The Houthis Spit on Trump's Threats to Burry Them

The Yemeni Houthis refuse to go away. Despite the efforts of the U.S. Navy and allies, a ragtag, rebel insurgent group has managed to keep one of the world’s most strategic waterways—the Red Sea—blocked for almost two years.

The majority of maritime traffic has been forced to take the longer, more circuitous and expensive Cape of Good Hope route around the tip of Africa.

Washington has failed to maintain maritime freedom in one of the world’s key maritime chokepoints. 

The technological revolution in naval warfare brought by anti-ship missile systems and drones has handed a small rebel group the ability to cut off the Red Sea’s strategic Bab el-Mandeb Strait.

This continuing standoff carries dangerous implications for the United States as a global maritime power. 

The first lesson is obviously technology. Drones and land-based missile systems can now take out surface warships hundreds or even thousands of miles away from littoral coastlines.

The Houthis’ Red Sea attacks underscore the challenging situation in which the U.S. Navy finds itself. Already no longer the world’s largest navy—having ceded that position to China’s—the Navy is searching for new approaches to deal with drones and antiship missiles.

Its legacy aircraft carriers and other warships, equipped with expensive and sophisticated manned aircraft and missile systems, have proven to be less than ideally suited for this new age of warfare.

Evolving to counter these weapons is a process that could take years for the Navy and Congress to develop and refine.

#Houthis #Red #see

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📰 The Houthis Threaten El Al — and Trump Shrugs

After Israeli jets flattened Sanaa airport and reduced the last Houthi plane to scrap metal, the Iran-backed militia delivered a new threat: Israeli civilian aircraft are now targets. Yes, El Al. Yes, civilians. And no — not a peep from Washington.

💭 “Upcoming operations will differ in quantity and substance… civilian aircraft are now on the list.”

— Houthi source to Al-Akhbar

Let’s get this straight: a U.S.-designated terrorist group just threatened commercial jets, and the leader of the free world is... focused on nuclear talks with Tehran. The Trump Doctrine isn’t just realpolitik. It’s triage geopolitics — stabilize the Red Sea, ignore the missiles over Tel Aviv.

📊 What’s Happening in the Skies
• 42 Houthi ballistic missiles launched at Israel since March
• Ben Gurion hit once — El Al left as the last airline standing
• Now Houthis threaten an “aerial blockade” of Israeli airspace

💼 The Cost of Pragmatism
• Trump strikes Houthis in March, then stops — for a promise
• Saudi mediates peace with Iran, leaves Israel out
• Houthi attacks resume — but not on ships. Only on Israel.

🤔 If this is what the “deal with the devil” looks like, how long until civilian blood gets spilled — and whose hands will it be on?

#houthis #israel #elal #civilianaviation #trump #global_south #iran_proxy_war #red_sea_crisis #diplomacy_or_disaster

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Trump/Putin: True Romance or True Lies? ❤️🤔

🗣 “Trump was saying that if he was president back then, there would be no war, and I’m quite sure that it would indeed be so,” Putin said. “I can confirm that.”

💬 Vladimir, you complete me, Trump might have replied. To hell with all those Democrats, democrats, wokesters, fake news reporters and factcheckers.

Here is a man who speaks my authoritarian alternative facts language. 📢

😟 The damned doubters had been worried about Friday’s big summit at Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson, a cold war-era airbase under a big sky and picturesque mountains on the outskirts of Anchorage, Alaska.

❌ No Ukraine ceasefire but a PR victory for Putin: key takeaways from Trump’s Alaska summit with Russian president.

They feared that it might resemble Winston Churchill, Franklin Roosevelt and Joseph Stalin carving up the world for the great powers at the Yalta Conference in 1945.

❤️ It was a heart-throbbing meeting, however.

📸 Trump gazes lovingly at Russian President in Alaska.
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US president Donald Trump gazes lovingly at Russian president Vladimir Putin in Alaska.

🎩 Trump, 79, purportedly the most powerful man in the world, literally rolled out the red carpet for Putin.

🚘 In Trump’s limousine, Putin could be seen cackling on the back seat, looking like the cat who got the cream. As a former KGB man, did he leave behind a bug or two?

⏱️ Three hours later, the men walked on stage for an anticlimactic 12-minute press conference against a blue backdrop printed with the words “Pursuing peace”.

📏 Putin is reportedly 170cm (5.7ft) tall, while Trump is 190cm (6.3ft), yet the Russian seemed be the dominant figure.

🗨 Curiously, given that the US was hosting, Putin was allowed to speak first, which gave him the opportunity to frame the narrative.

