“The Iran war is metastasising,” said Adrian Blomfield in The Telegraph. Having evolved into a struggle for control of the Strait of Hormuz, the conflict is now threatening another key oil-shipping route.
One of the reasons that global oil prices haven’t risen higher in recent months is that Saudi Arabia has still been able to export large amounts of Gulf oil via the Red Sea instead. But this lifeline is now in peril.
Last week, Houthi rebels in Yemen launched a lightning offensive against Yemeni government forces, seizing control of the country’s entire Red Sea coast, including the towns and islands around the strategic Bab al-Mandeb Strait.
The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.
SUBSCRIBE & SAVE
Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
Join more than 350,000 subscribers and keep yourself informed with a selection of The Week’s most interesting, enlightening and entertaining stories - plus daily puzzles.
Join more than 350,000 subscribers and keep yourself informed with a selection of The Week’s most interesting, enlightening and entertaining stories - plus daily puzzles.
Latest Videos FromThe Week
On Friday, another militia group aligned with Iran – this one based in Iraq – launched drone attacks on Saudi Arabia’s vital East-West oil pipeline to the coast, forcing its closure. The combined assault pushed oil prices above $110 a barrel.
Saudi Arabia’s ‘nightmare’
Until the middle of last week, the Houthi forces had appeared to be on the back foot, said Mark Urban in The Sunday Times. But they achieved a sudden breakthrough against divided government factions, reportedly with the help of an AI-generated spoof message that purported to be from a Yemeni government commander and ordered a general troop withdrawal.
It has produced a “nightmare scenario” for Saudi Arabia, which faces a threat to its vital national interests but also knows from “bitter experience” how hard it is to defeat the Houthis in Yemen, having tried and failed to do so for over a decade. Turkey and Pakistan, with whom Riyadh signed a much-vaunted defence pact last month, aren’t rushing to help the Saudis out.
‘Global solution’
Nor is the White House, which already has enough on its plate with Iran and “is increasingly aware of the limits of what it can achieve through military force”, said Gideon Rachman in the Financial Times. Yet the US administration is also in a bind. Until the Houthis’ intervention, the oil situation had appeared just about manageable, thanks to Red Sea exports and the US shepherding vessels through Hormuz; oil shipments there are now at roughly a third of pre-war levels. Enough oil was reaching the global market to keep prices safely below the $100 a barrel level.
But supplies of Gulf energy to the West are now looking much more precarious. This is a global crisis requiring a “global solution”, said The Times. President Trump needs to work with China and other consumers of Middle Eastern oil to help stabilise the situation in Yemen and remove the Houthis’ threat to these crucial sea lanes. “Otherwise, the Bab al-Mandeb will continue to live up to its name: the Gate of Tears.”
