Houthis seize Bab al-Mandeb, turning a global artery into a hostage
By Grant Colby · Reporting from Amarillo ·
The global economy just took a hit to the solar plexus, and the blow came from a rocky volcanic island in the middle of the Bab al-Mandeb strait.
The Red Sea is no longer a highway; it is a hostage
The global economy just took a hit to the solar plexus, and the blow came from a rocky volcanic island in the middle of the Bab al-Mandeb strait. As of this Friday, the Iran-backed Houthis have completed a lightning-fast, 18-hour blitz that has effectively handed them the keys to one of the world’s most vital maritime chokepoints. According to reporting from Euronews, the Houthi offensive swept through Yemen’s Red Sea coast, seizing the port city of Mocha and the coastal town of Dhubab before moving on to Mayyun Island.
This isn't just a local skirmish or a shift in a long-running civil war. This is a strategic seizure of a global artery. When the Houthis reached Mayyun Island after the internationally recognized Yemeni government forces withdrew, they didn't just take territory; they took leverage. As Al Jazeera reports, the economic fallout was instantaneous. Oil prices are set to close above $100 a barrel, and for the American driver, the reality of this geopolitical failure is hitting the pump, with diesel prices already surging past $6 a gallon.
We have seen this pattern of disruption before. The 2021 Suez Canal obstruction proved how a single blockage can trigger immediate global economic instability. But that was an accident of navigation; this is a calculated act of war. The Houthi attacks on shipping in the Red Sea during 2023-2024 were a prelude—a series of asymmetric strikes designed to exert political pressure. Now, they have graduated from harassment to total territorial control of the gateway.
The Singaporean shadow over the Bab al-Mandeb
The Houthi politburo member Hazem al-Assad is currently performing a masterclass in diplomatic gaslighting. He claims that "freedom of navigation and international trade... are safe and orderly" and that there is "no cause for international concern." It is a lie. You do not seize a strategic chokepoint and then promise to play by the rules of the people you just robbed.
The mechanism at play here is chillingly familiar to anyone who studies the history of maritime dominance. We are witnessing a modern echo of the Battle of Singapore. In February 1942, the Empire of Japan seized the British military and economic hub of Singapore, a move that dismantled British strategic naval dominance in Southeast Asia and signaled a shift in the global order. Today, the Houthis—acting as the blunt instrument of Tehran’s "Axis of Resistance"—are attempting the same maneuver. They are seizing a critical geographic chokepoint to dismantle the maritime security that the United States and its allies have spent decades maintaining.
The strongest case for the Houthi position—the one their most capable advocates would make—is that they are merely "protecting" Yemeni sovereignty and that the international community’s presence is an act of aggression. They argue that the maritime traffic is safe under their watch and that the West is simply trying to maintain a colonial-style stranglehold on regional trade. But this is a hollow defense. When more than 2,000 government soldiers are currently besieged on the Hanish islands, and the Houthis are driving military vehicles along the Bab al-Mandeb shore, "sovereignty" is just a shroud for Iranian-directed expansionism. This isn't about Yemen; it is about Iran using its proxies to turn a global commons into a private toll road.
A lesson in the cost of hesitation
The current crisis is the inevitable result of a regional strategy that has prioritized containment over deterrence. We are currently in the midst of a war between the United States and Iran that began in February 2026, and the Houthis have clearly read the room. They saw the 2019 tanker war and realized that asymmetric warfare in maritime chokepoints is the most cost-effective way to drive up oil prices and force the hand of the Great Powers.
The Institute for the Study of War correctly notes that this offensive advances Iranian objectives in its broader campaign against the United States and its allies. By controlling the Bab al-Mandeb, the Houthis have given Tehran a massive bargaining chip. They can now link the stability of the Red Sea to the status of the Strait of Hormuz, effectively holding the world’s energy supply hostage to force a settlement in the US-Iran war.
The United States and Saudi Arabia signed a mutual defense agreement just last month, and we have already seen Saudi air strikes hit the Mocha airport. But strikes alone are not a strategy. If the response to this seizure is merely a series of "concerned" diplomatic calls from Oman or the UN, then the Houthis have already won. They have proven that they can seize the most important real estate on the planet and that the international community will eventually blink.
History teaches us that once a chokepoint is lost to a hostile power, it is rarely recovered through negotiation. It is recovered through the re-establishment of a credible, overwhelming deterrent. If the goal is a world where the flag means something on the flight line and the markets breathe free of the whims of Tehran, then the Bab al-Mandeb cannot remain in the hands of a proxy militia. We must decide if we are willing to pay the price of energy today, or if we are prepared to pay the much higher price of a broken global order tomorrow.