The Houthis’ shock advance and what it means for the world

0:00Patrick Wintour:This is The Guardian.

0:08Today, the battle over the other waterway that could crash the global economy.

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1:30Remember that time a few years ago when few of us spared a thought for commercial shipping routes and strategic waterways? How times have changed. We are following breaking news out of the Middle East, where the US and Iran are currently locked in a power struggle over the Strait of Hormuz. The waterway that squeezed the global economy, the US economy, likely caused you to pay more of the gas pump. Pretty soon I'll be declaring the Hormuz Strait a territory of the United States. Now, you'd be forgiven for a sense of deja vu over the past few weeks, as another strait has hit the headlines. Welcome to the global stage, the Bab al-Mandeb Strait in Yemen.

2:16We've heard so much about the Strait of Hormuz, but the Bab al-Mandeb Strait, that's another potential flashpoint. What happens here next could affect us more than the Iran war already has. Last week, this narrow 50-kilometre stretch of water on Yemen's southwestern coast came under the control of Iran-backed Houthi forces. And according to Patrick Wintour, The Guardian's diplomatic editor, this is a big deal. Well, it's the entranceway between the Red Sea and Asia, in effect.

2:47Patrick Wintour:and on one side of the waterway is Yemen and Saudi Arabia and on the other side is places such as Djibouti. So it is probably the second most important waterway for commercial shipping in the world. It's a new front in the conflict between the US and Iran and their allies, which had looked like it was at an impasse. And like the Strait of Formos, what happens next with the Bab al-Mandeb Strait is not just a big deal for Middle East. It's a big deal for all of us.

3:25Patrick Wintour:If there is a real slowdown in commercial oil traffic through that strait, then you are going to see interest rates rise in Europe, you're going to see unemployment rise, you're going to see inflation rise. This is a war where the fronts move and the front is going to eventually move much more closely than it has to the European economy. From The Guardian, I'm Annie Kelly. Today on Focus, straight for the jugular, the Houthi's shock advance and what it could mean for the world.

4:03Patrick, we've seen this lightning advance by the Houthi forces in Yemen over the last two weeks, which appears to have surprised everybody, the Yemeni government, their Saudi backers, the international community. Can you just tell us what has been happening and why is it so important? There's been a civil war in Yemen for more than a decade. And the turning point in that civil war was when the Houthis came from the north and captured the capital Sana 'a in 2014 and nearly took over the whole of Yemen, were then forced back for a bit. But after that, there was then

4:39Patrick Wintour:a very long Saudi aerial bombing campaign which didn't succeed in pushing the Houthis out of the capital Sana 'a and since then there's been in effect a stalemate until very recently.

4:56Patrick Wintour:And at that point the Houthis started to fire missiles into Saudi Arabia and since then there's been a gradual flare-up. Tensions growing in the Middle East. Video showing a column of smoke near the airport in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. The two significant military operations were carried out using a large number of ballistic missiles and drones. The first targeted the Saudi capital, Riyadh, and the second targeted Aramco in Yambou. And then it became clear that the Houthis were intent on going down the west coast of Yemen along by the Red Sea and they moved about 100 kilometers at lightning speed.

5:40The Iran-backed Houthi rebels' advance continues. They claim to have taken the strategic islands of greater and lesser Hanish in the key Bab al-Mandeb Strait.

5:51Patrick Wintour:Taking probably the most important port was Mocha, where the coffee bean of Mocha fame comes from. They managed to get right down to the bottom of the Bandar Mammath Ab Strait. And that means they have got control of that strait. They've got control of some of the islands across that strait.

6:10And, you know, we said that they moved with lightning speed. Why was it that they were able to take that island that it sounds like it was pretty much undefended in this really crucial waterway. I mean, there's a lot of accusations of betrayal, cowardice, etc.,

6:25Patrick Wintour:going on inside the anti-Huti forces at present. And it was just chaotic. By contrast, the Hutsis have armed themselves more successfully than for a long time. And they've probably been preparing for this offensive for quite a number of months. Let's just go back a bit. Can you tell us who exactly are the Hutsis? Well, the Houthis are a tribe in the northern highlands of Yemen that probably they're only 15 % of the population. They're Shia-like, the majority Muslim population in Iran, and they share that, whilst a lot of the rest of Yemen are Sunni. They're very anti-Semitic. Some of the stuff they say about Jews are completely unrepeatable.

