Iran’s hold on the Strait of Hormuz gave it significant leverage over a much more powerful United States for months. But that grip is loosening, even if global energy markets have yet to reflect it.Now another global transport chokepoint is emerging as a potential front in the conflict, hundreds of kilometers away, on the other side of the Arabian Peninsula.The Iran-aligned Houthis' capture of the Red Sea port city of Mocha and their reported advance toward the Bab al-Mandab Strait have suddenly given Yemen a new significance in the wider war.The timing is particularly consequential for Saudi Arabia.With shipping through Hormuz disrupted, Riyadh has increasingly relied on routes through the Red Sea to move its oil to global markets. Saudi seaborne crude exports through Bab al-Mandab were reportedly eight times higher between March and mid-July than during the same period last year.
A Houthi presence close to the strait therefore offers the group a potentially powerful means of threatening Saudi interests and gives Iran another source of leverage over regional energy flows and global shipping.This, in addition to Houthi strikes this week on Saudi energy infrastructure, “has contributed to a further increase in oil prices, which has been Tehran’s aim all along,” said Hamidreza Azizi, a senior Iran analyst at the Belgium-based International Crisis Group.“One can therefore expect these developments to further embolden Tehran to stick to its demands and adopt an even more defiant posture vis-a-vis the United States,” he told RFE/RL.
