Yemen’s Iran-backed Houthis could help Saudi Arabia reduce dependency on the Strait of Hormuz

Three months into the Iran war, Yemen’s Iran-backed Houthi rebels have largely been absent, depriving Iran of an opportunity to increase further pressure on Saudi Arabia, global energy markets, and international trade. The Houthis could have bolstered Iranian leverage by disrupting shipping in the narrow Bab al-Mandab waterway, which connects the Suez Canal with the Arabian Sea and the Indian Ocean. Some ten per cent of global trade passes through the strategic waterway. The disruption would have come on top of Iran’s throttling of shipping in the Strait of Hormuz through which 20 per cent of the world’s oil flowed before the war and the US naval blockade of Iranian ports. It would also have threatened Saudi Arabia’s efforts to enhance existing and develop alternative export routes that circumvent the Strait of Hormuz by directing oil and trade to the kingdom’s Red Sea coast. The Houthis have good reason to hold their fire and limit their support for Iran to statements and the symbolic firing of a few missiles in the direction of Israel in the first month of the war.