The Iran-aligned Houthis in Yemen announced on Monday that they will impose a naval blockade on Saudi Arabia, potentially creating a new front in the US battle against Iran and posing a threat to international trade and oil supplies outside of the Gulf.
The escalation follows one of the bloodiest times in the conflict for American soldiers. In addition to identifying two American soldiers killed in Friday’s Iranian attack on an American outpost in Jordan, the Pentagon announced on Monday that it has discovered unidentifiable remains that might belong to a third soldier who had been reported missing in action. In a different incident, the “managed detonation of unexploded explosives from a downed Iranian one-way attack drone” in northern Iraq claimed the life of a fourth military member.
The Saudi-led coalition in Yemen declared in a statement that it would use force in response to the Houthis’ announcement of their blockade and that it had started putting safety precautions in place for its ships passing through the Bab el-Mandeb Strait, a vital export route for Saudi oil following the Strait of Hormuz’s effective closure.
The Houthis made their declaration in spite of indications that Washington and Tehran wish to restart diplomatic relations in order to stop an increasingly severe cycle of attacks that has virtually destroyed a precarious interim deal that was negotiated last month. Iran’s Foreign Ministry stated that mediators had made “proposals” to Tehran, indicating that diplomatic relations are still ongoing, but it provided no further information.
Following the Houthi announcement, oil prices initially increased before declining as traders hoped for a diplomatic breakthrough. Due to the increased dangers associated with merchant shipping, the cost of insurance for moving products over the Red Sea increased.Iran had been pressuring the Houthis to stop attacking Iranian electrical infrastructure if the United States persisted in attacking the Bab el-Mandeb passage to the Red Sea.
Since most Saudi oil exports would be unable to exit the region, a complete blockage of the strait would result in a 7% decrease in the world’s oil supply. The disruption would compound the massive reduction in oil flows caused by the Gulf War, which has already cut supplies by 10% of the world’s total supply.
In reaction to what they described as “an unjust and oppressive blockade” that the Saudis had imposed on Yemen, the Houthis’ armed forces declared in their statement that they were imposing “a maritime embargo against the criminal Saudi adversary, based on the equation of ‘an eye for an eye’, effective immediately”.
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