Missiles in Arabia, and why it matters to you

The Mideast war is almost certainly about to escalate massively.

About ten days ago, the Houthi rebels in Yemen took control of the Yemeni side of the Bāb al-Mandab.  The Bāb al-Mandab is the narrow strait between the southern corner of Yemen and the southern end of Eritrea (see map above); it connects the Red Sea to the Indian Ocean.  At the opposite, northern end of the Red Sea are the Suez Canal and Israel.

The Houthis, officially called the Ansār Allāh, meaning Partisans of God, are a fanatical Shiite force allied to the Iranian regime (Iran, southern Iraq, and large minorities in Lebanon, Syria, and Yemen are Shiite, while the rest of the Middle East is mostly Sunni); they have been fighting a civil war against the so-called "Presidential Leadership Council" (basically remnants of the former Yemeni government) for years.  The PLC is supported by Saudi Arabia, and the Yemeni civil war is largely a proxy conflict between the Iranian and Saudi regimes.  Here is the Houthi official emblem:

The Arabic translates as:  "God is great, Death to America, Death to Israel, Curse be upon the Jews, Victory to Islam" -- just so you know where these guys are coming from.

The reason all this matters to the rest of the world is that a vast amount of shipping between Europe and Asia goes by way of the Suez Canal and the Bāb al-Mandab, so this strait, like the Strait of Hormuz between Iran and Oman, is a critical global economic choke-point.  The Houthi advance means that the Iranian regime now has de facto control over both straits, increasing its power to inflict economic damage on the West.  Since it is now part of the regime's policy to torment Donald Trump as much as possible, it can be expected to take full advantage of that power.

The Houthis have attacked Saudi Arabia (backers of their enemy the PLC) before, but just this last few days have seen a serious escalation -- a wave of missile strikes deep into Saudi territory.  One ballistic missile was fired at Riyadh, the Saudi capital city, but was shot down.  The red pointers on the map with underlined names are other targets of Houthi missile strikes; it's currently unclear how many missiles got through to these places vs how many were shot down.

The Saudi regime, which is as repressive as the Iranian one but stupider and more fragile, will likely retaliate hard against the Houthis -- an attempt to attack its capital cannot go unanswered.  If the Houthis escalate in response, their next step could include attacks on Saudi oil facilities, which would send global oil prices skyrocketing.

Beyond that, there are some signs that Trump is planning a massive military escalation against Iran.  If this happens and is serious enough, but fails to bring down the Iranian regime entirely, the regime would very likely respond with an all-out attack on Saudi Arabia's entire oil industry, both from Iran itself and from the Houthis, with the aim of wrecking the US and other Western economies.  Iran is certainly capable of devastating strikes -- we now know that in the earlier fighting it inflicted far worse damage on US bases than the US admitted at the time.  Also, Saudi Arabia's Persian Gulf coastal area, where most of its oil is, has a partly Shiite population which is brutally oppressed by the Saudi regime.  It's conceivable that Iran could succeed in inciting an uprising there.

Trump recently tried to reduce upward pressure on oil prices by demanding that Ukraine stop attacking Russian oil refineries, but of course the fact that Trump stupidly started a war with Iran without adequate planning or determination to overthrow the regime is not Ukraine's problem, and its drone strikes on Russian refineries have continued.

Iran has dominated the Middle East for the majority of the period since the founding of the first Persian Empire in the sixth century BCE.  What we see today is a historical norm re-asserting itself.

In attacking the Iranian regime, Trump picked a fight with people far more evil and far more intelligent than he is.  The rest of the world, including the American people, is about to start suffering the full consequences of his blundering.

[The origin of the name "Bāb al-Mandab" is of some interest.  It translates as "The Gate of Lamentation" and originates from the Middle Ages, when the vast Arab slaving network in Africa used to ship black African slaves across the strait to Arabia.  It refers to the lamentation of the slaves at their last sight of Africa before leaving to spend the rest of their lives in servitude in the Islamic world.]