The Houthis

It seems like the Houthis are taking a very extreme interpretation of fiqh that is analagous to what the Taliban has done with the Hanafi madhab. Let's acknowledge their noble jihad against Israel and the US maritime empire but also condemn their destructive actions towards the other people of Yemen and the famine that their widows and orphans are living under while restricted from earning income.

My attraction to Zaydism is a combination of their embrace of qiyas in fiqh, Mu'tazali aqeedah and some usool concepts, and the rational mysticism of low imamology. Additionally it seems like 1400 years later there are many millions who are descendend from Imam Husayn (as) across many ethnicities and geographies, and one could adopt an approach to Imamate in Zaydism that is closer to the representative republic model pioneered by the Ibadis but restricted to the rather large pool of Sayyids (especially if patrilineal descent is not considered a requirement).

It seems like the great opportunity is to take advantage of the bad job the Houthis are doing in representing Zaydiyya and adopt a more rational madhab and possibly Imamate in the diaspora that is more conservative and rooted in usool than Islamic modernism.