn’t be surprised to see magnet bombs being attached to their cars or assassinations in the market because what the Houthis are gonna try to do is basically put the squeeze on Saudi Arabia to see whether they can bring the kingdom to its heel once and for all.
PERKINS: Do you see Saudi Arabia as being at risk at this point?
RUBIN: I do see, I should say, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman as being at risk. the... Bin Salman promised a great deal, he spent a lot of money, but ultimately it seems he’s mismanaged, the Saudi economy, and so the knives are out inside Saudi Arabia. That said, I don’t see, think Saudi Arabia itself is going to fall completely, simply because, and this is where that recent Mecca security pact comes in, ever since the 1950s, the Saudis were able to rely on the Pakistanis for internal security, and that’s gonna continue. But what we’re talking is a much greater proxy war. And Tony, before when you rightly said, “Well, the Saudis too have their ideology,” you’re absolutely right with that. The difference is that the Iranians have been exporting it much more. But I would say across administrations, especially within the deep state, because we have a separation of church and state in the United States, too many of our policymakers in the State Department, even the c- in the Central Intelligence Agency, look at religion as a third rail they can’t touch, and they don’t understand how it can be a motivating factor, especially among Islamists, no matter what flavor of the ice cream cone we’re talking about, whether it’s the ice cream cone of extremism, that is, whether it’s the Sunnis or the Shia.
PERKINS: Dr. Rubin, we’re almost out of time, and I could go on for another hour on this conversation. But Saudi, you mentioned this pact, the Mecca pact, Pakistan, Turkey, Saudi Arabia. Saudi Arabia really brings to it, if I’m not mistaken, really the funding. Turkey, the foot soldiers, Pakistan nuclear weapons and other technology. i- if the oil is cut off, Saudi Arabia, Saudi Arabia loses its money, its ability to basically be a bank for a l- lot of the Middle East. How does this change the landscape of the Middle East?
RUBIN: Well, you know what, I mean, certainly the fact that Saudi Arabia put this together apparently by surprise, including NATO member Turkey, should be a wake-up call. It’s based on Sunnism, and each of those states, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, and Turkey, want to lead the Islamic world. We need to understand that what we’re up against isn’t a kumbaya moment where we’re all gonna get along, with the end of history, but those states that we’ve been counting on as allies for so long don’t have our best interests at heart. That’s the way we need to be w- looking at this right now. And I should say that each of these three states is closer now to China than they are to the United States.
PERKINS: And they’re not very friendly with Israel either.
RUBIN: Not at all.
PERKINS: All right, Dr. Rubin, as always, a very, enlightening conversation. Thanks so much for joining us.
RUBIN: Thanks for having me, Tony
