: re: Hadi Still Legitimate Yemeni President, Washington in Contact-State Department

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: barry levine
Date: Wed, Jan 21, 2015 at 2:02 PM
Subject: re: Hadi Still Legitimate Yemeni President, Washington in Contact-State Department
To: "letters@nytimes.com"

To the Editor:

   If indeed the Houthis in Sanaa are reaching out to the Saudis, this presents an historic opening for the Kingdom.  For decades, kings in Riyadh have claimed to speak for the world's Muslims, and Mullahs in Tehran have contested that it is they that speak for the Shia. If the Saudis can ally themselves with a Shiite majority regime in Yemen, they will at a stroke gain an ally against al-Qaeda and Isis and rock Persian expansionist back on their heels. After all, the Houthis are Arabs like the Saudis (and unlike the Persians) and they're neighbors.

Barry Haskell Levine

http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/2015/01/21/world/middleeast/21reuters-yemen-security-hadi.html?_r=0