Trump's inaction lets Houthis turn Bab el-Mandeb into a toll road

By Caroline Ashford · Reporting from Richmond, Virginia · September 11, 2026

There is a quiet, terrifying math to what is happening in the Red Sea, and it is a math that ends with the erosion of the stability we have spent decades, and trillions of dollars, trying to build.

The Gates are Being Bolted From the Inside

There is a quiet, terrifying math to what is happening in the Red Sea, and it is a math that ends with the erosion of the stability we have spent decades, and trillions of dollars, trying to build. On Friday, September 11, 2026, the Iran-backed Houthi militants did not merely conduct a raid; they seized the keys to the house. According to reporting from CNA, the group reached Perim Island—also known as Mayyun—which sits directly in the middle of the Bab el-Mandeb Strait, effectively dividing the waterway into two manageable channels for whoever holds the guns. This follows the capture of the coastal city of Mokha and the Hanish islands, a rapid-fire expansion that has left the Yemeni government’s forces in a state of desperate retreat.

This is not a sudden eruption of chaos, but rather the culmination of a long-standing pattern of strategic aggression. We saw the precursors to this in the 2023-2024 Red Sea crisis, where maritime attacks were first used to exert geopolitical leverage, but today the leverage has become a stranglehold. Anadolu Agency reports that the seizure of Dhubab city has forced government troops to withdraw toward Lahij, while more than 2,000 government soldiers remain besieged on the Hanish islands, pleading for the food, water, and air support necessary to survive. This is the same pattern of strategic coastal seizure we witnessed during Operation Decisive Storm in 2015, only now, the movement has matured from a localized insurgency into a regional gatekeeper.

A Lever Made of Iron and Oil

To understand why this matters to a family in Lynchburg or a small business in Richmond, one must look past the maps and toward the fuel tanks. The mechanism at play here is identical to the Suez Crisis: a regional actor is seizing a strategic maritime chokepoint to leverage geopolitical influence and disrupt global trade routes. By controlling Perim and the surrounding islands, the Houthis have placed a thumb on the windpipe of the world’s energy supply.

The hand moving that thumb is unmistakably Tehran’s. While Iran publicly insists the Houthis are "not a proxy," the reality is written in the direct guidance and senior officers reported to be flowing from the Iranian Revolutionary Guards. This is a calculated attempt to weaponize the very arteries of global commerce. The goal is to create a dual-chokepoint crisis: with Iran already blockading the Strait of Hormuz, the Houthi control of the Bab el-Mandeb creates a pincer movement that could paralyze the world's largest oil exporter, Saudi Arabia.

The economic tremors are already being felt. Brent crude futures were trading at $105.37 per barrel on Friday morning, and WTI sat at $100.76. We are seeing the same volatility that followed the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine, where a regional conflict was instantly transformed into a global economic shock. When the chokepoints are held by those who wish to see the current international order dismantled, the cost of everything—from the diesel that runs our trucks to the heating that warms our homes—becomes a hostage to their whims.

The High Cost of Looking Away

The most troubling element of this crisis, however, is not the movement of the militants, but the stillness of the West. On Thursday, September 10, Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman made two calls to President Donald Trump, urging direct military strikes to protect Saudi energy infrastructure and the Red Sea routes. The President’s response was a flat rejection, stating that the administration does not intend to take direct military action against the Houthis at this time.

The strongest case for this restraint is rooted in a desire to avoid the "forever wars" that have exhausted the American spirit and the national treasury. Proponents of this stance argue that intervening in a Yemeni civil war only risks a deeper entanglement and a direct, unwanted escalation with Iran. It is a policy of containment through distance, an attempt to let the regional actors settle their own accounts without drawing the United States into the fray.

But this is a fundamental misunderstanding of how power operates in a connected world. You cannot claim to be "avoiding" a war while you allow the very conditions for a global catastrophe to be built in your backyard. By refusing to act, the administration is not preventing a conflict; it is merely subsidizing the enemy's preparations. We saw the cost of such hesitation during the 2021 Suez Canal obstruction, where a single point of failure caused massive market volatility; now, we are facing a deliberate, multi-point failure.

If the Houthis consolidate their control over Perim and Zuqar islands, they will establish permanent military bases that turn the Bab el-Mandeb into a private toll road for the "Axis of Resistance." We are watching the slow-motion collapse of the institutions that allow for predictable, peaceful trade. When the gates are held by terrorists, the world does not simply wait for a "temporary deal" in Oman to fix it. We are choosing to let the fire spread, hoping it won't reach our own doorsteps, while the smoke is already making it hard to breathe.

Trump's inaction lets Houthis turn Bab el-Mandeb into a toll road

The Gates are Being Bolted From the Inside

A Lever Made of Iron and Oil

The High Cost of Looking Away

Sources