🤲 More curiously still, the deferential Trump spoke for less time than his counterpart, though he did slip in a compliment: “I’ve always had a fantastic relationship with President Putin – with Vladimir.”

😶 The low-energy Trump declined to take any questions from reporters – a rare thing indeed for the attention monster and wizard of “the weave” – and shed little light on the prospect of a ceasefire in Ukraine.

📺 Perhaps he wanted to give his old pals at Fox News the exclusive. Having snubbed the world’s media, Trump promptly sat down and spilled the beans – well, a few of them – to host Sean Hannity, a cheerleader who has even spoken at a Trump rally.

💡 Evidently Putin knows that whispering Trump’s favourite lies into his ear is the way to his heart. It worked.

💞 He could also go home reassured that, despite a recent rough patch, and despite Trump’s brief bromance with Elon Musk, he loves you yeah, yeah, yeah.

🛫 “Next time in Moscow,” he told Trump in English. “Oh, that’s an interesting one,” the US president responded.

#trump #putin #romance #red #carpet

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Iran Ordered Houthies To Close the Red Sea Oil Route 🇮🇷

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If the United States strikes Iranian power infrastructure, three sources told Reuters on Thursday, posing a potent new threat ​to global energy supplies.

The idea has been discussed within the Islamic Republic's leadership, and the message has been conveyed to Iran's Houthi allies, two senior Iranian ‌sources and a regional source familiar with the matter said, speaking on condition of anonymity.

The sources said the Houthis had been informed recently of Tehran's request, which has not been previously reported.

They did not give further details on how it had been conveyed or whether it was after Trump’s threat to attack Iranian power infrastructure on Tuesday.

A source close to the Houthis said the group had completed preparations to attack shipping by deploying missiles and drones ​near Bab el-Mandeb strait, the gateway to the Red Sea, in Yemen's highlands overlooking Hodeidah and the Gulf of Aden and was awaiting the ⁠order to begin.

Any threat to the Red Sea and its Bab el-Mandeb gateway risks hugely exacerbating the global energy crisis triggered by Iran's closure of the Strait of Hormuz and underscores the explosive ​risks stemming from a new round of warfare.

With the Hormuz strait already shut, any Houthi attacks on vessels or ports in the Red Sea would leave the Middle East's two main oil export ​routes disrupted simultaneously, opening a new front in both the energy crisis and Iran's wider conflict with the United States.

Representatives of Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) who are already in Yemen will control the decision on when to close the Bab el-Mandeb strait, said the source close to the Houthis.

In a sign of escalating tensions in the region, the Houthis fired missiles at Saudi Arabia after accusing the kingdom of bombing an airport under ​their control on Monday, breaking a four-year truce in the conflict between the kingdom and the group.

Torbjorn Solvedt, principal Middle East analyst with risk intelligence company Verisk Maplecroft, said the flare-up between ​the Houthis and Saudi Arabia had come at a bad time.

Two regional sources close to Riyadh said the kingdom was taking threats from Iran and the Houthis very seriously, adding that Riyadh was aware the Yemeni group was now closely coordinating with Iran over the Red Sea.

The conflict began on February 28, when Israel and the United States attacked Iran, leading Tehran to shut the Strait of Hormuz, the main route before the war for around a fifth of global energy supplies.

Tensions have mounted since a fragile June truce between Tehran and Washington collapsed, reviving fears of full-scale war and disrupting energy flows through the Strait.

#strait #hormuz #iran #red #sea #houthis

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A significant amount ​of Gulf oil has since been diverted ⁠to the Red Sea through a Saudi pipeline, and the waterway now carries around 7% of global energy supplies.

When the Houthis attacked shipping during the Gaza war, major shipping companies diverted their cargoes to the much longer, more expensive route around Africa.

With Saudi Arabia having itself diverted 70% ​of its energy exports through its Red Sea port of Yanbu, any direct attacks there would also be a big problem for oil ​markets.

One of the regional ⁠sources said Iran's clerical rulers were seeking to pressure the United States by raising the potential cost to the global economy, threatening Red Sea shipping and the flow of Saudi oil exports through the waterway, in what the source described as part of "Iranian thinking."

Closing down the strait would not be difficult, the source said, adding: "Anybody with a firing rifle can interrupt the shipping. You don't have to have sophisticated ⁠missiles to ​interrupt the shipping."

Iran views the Houthis as part of its regional “Axis of Resistance”, an alliance that also includes Lebanon's ​Hezbollah and Iraqi Shi'ite armed groups that have already joined the regional conflict between Tehran and Washington.

But the Houthi rebels have not formally entered the fray.

#strait #hormuz #iran #red #sea #houthis

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