Two months ago J.M. Berger wrote an article on ForeignPolicy.com taking a seemingly fresh perspective on events in Yemen: that an attack claimed by ISIS on two mosques associated with the Houthis may be the Middle East’s “Franz Ferdinand” moment, sparking region-wide war. I normally wouldn’t go out of my way to analyze an article most people probably don’t remember, but I’ll make an exception for two reasons. First, Berger is highly respected in his field, and rightly so. He has done cutting-edge work analyzing terrorists’ use of social networks for propaganda and recently co-authored a well-received book on ISIS. His words deservedly carry weight and so should be critiqued when off the mark. Secondly, his analysis reflects one of pitfalls in using historical analogy to help understand current events. Though the ISIS attacks on Houthi mosques in Yemen resembles similar sectarian attacks at the beginning of Iraq’s sectarian civil war, their significance to Saudi Arabia’s intervention in the conflict is minimal. Rather than explaining the chain of events that got Riyadh to start a war, the real significance of the ISIS attacks is their reinforcement of our understanding of how the group instrumentalizes sectarianism to expand its influence.

A Curious Analogy

So what exactly does Berger argue? In his view, the ISIS-claimed attacks sparked the Saudi-led intervention in Yemen. By bombing two mosques frequented by Houthis, who claimed control of Yemen’s government in January this year, ISIS induced the Houthis to march southward toward Aden, the seat of ousted president Abd Rabbuh Manur Hadi’s resistance at the time. The Houthis’ southern march in turn led Saudi to intervene militarily in coalition with a number of Muslim states from across the Middle East and Africa to reinstate Hadi. In Berger’s words, “[i]t’s getting hard to escape the feeling that the Sanaa bombing might be the Middle East’s “assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand” moment…”

Berger’s reading of the mosque bombings in Yemen parallels the consensus understanding of how the sectarian civil war in Iraq began. In 2006, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, who led al Qaeda in Iraq at the time (the precursor to ISIS), directed the bombing of the al-Askari mosque and shrine complex, one of the holiest Shi’i sites in the country and resting place of two of Twelver Shi’ism’s Imams. Zarqawi targeted the complex in a deliberate and successful attempt to encourage sectarian civil war. If any attack screams Franz Ferdinand moment for spiraling sectarian conflict in the Middle East, it was that one.

Similarly, ISIS may very well have intended to spark sectarian war in Yemen, but Berger overstates the mosque bombings’ role in the Saudi intervention. Riyadh had ample reason to intervene in Yemen before the Houthi march on Aden—namely to reassert its influence in Yemeni political affairs and to counter perceived Iranian encroachment. Both of these objectives have long been features of Saudi foreign policy, and growing setbacks to both policy objectives in recent years were sufficient causes for Saudi intervention.

So what should we make of the ISIS bombings? As far as the Saudi intervention is concerned, the bombings are rather minor. The Saudis would not have permitted the absence of government in Yemen for long, and the Houthi march to Aden was not the straw that broke the camel’s back—Houthi control of Sana’a was bad enough in Riyadh’s eyes. Pressure on Riyadhs’s twin goals of renewing influence over Yemeni politics and countering Iran’s perceived ambitions in the peninsula had been growing for years and culminated with the fall of Hadi’s government—which was put in place by the Saudi-dominated GCC in 2012—to the Houthis. This was enough to drive Saudi to intervention; Riyadh did not need the Houthi march on Aden, precipitated by an ISIS attack on Houthi-affiliated mosques, to force its hand.

Riyadh’s Policies toward Yemen and the Region

Saudi Arabia’s intervention is firstly a calculated step to reassert its dominance over its perceived sphere of influence in Yemen. Riyadh has attempted to influence Yemeni domestic politics for all of Yemen’s modern history, beginning with Yemen’s 1962-1970 civil war. In that war, Saudi Arabia backed supporters of the ousted Zaydi Imam against a successful military coup backed by Egypt. This was part of its effort to defend conservative Arab monarchies against the rising tide of socialist Arab nationalism. Riyadh failed to reinstate the Zaydi monarchy but it did maintain extensive monetary relationships with the lay Zaydi tribesmen of Yemen’s north, who were politically empowered in the new “republican” government that replaced the Imamate controlled by the Zaydi elite. By the 2000s, however, Riyadh’s influence had diminished and had “left its Yemeni contacts to whither.” Upheaval in Yemen since 2011 has surely made Saudi Arabia anxious for stability below its southern border, and its present intervention is an attempt by the new king to re-impose a government that is favorable to Saudi interests.

Secondly, Saudi Arabia’s intervention comes in the context of its regional cold war with Iran. Not only does Riyadh feel that it has lost control over Yemen; it feels that it has lost control to its biggest rival. While the Houthis are far from Tehran’s puppets (though I’m sure they willingly take whatever support Tehran offers), what is important is Riyadh’s perception that they are in fact a conduit for Iranian influence in the Arabian Peninsula. Yemen’s importance to Saudi Arabia is similar to Ukraine’s importance to Russia: Riyadh would no sooner allow Yemen to come under Iranian control than Russia’s Vladimir Putin would allow Ukraine to join NATO.

