Tom Hunter
No Minister
You may have noticed that petrol prices are rising again after a few weeks where they declined, courtesy of the USA guiding oil tankers through the southern stretch of the Gulf of Hormuz, restoring much of the daily supply through that route. I wrote about this a few weeks ago, and noted that the Arab Gulf States had also begun pushing more oil through west-bound pipelines that ended at the Red Sea, where tankers could fill up far from Iranian threats.
But now one of those pipelines, the biggest one in fact, carrying seven per cent of the world’s oil supply, has been hit, not by the Iranians but a little group of Islamic Jihadi rebels in Yemen called the Houthis.
Although not much is reported about the Houthis, they have appeared in the news from time to time over the years, but usually not because of their ongoing fight with the recognised government of Yemen, but when they’ve attacked shipping off the Yemen coast and in the Red Sea.
Also little written about is that it has been the US Navy keeping the ocean lanes open for the past few years by intercepting Houthi missiles, drones and small boats trying to attack the shipping in a “war” for which US citizens have paid and for which no thanks has been given, even though that Red Sea route is essential to Europe-Asian trade and the Euro navies can’t do the job. And of course this has all been pushed further into the background by the Iran-Hormuz situation.
As far as the land war was concerned however, the US has not really been involved, they’ve simply kept an eye on things. They support the government of Yemen, as supposedly the rest of the international community does, but direct support of that government has come from Saudi Arabia and the UAE, who have supplied money, weapons and, in the case of the UAE, even soldiers, at least for training.
As a result the Houthis have regarded the Saudis as much of an enemy as the Yemen government and when they haven’t been shooting missiles and drones at Israel they’ve been firing them at the Saudis.
This pipeline attack has been part of a general offensive that’s seen the Houthis take large chunks of land up the Red Sea coast, and while they’ve explicit in saying they’re only attacking Saudi assets and the Yemen government, it’s quite clear that their actions help Iran in its fight against the Gulf States and the USA, by cutting an important alternative to the Hormuz route.
Yemen’s rampant Houthi forces have captured the strategic island of Perim in the Bab al-Mandab Strait, expanding their control of the narrow waterway, one of the world’s vital shipping routes… The Bab al-Mandab Strait links Asia to Europe via the Red Sea and Suez canal. Perim island, also known as Mayun, divides the waterway in two, close to its narrowest point.
The Houthis have been armed and trained by the Iranians for years, just as Hamas and Hezbollah have been, and while the attacks on Israel by this proxy group haven’t amounted to much, the Iranians have clearly found a new use for them.
Interestingly reports have emerged that the Saudis had called upon Trump to help out, but he has declined, aside from the intelligence and naval stuff that has been ongoing since the Biden Administration and which serves many other nations and purposes than the Saudis. In effect, Trump has told them to deal with the problem themselves, given their vast wealth, which has created a very capable air force.
The problem of course is that this fight requires boots on the ground, and I can’t see any Saudi man, with a stake in its wealth, being willing to get shot in Yemen for this. In short, the Saudi Army is irrelevant here. At best they’ll have to use proxies like the Yemen government to do the fighting and hope to Allah that more money, more weapons, possibly more training and air cover, can do the job – even though it has not to date, hence the call to the USA.
But Trump does not want to publicly expand his war with Iran, and he’s already been pissed off by the Saudis a few months ago when they denied the use by the US of one of their huge air bases for another attack on Iran. Trump appears to be making it clear that this is Saudis’ fight just as much as his and that they’d better start stepping up, especially since the Yemen-Houthis war has been in their wheel house for years anyway.
As to our petrol prices? Well, Brent hit $US108 per barrel once news of the pipeline attack got out, and unless the Saudis fix it fast and supply troops to protect it – perhaps with soldiers from the other Gulf States – will likely rise higher.
That will also have an impact on domestic politics in the US, where gas prices are already a pain point for the upcoming mid-term elections in November, where the part of any president loses seats 90 per cent of the time. Trump is likely taking the attitude that such an outcome is less risky than directly helping the Saudis on pipeline protection, just as he is taking the attitude that destroying the Iranian regime is more important than the mid-terms.
This article was originally published by No Minister.
