AYESHA RASCOE, HOST:
The war in Iran has been costly. At least 3,000 killed, according to Iranian officials. Eighteen American service members are dead. A $37 billion price tag to wage the war, according to the Pentagon, and global oil prices are currently hovering near $100 a barrel.
Now there may be a new front in the war in the Red Sea. Houthi rebels in Yemen, allies of Iran, have traded missile and drone strikes with Saudi Arabia and say they are blocking the Strait of Bab el-Mandeb. April Longley Alley is a senior fellow at the Washington Institute and an expert on Yemen, and she joins us now. Good morning.
APRIL LONGLEY ALLEY: Good morning.
RASCOE: So the Houthis have struck at least two oil tankers. What can you tell us about the blockade the Houthis say they've imposed?
ALLEY: The Houthis have said they've imposed a blockade on Saudi Arabia. So they've actually been clear they are not closing the entire strait at this point. Their goals are to put a lot of pressure on Saudi Arabia. They feel like this is a moment where they can extract concessions. But of course, the effect of this blockade on Saudi Arabia, as they call it, this is going to affect traffic in the Red Sea writ large. And the last time the Houthis, you know, said they were targeting certain types of ships, it ended up spreading very quickly. So this has larger implications than just for Saudi Arabia.
RASCOE: And remind us who the Houthis are.
ALLEY: Sure. The Houthis are - they're a well-armed militant group that are based in northern Yemen. And in 2015, they pushed the government out, and since then, they've consolidated their control of that area, plus along the Red Sea coast. And they're the de facto authorities. So they got their start in the early 2000s. They're - so they're a relatively new group, and they're also a young group. Their leadership is young. They've spent most of their adult lives in some kind of conflict. They're hostile to Israel, to the U.S., to Western influence. They have a history of conflict with Saudi Arabia. And as you said, they're allies of Iran. They're openly part of the axis of resistance. So they view this struggle in the Middle East in similar ways to the Iranian regime.
RASCOE: Well, talk to me about that relationship. President Trump says he holds Iran responsible for the attacks by the Houthis, calling them, quote, "a surrogate and/or proxy of Iran." What is that relationship?
ALLEY: The Houthis are partners, not proxies, of Iran. The partnership is very close, and this partnership has grown over time. So Iran provides the Houthis with military support, diplomatic support, some financial support, and they really helped to make the Houthis the organization they are today, one that can control that territory and then threaten maritime shipping. But they still retain decision making, so they're not remote controlled from Tehran. And unlike Lebanese Hezbollah, they weren't created by Iran.
But their agendas are very closely aligned, and over the course of the U.S. war with Iran, the importance of the Houthis has only grown for Tehran 'cause the Houthis have not been degraded in the same way that Hamas or Hezbollah has, and they sit on the Bab el-Mandeb, this critical choke point.
RASCOE: How important is Bab el-Mandeb Strait in terms of the energy and the economy?
ALLEY: It's extremely important. So it is a major global maritime choke point. Before the Houthis began attacks on maritime shipping during the Gaza war, the Bab el-Mandeb carried upward of 12% of all global maritime trade. It hasn't fully recovered, but still very important. Its importance has only increased because Saudi Arabia has ramped up its exports along its East-West Pipeline to Yanbu, and it's just been a critical lifeline for Saudi Arabia and the entire Gulf. And so as the global economy becomes strained by the continued closure of Hormuz, you know, we can ill afford yet another chokehold being clamped down.
RASCOE: What would further escalation look like with the Houthis? Like, what are you worried about?
ALLEY: This is a fast-moving situation, and it is quickly escalating. So there are still diplomatic efforts underway to find an off-ramp, but the Houthis are very much quickly moving up the escalatory ladder. They attacked tankers in the Red Sea, but they've also claimed that they have hit two Aramco facilities inside Saudi Arabia, and they're threatening more. And of course, the Saudis are responding.
So I could see, you know, two things happening. One is reigniting the civil war in Yemen. And this war has been quiet for the last four years, but you could see a full return to war with all of the terrible consequences for that population. But beyond that is the regional part. And so this conflict is inextricably linked to the regional war. And so you could see Yemen becoming yet another front in this war with Iran and having the U.S. be drawn in, even in support of Saudi Arabia at a time when our forces have been mobilized around the Straits (ph) of Hormuz for much longer than originally anticipated.
And this is a new and it is a difficult front. And we know also that airstrikes alone are certainly not going to solve this threat to maritime security. The U.S. has tried it before. We had 54 days of airstrikes on the Houthis that ended in a bilateral truce but did not stop their threats to maritime security. So this is a knotty problem that requires certainly more than a military tool and more than just airstrikes.
RASCOE: That's April Longley Alley, a senior fellow at the Washington Institute. Thank you so much for speaking with us today.
ALLEY: Thank you. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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