{ "archive_path": "archive/1791905408.79798", "base_url": "tinabrown.substack.com/p/the-houthi-horror-show", "basename": "the-houthi-horror-show", "bookmarked_date": "2026-10-13 15:30", "canonical": { "archive_org_path": "https://web.archive.org/web/tinabrown.substack.com/p/the-houthi-horror-show", "dom_path": "output.html", "favicon_path": "favicon.ico", "git_path": "git/", "google_favicon_path": "https://www.google.com/s2/favicons?domain=tinabrown.substack.com", "headers_path": "headers.json", "htmltotext_path": "htmltotext.txt", "index_path": "index.html", "media_path": "media/", "mercury_path": "mercury/content.html", "pdf_path": "output.pdf", "readability_path": "readability/content.html", "screenshot_path": "screenshot.png", "singlefile_path": "singlefile.html", "warc_path": "warc/", "wget_path": "tinabrown.substack.com/p/the-houthi-horror-show.html" }, "domain": "tinabrown.substack.com", "extension": "", "hash": "RHTRV7XD13XX4M0FM3X0", "history": { "archive_org": [], "dom": [], "favicon": [ { "cmd": [ "curl", "--silent", "--location", "--compressed", "--max-time", "120", "--output", "favicon.ico", "--user-agent", "Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; Intel Mac OS X 10_15_7) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/118.0.0.0 Safari/537.36 ArchiveBox/0.7.4 (+https://github.com/ArchiveBox/ArchiveBox/) curl/curl 8.14.1 (x86_64-pc-linux-gnu)", "https://www.google.com/s2/favicons?domain=tinabrown.substack.com" ], "cmd_version": "curl 8.14.1 (x86_64-pc-linux-gnu)", "end_ts": "2026-10-13T16:15:25.367176+00:00", "index_texts": null, "output": "favicon.ico", "pwd": "/data/archive/1791905408.79798", "schema": "ArchiveResult", "start_ts": "2026-10-13T16:15:24.727214+00:00", "status": "succeeded" } ], "git": [], "headers": [ { "cmd": [ "curl", "--silent", "--location", "--compressed", "--head", "--max-time", "120", "--user-agent", "Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; Intel Mac OS X 10_15_7) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/118.0.0.0 Safari/537.36 ArchiveBox/0.7.4 (+https://github.com/ArchiveBox/ArchiveBox/) curl/curl 8.14.1 (x86_64-pc-linux-gnu)", "https://tinabrown.substack.com/p/the-houthi-horror-show" ], "cmd_version": "curl 8.14.1 (x86_64-pc-linux-gnu)", "end_ts": "2026-10-13T16:15:25.816711+00:00", "index_texts": null, "output": "headers.json", "pwd": "/data/archive/1791905408.79798", "schema": "ArchiveResult", "start_ts": "2026-10-13T16:15:25.377789+00:00", "status": "succeeded" } ], "htmltotext": [], "media": [], "mercury": [ { "cmd": [ "/app/node_modules/@postlight/parser/cli.js", "https://tinabrown.substack.com/p/the-houthi-horror-show" ], "cmd_version": "1.0.0", "end_ts": "2026-10-13T16:15:37.319993+00:00", "index_texts": null, "output": "mercury", "pwd": "/data/archive/1791905408.79798", "schema": "ArchiveResult", "start_ts": "2026-10-13T16:15:33.237457+00:00", "status": "succeeded" } ], "pdf": [], "readability": [ { "cmd": [ "/app/node_modules/readability-extractor/readability-extractor", "/tmp/tmpjqb8h62x", "https://tinabrown.substack.com/p/the-houthi-horror-show" ], "cmd_version": "0.0.11", "end_ts": "2026-10-13T16:15:33.221829+00:00", "index_texts": [ "I once had a grudging fascination with the scrappiness of the horrendous Houthis. Their idea of military attire is plastic sandals, mismatched camo, a hoisted Kalashnikov, and a right cheek ballooning with unchewed khat. One could imagine them rappelling up the sides of boats with scimitars in their teeth, stealthy merchants of chaos from what historian Simon Sebag Montefiore calls a \u201cdagger-and-iPhone parastate.