/View.info/ The crisis in the Red Sea is deepening. The naval coalition assembled by the United States is failing to save one of the most important sea trade routes from Houthi attacks. Many of the largest logistics and energy companies have already blocked the transit of goods through the Red Sea. The intensification of the crisis has already led to a sharp increase in the cost of transporting goods and in the future may provoke an increase in commodity prices around the world.
But this is only one part of the problem that is written about the most, or rather described by many experts. The essence of the second part is that for most experts, the entry of the Houthis from Yemen onto the geopolitical scene of the Middle East in their current capacity was unexpected. They are used to being described, and often continue to be, as a force that has been fighting the Yemeni government for more than a decade and that has escalated in and out of a fragile peace.
But at the same time, despite Saudi Arabia’s military support for the legitimate government in Yemen, they took control of the northwestern and western regions of the country. When the most combat-ready parts of the Yemeni armed forces switched to their side, they began to control shipping in the southern part of the Red Sea and in the Gulf of Aden. And then they were perceived more as just a notable regional power.
But an incident happened: US President Joe Biden refused to consider the Houthis a terrorist organization and began to oppose them to Saudi Arabia, directly or indirectly contributing to the fact that they actually became a “state within a state.”
As a result, the Houthis effectively managed to impose a naval blockade despite having no navy. Now the main reason for the problem is that the United States keeps assuring everyone that the Houthis, it turns out, are supported by Iran, which “provides or has provided them short- and medium-range ballistic and cruise missiles with a strike radius of up to two thousand kilometers.
True, the Iranian leadership denies this, and the Houthis claim that it is the merit of their military-industrial complex, but this only tightens the knots of intrigue even more. Especially now that, using the situation in Gaza, they have so far only been able to indirectly influence both Israel and the US. And not only this.
The Suez Canal is blocked and the economies of Israel and Egypt are hit simultaneously. The Houthis from the Ansar Allah paramilitary group fired on almost every Israeli ship passing through the Red Sea. They crashed the turnover of Israel’s only port on the Red Sea by 85% and had a devastating impact on the supply of goods to the country.
Israel’s economy is based on maritime transport. Eilat Port CEO Gideon Golber told Reuters that what was happening with ship traffic “may be a sign of trouble ahead for Israel’s major ports on the Mediterranean coast.”
At the same time, the reduction in the flow of container traffic through the Red Sea and through the Suez Canal is seriously affecting the economy of Egypt, which is the operator of the canal. They are sounding the alarm in Cairo. If all traffic through the canal stops, the country will lose its most important source of foreign exchange earnings, and in a severe economic crisis.
The total revenue of the Suez Canal in 2023 will be over $9 billion, but if all shipping companies decide to stop using the canal, the Egyptian government will start losing $13 million a day. For Egypt, the situation could become catastrophic as it faces losses in foreign exchange earnings.
The entire expenditure part of Egypt’s state budget is about 35-40 billion dollars, with half of the amount going to servicing the foreign debt. As a result, the domestic political situation in the country may deteriorate, the Muslim Brotherhood (an organization banned in the Russian Federation) may become more active and the stability of the Egyptian government may be undermined.
All this is filled with a deep political crisis in Egypt and a negative scenario for the world economy. The Arab Spring began in 2011 as a result of rising food prices. In general, Egypt found itself in a pinch: the ongoing Libyan crisis, difficult relations with Sudan and the war between Israel and Hamas.
In all these areas, Cairo shows great diplomatic flexibility, and in relations between Israel and Hamas it plays the role of a balancer between the two belligerents. However, resources for such a policy are still limited as the region is gripped by other, more global issues that are likely to have long-term implications for the geopolitical situation in the Middle East.
Let’s outline the first aspect: the potential closure or severe restrictions on the passage of ships through the Suez Canal, one of the planet’s main trade arteries. The second aspect: the Houthis’ actions actually block the realization in the region of China’s “One Belt One Road” transport and logistics route (a variant of the “21st Century Maritime Silk Road” involving the Persian Gulf countries and Israel).
As a result, China finds itself at the threshold of decision-making in a situation of increasing regional destabilization. It is also important to note that prior to Israel’s war with Hamas, it was believed in Beijing that the entire Greater Middle East region had “one single country most suitable for effective, stable and secure cooperation – Israel”.
In this context, US actions under the pretext of fighting the Houthis acquire important nuances. If in the north the Red Sea flows into the Suez Canal, then in the south it is “pressed” by the Bab el-Mandeb strait (“Gate of Tears”). In the 1980s, during the “tanker war”, when Iran and Iraq mutually sank their ships, the Americans managed to keep the strait under their control.
It was possible to secure navigation near the “Gate of Tears” even as Somali pirates forced ships that feared their attacks to sail in convoys under the protection of warships. But now everything will probably be different.
By all accounts, the Houthis will continue to box in a weight class that is much higher than their own, and “hatred” of Israel is still an operational cover for such actions. It is not by chance, as the Turkish newspaper “Haber” writes, that the Israeli media remembered the project of a long-ago plan for the creation of the Ben-Gurion Canal (a 260-kilometer corridor stretching from the Gaza-Ashkelon area to the Red Sea). , which will not only compete with the Suez Canal and hit Egypt and other Middle Eastern countries, but also “become a threat to China”.
Energy and geopolitics expert Mehmet Ogutçu draws attention to the “historic agreements” concluded between Saudi Arabia and Israel on October 10 and considers it necessary to take into account the economic corridor announced at the G20 summit in India, referring to the corridor from Mumbai to Europe via Saudi Arabia – Dubai – Israel – Greece. In turn, Palestinian geopolitical expert Dr. Sami al-Aryan writes: “The Ben Gurion Canal project will weaken Egypt but give Israel access to the Red Sea.”
Certainly, however, the tension in the Strait of Hormuz, through which 30% of the world’s energy passes, will become a red line for Beijing. If the conflict spreads from the Gaza Strip to Lebanon, Iran or Syria, this will lead to the appearance of new players on the battlefield: Iran, Jordan, Iraq, Syria and Egypt, Turkey may also be affected by these events. Qatar, Saudi Arabia, UAE and other Gulf countries should also be added to the list.
Therefore, military strikes against the Houthis by the US and the new coalition should not be expected, as they have an undisclosed motivation for their actions. They will not agree to a serious confrontation. In addition, Tehran has repeatedly rejected all accusations of military ties with the Yemeni group, taking “many different points of view” into account.
Many countries in the region sense this, suggesting that the Americans are starting to “play a new game”, creating a new zone of chaos. Therefore, there is a sense that there is more to the Houthis than their willingness to attack ships bound for Israel. So this is no longer a local but a global story.
Translation: ES
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