7:12and that's led them to take positions on the Israel-Palestine conflict,

7:17Patrick Wintour:which has put them way out in front of any other resistance group in terms of trying to come in on the side of Hamas against Israel. And they are ferocious fighters. They've shown that they can take massive death tolls. I mean, those who've worked as journalists inside the Houthi area say that the newspapers are totally manipulated, there's no freedom of press, there's incredible repression. I mean, they've been there obviously for centuries, but in terms of taking this kind of political control, it's been about a decade. Houthi militants in Yemen say they have carried out drone and ballistic missile attacks on Saudi Arabia's capital.

7:59Saudi authorities confirmed they intercepted and destroyed a ballistic missile fired at Riyadh. Energy sites on the country... I mean, we just saw over the last two weeks how well armed they are as well. You know, that they were able to take all of this territory, take control of the strait, but also fire attacks into Saudi over the weekend. Who is arming them? Where are they getting their money from? Well, it's pretty clear that they do get a lot of money from Iran.

8:28Patrick Wintour:But two things I think have changed. One is described as a kind of democratization of war or the equalization of war because it's now so easy and cheap to buy and to manufacture drones. So that changes the sort of balance of power. And the second aspect about the Houthis is I think they've now developed an indigenous capacity to build weapons inside Yemen. So they're not totally dependent on supply of weapons being smuggled in through a so-called UN arms embargo. They can build the stuff themselves. And they seem to be able to even build ballistic missiles and not just drones. Okay, so that really must be changing the power dynamic as well.

9:11And what is it that they want now? Well, there's a debate about that. Some people say that they would just be happy to take the whole of the north of Yemen. But I think experience and history shows that they want to take the whole of Yemen

9:23Patrick Wintour:and that they would want to push all the way down to Arden, the port in the south. And they regard the Saudis as colonial imperial power and that they think what they describe as these mercenaries must be driven out.

9:47The New York Times reporting that after a call with the Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and Saudi's request for US military help this weekend, the president alerted the Pentagon to prepare for airstrikes against the Houthis and then called off that strike midday yesterday. And this weekend, Trump has kind of waded into this chaotic situation, saying that he might retaliate, also threatening to wipe out the Houthis and their backers, Iran. You know, there were rumours, you know, over the weekend that he was just millimetres from doing this. Strikes on both countries. Why did he pull back? Well, I think there's a huge division inside the administration.

10:25He's making a desperate attempt to give the perception that he's in control of events and he simply isn't.

10:31Patrick Wintour:And I think the majority opinion is that Yemen would be the last place Donald Trump needs to go now. He's weeks away from the midterm elections. He needs to get onto issues inside America around identity politics to try and weaken the Democrats. But the more he's talking about a war or new wars, the more Americans are going to think, why are we in this war? Why are my diesel prices as they are? So I think everyone was saying to him, just do you need to get away from this subject and stay away from it. And we've heard, you know, we're talking about this in a quite kind of abstract way, this lightning strike and the geography and Trump.

11:11But actually, this is really having an impact, isn't it, on the ground? I think the IOM, the International Organization for Migration, is saying more than 100 ,000 people have been displaced in the last two weeks. Just how much worse could this get for people inside Yemen and what kind of situation are they facing now? No, I think it's a really important point because I think I can get locked into all the different factions fighting one another and you forget the reality that most people don't want to be involved in any war.

11:38Patrick Wintour:And I think the number of displaced now is around 125 ,000. A lot of these people who are displaced are in mountains and there's no access for aid groups. This comes on top of a decade of poverty and misery. Because we're not able to report properly inside Yemen, I don't think we're getting over nearly enough that there's a real human toll here. A drone hit us and my wife died after being struck by shrapnel here. She died. My three children were left. I fled with them to Aden. By God, we don't even possess a single grain of flour. Yeah, and misery upon misery piled on civilians in Yemen, you know, since the civil war began.