\u201d Their DNA is forged from fundamentalist fury in the Arab world\u2019s poorest country, Yemen, against its gleaming, fat-cat Saudi neighbor (think South Central LA vs. Beverly Hills).But with last weekend\u2019s ferocious attacks on Saudi Arabia\u2019s King Khalid airport in which at least 13 people were killed and 300 more wounded, the Houthis can claim to be lo-fi underdogs no more. They now have access to the rapidly changing modern technology of war \u2013 cheap drones and ballistic and cruise missiles fitted with warheads that can change direction during flight and dodge Patriot interceptors. Obtained through a sophisticated combination of direct smuggling from Iran, illicit global gray markets, and an expanding domestic assembly infrastructure built on captured military stockpiles, their state-of-the-art lethality makes them a next-level threat in the annals of terror.Terminal Terror: CCTV footage of the attack on Riyadh\u2019s King Khalid airport on Oct 10 (Saudi Media Ministry)Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman probably never dreamed that the ragtag Houthis would become such a fearsome thorn in his side. In 2015, just two months after being named to his first government post as Defense Minister, the swaggering 29-year-old MBS launched Operation Decisive Storm to push back the marauding Houthis, who\u2019d seized Sana\u2019a, Yemen\u2019s capital, from its Saudi-backed government. MBS touted that it would all be over in weeks (remind you of anything?) but, backed by Iran, the Houthis\u2019 wicked military improv dragged the Saudis into a bloody quagmire. One catastrophe in the Saudis\u2019 protracted bombing of Yemen was the August 2018 obliteration of a Yemeni school bus, which killed 40 children. The temporary patched-up peace in 2022 was really a Saudi capitulation. The Houthis may be short of shiny combat boots, but they have the deadly resolve in the long game for asymmetric war.Crown Heights: MBS, the Saudi Crown PrinceIt\u2019s striking how testosterone-fueled hubris has become a defining feature of our troubled times. Hubris is why Trump, engorged with his success in Venezuela, decided to bomb Iran. Hubris is why Netanyahu, high-fiving the success of Mossad\u2019s exploding pagers in Lebanon, urged Trump that the time was right to unload Operation Epic Fury. (As the Middle East specialist Karim Sadjadpour pointed out to me, Israel somehow believed that their ability to assassinate terrorist leaders in their bedrooms meant they could choose Iran\u2019s next leader.) Hubris is why the royal billionaire MBS miscalculated the endurance of the insolent, impoverished Houthi rebels. The airport attack could not have come at a worse moment for Saudi Arabia with its galloping budget deficit. It took place just as all the sovereign wealth fund succubi are gearing up to land their private planes in Riyadh for the annual, big swinging dealfest also known as Davos in the Desert. And in just three weeks, the kingdom is hosting the WWE Crown Jewel cage match at Riyadh Season stadium, when the winner will be sheathed in a championship belt bedazzled with 50-carat diamonds.With Saudi Arabia\u2019s dissidents locked up out of sight and religious police banished behind their beards, the kingdom is supposed to be a friction-free refuge from the rest of the roiling Middle East. All eyes are supposed to be on Vision 2030, the grandmaster plan to make the kingdom slosh with global money from sources other than oil, and multi-billion dollar preparations to host the make-or-break, reputation-maxxing 2034 World Cup. (As much as one detests the glam-washing of Saudi human rights violations, at least MBS has made efforts to liberalize his country, while the Houthis want to return Yemen to the cruel darkness of the Middle Ages.)History shows that when you have nothing, you have nothing to lose. Both the Houthis and their Iranian sponsors demonstrate that massive pain can be sustained when there is no permitted political challenge. Plus they live by a stopped clock. Trump\u2019s Iran-negotiation duo Jared Kushner and Steve Witkoff have never understood that Iran\u2019s political culture is based on 7th-century grievances and no Memo of Understanding will make them forget about the assassination of their Supreme Leader seven and a half months ago.Responding to the number of CEOs who just bailed from the World Petroleum Congress in Riyadh, Saudi energy minister Prince Abdulaziz bin Salman said on Monday. \u201cThe word fear in the Saudi dictionary does not exist,\u201d while behind the scenes, a rattled MBS is being bundled between heavily guarded palaces with bunkers, hoping that his friend Donald Trump will come to Saudi\u2019s aid. After all, the gleam of Saudi gold was alluring enough for Trump to help MBS\u2019s reputation rehab after he ordered the 2018 bone-saw dismemberment of kingdom critic and Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi. When an ABC News reporter raised the atrocity with MBS in the Oval Office last year, Trump pandered, \u201cYou don\u2019t have to embarrass our guest by asking him a question like that.