Years ago, I was in the Navy. Most of you who know me, know this already. When in the USN, I was taught Arabic at DLI in Monterey. One of my instructors was named Abdul Wahab AlHouthi.
Abdul was young and a little vivacious. He was popular. He had a lot of interesting stories about being a child in Yemen. Eating Grasshoppers and people smuggling guns. He spoke about the temperments and habits of the people there. Whenever I hear about the Houthis in Yemen and their attacks in the Red Sea, I visualize a thousand of Abdul running around, shooting rockets and yelling at me to study my verbs.
Just a little explanation as to why I’m thinking so much about this. I’ve been there. I know people who spoke to me personally about their cares and views. (Everything in the region is the fault of the British and how they drew the maps)
Egypt is going to enter this war. Purely on self interest. Yemen, and whether they are doing this at the behest of Iran or not is moot, is attacking shipping in the Red Sea. The chokepoint very near Yemen is called the “Bab al Mendib”. Yemen is going to close that chokepoint, and make it financially attractive for merchant shipping to avoid the Bab al Mendib and the Red Sea altogether. It will be cheaper to go all the way around Africa, than to lose your ship as well as its contents, by getting sunk or seized in a war zone
This will be disastrous for Egypt. At the top of the Red Sea is this place called the Suez canal. When I went through, (Once southbound, and once northbound), it was a million bucks a pop. That was in the 90s. If ships quit going thorough the Red Sea because of Houthi attacks on merchant shipping, it will hammer the Egyptian Economy particularly hard.
It will to a much lesser extent also hurt the Saudis and their port of Jeddah. But it will still hurt them.
How long will it take before Egypt and Saudi team up to directly express their displeasure with the Houthis.? The Houthis are being backed by the Iranians, and their has already been some friction between the Saudis and the Iranians.
I’m not exactly going out on a limb by predicting that the war in the Middle East is going to expand. But here is a specific for you. International merchant shipping will begin to avoid the Red Sea. When that happens….
Tick Tock Abdul. I bet they are already talking about your relatives in Riyadh and Cairo.
They are backed by Iran, who are backed by our tax dollars thanks to the idiot in office. Didn’t we just send $20 mill?
Ain’t that the truth?! Iran is developing their own weapon systems though. We’ll have top wait and see if they fire them at us.
Dave,
I appreciate your perspective on this.
My perspective? We’ve been fighting long enough. At the risk of sounding like a hippie, Let’s give Peace a Chance.