As a commentator on current events, my general rule is to ‘stick to my knitting.’ By ‘knitting,’ I mean the field of my expertise, namely Russia and its relations with the world.
However, as the promotional spot for BBC business news tells us: everything is interconnected. As we know, Russia’s war with Ukraine affects and is affected by the Israeli war on Hamas, as both global attention and military supplies are redirected from Kiev to Tel Aviv. Moreover, in the past ten days the Israeli war has brought Russia, Iran, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Egypt and Turkey into intense face-to-face and virtual consultations on how to stop the slaughter in Gaza and to prevent its escalation into a regional if not global conflict.
Meanwhile, despite outrage on the Arab Street and the dismay of onlookers worldwide, even in the least tender hearted of Western countries, not much has happened to stop the genocide being perpetrated by Israel other than talk. Military action by the Axis of Resistance in the Muslim world has been symbolic, not strategic: token missile and artillery strikes across the Lebanese-Israeli border. And no economic sanctions have been imposed on Israel by any of its neighbors, not to mention by nations further removed from the region. Iran’s call for an oil embargo fell on deaf ears of fellow Opec countries.
In this context, it is quite remarkable that the Houthi ‘rebels’ in Yemen have in recent days come up with a military-commercial response that is making headlines in the West, namely their attacks on container ships plying the route on the Red Sea from the Suez Canal to the Arabian Sea and Indian Ocean. In the name of blockading Israel, these attacks have taken the form of missile strikes on ships serving Israeli ports or boarding parties making ‘inspections’ of ships passing through the Red Sea or taking them over and diverting them to Yemen, as happened with one tanker thus far.
This stretch of water is part of the main shipping route from Europe to Asia through the Suez Canal. It is a choke point which, if closed, as now effectively is occurring, interrupts the entire global supply chain. Major container ship operators like Maersk are said to be diverting traffic to the much lengthier route around the southern tip of Africa, which adds between five days and two weeks to the journey. And it is not only container ships that are affected. The Suez Canal is used by LNG ships and oil tankers delivering to Europe energy supplies that are vitally important to the Continent’s economy.
By activities that resemble piracy, the Houthis of Yemen, widely considered to be ‘non-state actors,’ have achieved what the major states of the Middle East have been unable to do thus far: impose potentially great economic cost on the industrial nations of the world for failure to stop the Israeli onslaught in Gaza.
The Houthis may well be ‘non-state actors’ in the sense that they are considered by the West to be ‘rebels,’ as opposed to what is called the internationally recognized government in Yemen that they toppled. But they are obviously in control of substantial parts of a strategically important nation with a population of 33 million. And they have substantial military means both in missiles and sea-borne attack drones. Some of this likely comes from Iran, but, if Russian military experts are to be believed, much of it is now produced in Yemen itself.
Yesterday, U.S. Secretary of Defense Austin said that his staff is considering re-establishing order in the Red Sea, meaning entering into combat with the Houthis, which hitherto the United States had been doing by proxy, supplying arms to Saudi Arabia for that purpose. The Saudis abandoned their fight against the Houthis this past spring when they reached agreement with Iran, the Houthis’ backers, and resumed diplomatic relations under a China-brokered deal. If the United States now begins direct military action against the Houthis, it will quickly come up against Iran and the regional conflagration that so far has been averted by all parties may yet break out.
Is this a question that concerns Russia? It most certainly does, because just as China cannot afford to see Russia be defeated by NATO-backed Ukraine, so Russia cannot afford to see Iran be defeated by the United States and its allies inside and outside of NATO.
For my interview yesterday with India’s global English speaking television broadcaster WION, see
Red Sea threats amid Israel-Hamas war | Live Discussion | WION
©Gilbert Doctorow, 2023