The Red Sea, once a bustling artery of global commerce, is now a flashpoint. Houthi missiles, defiant and destructive, tear through vital shipping lanes, disrupting supply chains, inflating prices, and spreading a palpable sense of instability across the world, according to Amine Ayoub, who is a Middle East Forum Fellow based in Morocco.
Ayoub added “For many observers, this aggression feels like a terrifying new frontier, a sudden and unpredictable twist in the Middle East’s seemingly endless conflicts. But make no mistake: Yemen’s current chaos is no novel phenomenon”.
The Houthis, armed and ideologically indoctrinated by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), threaten global prosperity and the security of key allies. Their attacks on commercial vessels and naval assets in the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden aren’t random acts of defiance; they are calculated moves in Tehran’s grand strategy. These attacks directly imperil the free flow of oil and goods through the Bab el-Mandeb Strait, a narrow maritime choke point through which a substantial portion of the world’s commerce passes. Shipping costs skyrocket, supply chains snarl, and the global economy feels the pinch.
Ayoub concluded his analysis by suggesting that “a decisive, unambiguous response is paramount. The historical lesson of Yemen is chillingly clear: conflicts left unresolved, fueled by external agitators, inevitably metastasize into far greater regional conflagrations. Just as previous proxy rivalries once bled the peninsula and projected instability outward, Iran’s current proxy war threatens to ignite a much wider conflict that no nation can afford. The costs of inaction – prolonged economic disruption, escalated regional tensions, and the erosion of American credibility – far outweigh the immediate costs of decisive military and diplomatic action.