\u201d But that was then, before Saudi Arabia\u2019s initial refusal to grant Washington\u2019s request to use its bases and airspace to keep ships moving through the Strait of Hormuz. And before Trump had internalized his pre-midterms collapse in the polls, much of which can be attributed to the sky-high gas prices that have come with the Iran war. Trump, who always wanted to be king, is discovering that, unlike MBS, who will soon be Saudi Arabia\u2019s eighth monarch and Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques until he dies, there are benefits to being a term-limited president. Having smashed up the Middle East, as did G.W. Bush before him, Trump, unlike the U.S., has a gold fleece-lined exit strategy from Iran.Leave a comment" ], "output": "readability", "pwd": "/data/archive/1791905408.79798", "schema": "ArchiveResult", "start_ts": "2026-10-13T16:15:31.429086+00:00", "status": "succeeded" } ], "screenshot": [], "singlefile": [], "title": [ { "cmd": [ "curl", "--silent", "--location", "--compressed", "--max-time", "120", "--user-agent", "Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; Intel Mac OS X 10_15_7) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/118.0.0.0 Safari/537.36 ArchiveBox/0.7.4 (+https://github.com/ArchiveBox/ArchiveBox/) curl/curl 8.14.1 (x86_64-pc-linux-gnu)", "https://tinabrown.substack.com/p/the-houthi-horror-show" ], "cmd_version": "curl 8.14.1 (x86_64-pc-linux-gnu)", "end_ts": "2026-10-13T16:15:31.419474+00:00", "index_texts": null, "output": "The Houthi Horror Show - FRESH HELL Tina Brown's Diary", "pwd": "/data/archive/1791905408.79798", "schema": "ArchiveResult", "start_ts": "2026-10-13T16:15:31.381406+00:00", "status": "succeeded" } ], "wget": [ { "cmd": [ "wget", "--no-verbose", "--adjust-extension", "--convert-links", "--force-directories", "--span-hosts", "--no-parent", "-e", "robots=off", "--reject=js,mjs,woff,woff2,ttf,otf,eot,mp4,m4v,mov,webm,ogv,mkv,avi,flv", "--timeout=120", "--restrict-file-names=windows", "--page-requisites", "--user-agent=Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; Intel Mac OS X 10_15_7) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/118.0.0.0 Safari/537.36 ArchiveBox/0.7.4 (+https://github.com/ArchiveBox/ArchiveBox/) wget/GNU Wget 1.21.3", "--compression=auto", "--timestamping", "https://tinabrown.substack.com/p/the-houthi-horror-show" ], "cmd_version": "GNU Wget 1.21.3", "end_ts": "2026-10-13T16:15:31.370232+00:00", "index_texts": null, "output": "tinabrown.substack.com/p/the-houthi-horror-show.html", "pwd": "/data/archive/1791905408.79798", "schema": "ArchiveResult", "start_ts": "2026-10-13T16:15:25.827094+00:00", "status": "succeeded" } ] }, "icons": null, "is_archived": true, "is_static": false, "latest": { "archive_org": null, "dom": null, "favicon": "favicon.ico", "git": null, "media": null, "pdf": null, "screenshot": null, "singlefile": null, "title": "The Houthi Horror Show - FRESH HELL Tina Brown's Diary", "warc": null, "wget": "tinabrown.substack.com/p/the-houthi-horror-show.html" }, "link_dir": "/data/archive/1791905408.79798", "newest_archive_date": "2026-10-13T16:15:33.237457+00:00", "num_failures": 0, "num_outputs": 6, "oldest_archive_date": "2026-10-13T16:15:24.727214+00:00", "path": "/p/the-houthi-horror-show", "schema": "Link", "scheme": "https", "snapshot_id": "088d91af-6f60-4d16-b765-ae3e42f2d902", "sources": [ "/data/sources/1791905408-import.txt" ], "tags": ",war-wiki,pool,drudge", "tags_str": "war-wiki,pool,drudge", "timestamp": "1791905408.79798", "title": "The Houthi Horror Show - FRESH HELL Tina Brown's Diary", "updated": "2026-10-13T16:15:24.726857+00:00", "updated_date": "2026-10-13 16:15", "url": "https://tinabrown.substack.com/p/the-houthi-horror-show" }