12:24It's hard to see how that is going to end if this situation continues as well, right? Well, there's no end to it as long as the fighting continues. I mean, ultimately, I think the fighting will continue until there's a solution to the Iran-American dispute.

12:39Patrick Wintour:I mean, I know there is a degree to which the Yemen-Saudi dispute over the future of Yemen is self-standing, but I think a lot of it is ultimately driven by the war between Iran and America. And that really takes you back to the other waterway, the Strait of Hormuz. And now you mentioned that Trump doesn't want to get involved in another front on this flailing war in Iran. So is it opportunism as well, do you think? Do you think they moved now because they understood that? And it's interesting because there had been an expectation that the Houthis would move earlier than they did. But I think in retrospect, the timing is excellent from their point of view, because there's this stalemate in the Strait of Hormuz.

13:23Patrick Wintour:And Saudi itself is in a quandary about what to do, whether to support American military interventionism of a different kind inside Iran. They're reluctant to do that. And so all the circumstances line up quite well for the Houthis to do what they've done. Right. And now we're in this position where they're in control of this really important waterway, the Bab al-Mandab Strait, which gives them basically a stranglehold over a lot of commercial shipping in the region, in particular Saudi Arabia's oil exports. It's not just, obviously, it's not just the oil. It's any kind of goods, many of which are very vulnerable and very perishable, are going down there.

14:04And I think it's like 10%, 15 % of all container traffic go down that straight. I mean, that's crazy, isn't it, that much? I mean, that's... Well, there's ways around it. You can go around the Cape of Good Hope or whatever, but it just adds to length of time and costs. And I think you've got to look at what's also happening in Europe, just say, over the last few days. days. I mean, Germany, Friedrich Mertz and France, Emmanuel Macron, both of them making quite dramatic announcements about the supplies of petrol or diesel. And they're running low. And they're very nervous about what might happen in the winter when demand will rise.

14:42And if the supplies haven't gone up. So I mean, the potential impact on the global economy is pretty dire, right? Is that what you're saying? Of course it is, yes. I mean, I think to be fair, I mean, a lot of people early on in the Strait of Hormuz dispute were saying the economic outlook was going to deteriorate much faster than it did. And it emerged that oil markets were stronger and more robust.

15:10Patrick Wintour:But now we're getting into the sort of 2.0 section of this wall with both of these straits under pressure and the amount of supplies and reserves dwindling as demand starts to rise. So the impact is going to be higher inflation, interest rates, recession, and it's not very difficult to work out. That is the course on which we're treading at the moment. You have to see this is now two fronts in one war. And so you have to realise that when wars start, they don't always stay where they started and they move. And this war has now moved to this second front. And you can already see the impact on oil prices.

15:56Patrick Wintour:They boomed about 8-9 % as a result of when it became clear that the Houthis had full control of the strait. And there's been some leaning back since then, but no one should be in any doubt that this is a really new long term extra dimension to this huge war that we've been watching since February. Crazy the ripple effects that that decision to go into this war in Iran has had. The Iranians going to Iran right now, claiming that this has got nothing to do with them at all. that the Houthis are operating completely independently. But how could this and the strategic advantage that the Houthis now have over this strait, how could that feel into the war in Iran?

16:42And I mean, I guess my question really is, have Iran and the Houthis kind of played a strategic blinder here? Well, they're playing a blinder in the sense that they've waited to the right moment when the world economy is probably at its most vulnerable to try to really squeeze and put the choke on as tightly as possible. You've got to bear in mind that in Iran, there's huge domestic pressure as well about this war. And inflation is over 100%. So there's pressure on Iran as well.

17:16Patrick Wintour:The extra pressure is that there's an absolute knowledge inside America now that they know that this war was a mistake. the American public know this war was a mistake. It hasn't achieved anything. It hasn't certainly achieved what was set out to do at the outset. And there's going to be a big political price to pay for that when Americans vote in November.

17:45Coming up, the Houthis on the move, Saudi isolated. Does anyone know where this unpredictable war is going next?

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19:44So where does that leave Saudi? If the US isn't going to come in and help them, Is anyone going to step forward and help them solve this problem that they've found themselves with suddenly?