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WHY HOUTHIS HAVE NO FUTURE Virtually every Houthi man is like this guy whose picture I took in the main souk of Sanaa: a golf ball-size of qat bulging in his cheek. 90% of them are so addicted to chewing qat their military victories cannot last for much longer. Here’s why. Qat (catha edulis) is a flowering plant with leaves containing the alkaloids cathine and cathinone, that when chewed wire you up like amphetamine with a sense of heightened alertness and mild euphoria. It is grown in the highlands of northern Yemen where the Houthi terrorist movement thrives. Qat chewing has been a Yemeni tradition for centuries, but until recently, was confined to members of the upper class as a once-weekly-only ceremony. But for the last 20+ years, with Hezbollah and Mullah Iran money flooding in, qat became something every Houthi man could afford. Houthi farmers now make several times more money growing qat than cereal grains like sorghum, millet, and wheat, the primary staples of what Yeminis eat. So food production went off a cliff. Qat use is no longer weekly, it’s daily for some 90% of Houthi men. Since qat-chewing is a primarily male activity, and men control the family’s income, lots of men make their daily purchase of qat before they buy food for their family. Overall, Houthi family income averages less than $900 a year, and more is spent of qat than food. Little wonder that the UN IPC Index (Integrated Food Security Phase Classification) warns that Yemen – and particularly the northern highlands – is in Phase 4 famine risk and could soon be in Phase 5 catastrophic risk. The Houthi capital of Sanaa may be the first capital city in the world to die of thirst. Between 40 to 50% of available water in the northern highlands is now being used for the irrigation of qat trees which suck water out of the ground like giant straws. The Sanaa aquifer in particular is drying up as its extraction rate is currently 400% over the replenishment rate. Other aquifers or water basins such as Taiz are the same or worse. Add to this the brain damage sustained daily qat use causes: hyper-anxiety and irritability, paranoia, hallucinations, manic behavior and induced psychosis. And the physical damage: heart palpitations, attacks, and strokes; gastritis, severe constipation, anorexia and other maladies. Houthi fighters now overrunning Saudi and Southern Yemen forces cannot sustain their qat-induced ferocity for much longer. One quick way to accelerate their collapse would be fleets of crop dusters spraying herbicides to wipe out the Houthi qat fields. Or simply gasoline then set the fields on fire. Deprived of qat, the Ansar Allah Houthi militias would disintegrate. The Saudis and Emiratis – who ban qat and do not have the qat problem – might consider this. Photo ©Jack Wheeler.