🇾🇪🇸🇦 If the Houthis push into Saudi Arabia they reopen a 1,400-year-old war over who guards Mecca... and that is the one fight they can't win
A Houthi raid on Jizan or Najran, blow up a refinery and drive home, and the region shrugs.
Malcolm Nance, former Navy intelligence, says the first Islamic civil war restarts the moment a Shia force on Saudi soil stays and starts claiming the two holy mosques, because 85% of the Muslim world answers with jihad:
"This is where they would overplay their hand and they would end the Houthis."
He still calls this existential for the kingdom, since MBS built an army to stop coups instead of wars, and his warning is that Riyadh either fights or kisses Iran's ring for every drop of oil it exports.
@MalcolmNance @WeTheBrandon
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dart @poordart ·
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@MarioNawfal Good talk - i'll add though: *nobody* is going to holy war for MBS lol (or even for the entire house of Saud)
Nobody is under the illusion that there is anything holy about him, that he makes for a good custodian of holy sites, or that he even has the interest of Muslims in mind













































































