The year 2025 confirmed the death of the Republic of Yemen established in 1990—wounded in 1994 and placed on life support in 2015. In 2025, the central question was no longer, “When will Yemen return to what it once was?” but rather, “Who is capable of managing reality, and who possesses the minimum attributes of statehood?”
The repercussions of the Gaza war extended well into 2025, reinforcing the Houthis’ narrative of “support operations.” These included missile and drone attacks toward Israel, assaults on international shipping in the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden, and the imposition of quasi-piracy practices and levies on global shipping companies, positioning the Houthis within a regional conflict architecture led by Tehran, with consequences for global trade security and Yemen’s monopoly over decisions of war and peace. At this point, whatever remained of Yemen’s nominal sovereignty effectively vanished.
sraeli airstrikes on Sanaa and Houthi targets formally integrated Yemen into the Israel-Iran confrontation.
The internationalization of the Yemen file reached its peak with the U.S. military’s “Operation Rough Rider,” launched on March 15. The campaign targeted Houthi military infrastructure, including missile capabilities, drone systems, radar systems, air defenses, and command-and-control centers, and sought to deter threats to international freedom of navigation. On May 6, President Donald Trump ended the operation in exchange for an end to Houthi attacks on U.S. ships. Israeli airstrikes on Sanaa and Houthi targets formally integrated Yemen into the Israel-Iran confrontation, confirming that the country was no longer merely mired in civil war. Yemen had become a missile-launch platform in Iran’s multi-front regional strategy—transforming it into an international security threat.
The Houthis, meanwhile, continue to operate as a de facto authority outside any state logic, while the internationally recognized government has failed to build institutions or reclaim initiative—existing largely in exile and in the virtual realm. In parallel, legal and humanitarian debates emerged over civilian harm, including calls to investigate both strikes that hit civilians and Houthi detentions of migrants.
Here, the fiction of the “unity state” collapses. When external actors bomb a capital city and when the internationally recognized political center exercises no sovereignty over territory and controls no security decision, unity becomes an empty slogan atop a fragmented land. Meanwhile, the so-called legitimacy waits in foreign hotels, seemingly hoping that external forces will one day liberate Sanaa and hand it to them as a gift.
Domestically, 2025 demonstrated that the Presidential Leadership Council failed to evolve into either a government of war or peace. Instead, it became a paralyzed framework, torn by narrow interests, divided loyalties, and conflicting regional patrons. The nominal authority has failed its mandate and entered a state of political paralysis requiring fundamental reassessment.
On the ground, particularly in southern governorates that constitute roughly 80 percent of territory outside Houthi control, signs of failure became evident: protests over collapsing services, delayed salaries, and administrative breakdown.
Against this backdrop of collapse, South Yemen under the leadership of the Southern Transitional Council has emerged as the most viable region for forming a functional partnership with the Saudi-Emirati-led coalition and the international community. This includes counterterrorism efforts against Al Qaeda, the Islamic State, and Muslim Brotherhood-affiliated networks, maintaining security, and protecting maritime corridors.
In December, political and military tensions escalated in eastern South Yemen as Southern Transitional Council forces expanded their influence and expelled Muslim Brotherhood-linked military elements—triggering friction between coalition partners.
Whatever the position of outsiders on the resumption of South Yemeni independence, the decisive political indicator remains: Where does a governing authority exist that can enforce security and offer a credible model of governance?
Amid the bleak landscape, 2025 did witness an important humanitarian development with a United Nations-sponsored prisoner exchange agreement. While this contributed to de-escalation, it remains a partial, fragile arrangement—similar to previous agreements that later fell apart; it certainly falls short of constituting a peace process.
Amid the bleak landscape, 2025 did witness an important humanitarian development with a United Nations-sponsored prisoner exchange agreement.
U.S. objectives for 2026 and beyond are clear: curbing Iranian influence, securing international maritime routes in the Arabian Sea, Gulf of Aden, and Bab el-Mandeb, and reducing the footprint of Muslim Brotherhood-linked extremism. The 2025 experience demonstrated that reliance on a “dead legitimacy” produces neither partnership nor stability; it merely prolongs civilian suffering.
What is required is a pragmatic U.S. partnership with the actor capable of governing and enforcing security on the ground. Will Washington reassess its approach to North Yemen and South Arabia? Will the Trump administration in 2026 move to designate Yemen’s Islah Party—the local branch of the Muslim Brotherhood—as a Foreign Terrorist Organization?
The Southern Transitional Council presents a political offer: a genuine partnership both to combat terrorism including Muslim Brotherhood-affiliated extremism and to secure the Bab el-Mandeb, deter Iranian expansionism, and engage in regional arrangements with Persian Gulf partners to pursue development and prosperity, including broader frameworks associated with the Abraham Accords.
The U.S. administration should engage with South Yemen—South Arabia—not as an appendix to an intractable Yemeni crisis, but as an opportunity to construct a viable model of stability that would add to its record of resolving complex international crises. If 2026 witnessed the birth of South Arabian Federal State, anchored in clear conditions of good governance, institutional building, rights protection, then Southern Yemenis at least could break their cycle of conflict and despair. The question now is whether international partners will seize the opportunity or lose it.
