The coast of Bab el-Mandeb, Yemen in April. Many analysts suggested the Houthis might resume their attacks in the Red Sea when the U.S. and Israel launched their war against Iran on Feb. 28.Reuters/Reuters
Thomas Juneau is a professor at the University of Ottawa’s Graduate School of Public and International Affairs, a non-resident fellow with the Sana’a Center for Strategic Studies, and an associate fellow with Chatham House.
On Monday, the Houthis, an Iran-backed armed group in control of the northwestern quadrant of Yemen, threatened to impose a maritime blockade on Saudi Arabia. To do this, they would attack, or threaten to attack, maritime shipping in the southern part of the Red Sea, on Yemen’s west coast, like they did in previous years.
This would potentially block the Bab al-Mandab, the southern entrance to the Red Sea, through which about 10 per cent of global trade normally transits daily. Why did the Houthis threaten to do this, why now and what would be the consequences for global energy flows?
When the U.S. and Israel launched their war against Iran on Feb. 28, many analysts raised the possibility that in support of their Iranian partner, the Houthis might retaliate by resuming their attacks in the Red Sea.
There are two possible explanations as to why they did not. The first is that they were keeping the option in reserve, possibly as a last resort should the fall of the Islamic Republic appear imminent.
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The second is that they were partly deterred after the United States and Israel hit them hard with a heavy campaign of air strikes in 2025 following their earlier attacks in the Red Sea. It is plausible that they inflicted enough pain to change the Houthis’ cost-benefit calculus and induce a degree of caution.
The situation today has changed, however. Iran perceives that it is winning the war in the Persian Gulf. Its leadership assesses that Washington is backed into a corner and has run out of viable options to force the reopening of the Strait of Hormuz, the entrance to the Gulf through which about 20 per cent of global oil production used to transit daily.
Tehran’s objective now is to consolidate and institutionalize the new reality that is emerging from the war: that it indefinitely has the ability to block maritime shipping in the Strait of Hormuz.
Its attacks on shipping and its refusal to bend to continued American military and diplomatic pressure undoubtedly aim to allow it to shape new rules of the game in the region that will recognize, de facto, its veto on transits through the strait.
Yemen's Iran-aligned Houthis will impose a maritime blockade on Saudi Arabia, they said on Monday, further throttling a global energy market already greatly restricted by Iran's closure of the Strait of Hormuz.
Reuters
The Houthis appear to have a similar objective. They are dominant in Yemen; after years of war starting in 2015, Saudi Arabia and its Yemeni allies have proven clearly unable to remove the Houthis from power and roll back Iranian influence in the country.
Perceiving a window of opportunity as a result of Iranian success in the Gulf, the Houthis are also creating the conditions on the ground that would consolidate their power in the southern Red Sea and de facto institutionalize their ability to veto maritime traffic in the Bab al-Mandab. To do so, they do not necessarily need to launch new attacks; the mere threat can be enough to deter some risk-averse shipping companies from transiting through the Red Sea.
The result is that Iran and the Houthis now have the ability to block traffic in the Strait of Hormuz and the Bab al-Mandab, and their current actions as well as their intransigence in on-and-off negotiations with the U.S., in the case of Iran, and with Saudi Arabia, for the Houthis, show that this is a tremendous source of leverage that neither will abandon.
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This is the new reality born out of the 2026 war against Iran: There is now a permanent threat hanging over two of the most crucial maritime chokepoints for global energy flows. This threat will not go away, even if the Houthis do not attack Red Sea shipping in the coming days and if there eventually is a U.S.-Iran agreement to ease tensions and see the gradual reopening of the Strait of Hormuz.
Efforts are already under way to plan alternate pathways to export oil and gas from the Gulf. Pipelines toward the northwest, crossing Syria onto the Mediterranean Sea, for example, could hold promise but face severe security challenges.
Another option, from Arab states of the Gulf through Oman and to the Arabian Sea, would remain exposed to Iranian and Houthi missiles and drones.
This is a sword of Damocles that will indefinitely hang over the global economy and a catastrophic scenario for energy producers in the Gulf, unless we witness either unlikely scenario of the fall of the Islamic Republic or of a resolution of the deep faultlines between Tehran and Washington.