Like Franz Ferdinand…if World War I had Already Started

The very concept of comparing the ISIS attacks to the assassination of Franz Ferdinand is odd since the Middle East was already in the midst of regional war when Saudi Arabia intervened in Yemen. Saudi Arabia and its Sunni Arab allies have been working to militarily confront Iranian involvement in Syria since 2011, and the intervention in Yemen is an extension of Saudi’s efforts to counter Iranian influence throughout the region. The alleged ISIS mosque attacks in Yemen come in the context of an ongoing regional conflict, and so do not constitute the unique war-starting “Franz Ferdinand moment” Berger makes them out to be.

Answering the Wrong Question

Berger singles out the ISIS attack on Houthi mosques as a uniquely important event, different in quality from the hundreds of other attacks and assassinations in Yemen since 2011. He is correct, but he singles it out in answer to the wrong question. The attacks do not explain why Saudi intervened. Rather, they give insight into ISIS’s strategy for expansion outside of Syria and Iraq. Berger himself notes:

“…in Yemen, it is not safe to assume that the al Qaeda splinter group and self-proclaimed caliphate [ISIS] is merely pursuing a campaign of random or purely opportunistic terrorist attacks. Instead, we should examine the consequences of its actions outside of Iraq and Syria: The group is seeking to escalate internal and regional tensions among its most dangerous foes, believing that if its provocations result in a full-blown regional war, it will thrive in the chaos.”

We can already see this strategy playing out inside Saudi Arabia. An ISIS-affiliated social media account claimed responsibility for the May 22^nd bombing of a mosque in the Shi’a city of Qatif. A week later, ISIS claimed responsibility for bombing another Shi’a mosque in Saudi Arabia, this time in Damman. ISIS, in keeping with its predecessors the Islamic State of Iraq and al Qaeda in Iraq, is trying to ignite sectarian warfare outside of the Levant; sectarian warfare in whose resulting chaos, distrust, and violence ISIS supporters can carve out a foothold. [NOTE: Since first drafting this, ISIS executed another attack in Yemen targeting Houthi-affiliated mosques].

Yemen’s conflict, on paper, appears ripe for sectarian exploitation and the media has consequently portrayed the conflict in a fashion similar to the sectarian wars previously seen in Lebanon, Iraq, and Syria. The Houthis’ roots are in Zaydi Shi’a revivalism, and Saudi Arabia intervened, at least in part, to confront what it considers Iran’s region-wide anti-Sunni project. Moreover, underlying the internal Yemeni conflict is the geographic distribution of Yemen’s religious populations. Political divisions in Yemen have traditionally fallen along a north-south divide: the “conservative” north, with its tribal politics, against the relatively more relaxed south, with its history of British and later Marxist rule. North and South Yemen skirmished regularly before unification in 1990, fought a civil war a mere four years later in 1994, and have been at odds again since a southern secessionist movement took hold in the 2000s. None of these conflicts were overtly religious. However, these old political divisions, which once divided the country into two states, roughly correspond to the country’s geographic concentration of Zaydi Shi’a in the north and Shafi’i Sunni in the south, enabling those who wish to promote sectarianism in Yemen to express the regional rivalry in sectarian terms.

This sectarian understanding is favored by media coverage of the current conflict, but those who track Yemen (myself included) have pointed out that relations between Yemen’s Shafi’i (Sunni) and Zaydi (Shi’a) communities have historically been cordial. Rather, the conflict is rooted in the breakdown of the Yemen state and the failure of the 2011 GCC Initiative’s plan for reforming it. However, the historical absence of broad-scale sectarian conflict in Yemen may be changing as opposing factions within the current conflict are starting to define their enemies in sectarian terms. Riyadh is not helping allay sectarianism in Yemen by treating it as a battleground in its region-wide contest with Iran, a contest that is itself expressed in sectarian terms.

ISIS’s ability to encourage sectarianism within Yemen could allow it to solidify its nascent foothold in the country and carve out a niche among the many non-state actors competing for influence, punting further into the future the restoration of any effective Yemeni state. Despite decades of problems, Yemenis have long proven to be pragmatic and resilient against adversity, its society resisting pressure to devolve into widespread sectarian civil war despite having one of the most heavily-armed civilian populations in the world. This pragmatism has allowed Yemen to survive, albeit in poor condition, in the face of years of warnings that it is “on the brink” of becoming the next Somalia, Afghanistan, or Syria. If successful, ISIS’s efforts to inflame sectarianism amid the chaos following this year’s government collapse could undermine the pragmatism that has long insulated Yemen from the worst consequences of its many challenges.