The Current - Red Sea attacks threaten to escalate the US- Iran War

Episode Date: July 23, 2026

Iran-aligned Houthis have threatened to blockade the Red Sea, raising concerns about global oil supply and a broadening of the Iran War. Gregg Carlstrom, The Economist's Middle East Correspondent, talks about how we got to this point. Thomas Juneau, an Associate Professor at the University of Ottawa's Graduate School of Public and International Affairs, discusses why the Houthis are engaging in this maritime blockade.

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Hello, I'm Matt Galloway, and this is the current podcast. The United States military says it has completed a 12th consecutive night of strikes against Iran, and that's as both sides have resumed fighting. Meanwhile, the Iran-aligned Houthi group in Yemen claim they've attacked two Saudi oil tankers in the Red Sea. On the southwest tip of Yemen, there is a busy and extremely narrow shipping lane. The Beb al-Mandab Strait is a critical waterway that connects the Red Sea to the Gulf of Aden and the Indian Ocean. It allows Saudi Arabia to get millions of barrels of oil out for export each day. And it's here that the Houthis have declared a blockade.

U.S. President Donald Trump suggested that if the Houthis disrupt shipping in the Red Sea, the U.S. may get involved. So far, it hasn't happened, it might happen. But we take care of things. If something like that happens, we take care of it. You know, we've done that with the Houthis before, and we haven't heard from them in a while. Greg Carlstrom is the economist Middle East correspondent. He is in Riyadh. Greg, good morning. Good morning. Greg, we'll get to the Red Sea in a minute, but I do want to start with what's being said out of the White House in the last number of hours. Donald Trump has said he's going to, the U.S. will strike Iranian infrastructure if Tehran continues to attack ships in the strait of Hormuz.

Tell us more about these potential strikes. have we learned? Well, the threat from Trump was that every time Iran attacked the ship, the United States would attack a bridge or a power plant inside of Iran. Trump seems to have this fixation with Iranian bridges. It's not entirely clear why. He's been making these sorts of threats for months. Of course, you'll remember in the previous round of the war before the ceasefire in April, Trump was talking about bombing all of the power plant. in Iran and making some really blood-curdling threats about wiping out an entire civilization. So it feels a bit deja vu. But at the same time, we have seen over the past few days, the U.S.

is beginning to attack infrastructure, transport infrastructure. It has bombed, bridges, tunnels, roads, mostly in southern Iran. So what began as back-and-forth strikes that were narrowly focused on military targets, they have begun to expand already. Let's talk a little bit more about the Red Sea blockade, because we are seeing Iran-lined Houthis attacking ships there. Why is that happening now at this point? There are two schools of thought on this. One is that Iran asked them to do it.

This is a group that has long received military and financial support from Iran, and the Iranians have been threatening for months, that they would activate, Houthis and get them to do this. The other theory, which I put more weight in, is that it also is related to what's going on between Saudi Arabia and the Houthis right now. They have been fighting off and on for more than a decade, although a ceasefire has been in force for the past several years, but the Saudis invaded Yemen in 2015 to try and dislodge the Houthis after they overthrew the government effectively and seized control of part of the country. And we've seen tensions

rising in recent weeks, there's been talk of possible renewed military confrontation between the two of them. So it's not just the sort of bigger U.S. Iran story. It's also connected to this long-running battle between Saudi and the Houthis. Right. I suppose the timing, though, to do it now, it sort of hits your wagon on what's already going on in Iran. I mean, is there a benefit to doing it now? Well, I mean, the impact of it is much, greater. We've already seen a number of oil tankers beyond these reports of the two Saudi tankers that were hit, a number of other tankers that turned around. They were sailing towards the Bebel Mandab and then Houthis announced disclosure and they made a U-turn and sailed

away from it. And that's why I think we've seen oil prices jump significantly over the past couple of days where they're now close to $100 a barrel. If you close Bebalmandub, you Saudi tankers cannot get out to the south. And then many of them, the biggest tankers, are too big to fit through the Suez Canal in the north. Now, you can offload oil to smaller ships or you can try to pipe it across the canal, but that adds time, that adds cost. So on top of the closure of Hormuz, having this other waterway shut would be a significant blow to global oil supplies. I suppose, too, just the threat itself is concerning for those ships. Are they turning around not because they've had direct attacks, but the threat is concerning.

And that's always the case. I mean, that's what we learned the last time the Houthis did this shortly after October 7th, when they announced they were imposing a blockade on shipping in solidarity with Palestinians in Gaza. And we've seen this in Hormuz as well. It's not like you have to attack every single vessel to enforce a blockade. You are not putting your own ships in the waterway and physically closing it. all you have to do is create a sense of risk. You make shippers and insurers believe that it might not be safe to use a particular waterway. Many of them are going to then decline to use it.

You talked about the volatile oil prices. What more do you expect in the coming days, given what we're learning about this sort of widening or perhaps independent war? Well, let's see when it comes to the Red Sea. Houthis have described this as only a blockade on Saudi shipping. And most of the tankers that call at Saudi ports to pick up oil are not actually Saudi-owned. They're owned by third countries. So will they actually limit these strikes to Saudi vessels, or will they do what they did last time? They imposed the blockade when they said it was only targeting Israeli ships, but really they were shooting at everything. So let's see just how widely they're going to cast their net, so to speak. And then in the Strait of Hormuz, we also have to

watch how many ships are able to get out using this southern Armani route through the strait. You do have some vessels that are trying to make that passage, turning off their transponders, running dark. Several of them have been attacked nonetheless by Iran. So how much oil is able to trickle out there despite the ongoing Iranian blockade? In between these two passageways, how much oil are we talking about? How critical are these two waterways to the global economy? So you normally have about 20% of the world's oil supply, 20 million barrels or so, but comes out of the Persian Gulf, comes out of the Arab countries in the Gulf and then Iran as well. Half of that, more or less, has been disrupted by the closure of the Strait of Hormuz. But what's been happening since February is Saudi Arabia has activated what they call the East-West pipeline, which brings oil from the oil.

oil fields on the eastern part of the country over to the ports on the West, on the Red Sea coast. And they've been using that to export about 7 million barrels a day. That's below the 10 to 11 million that they usually pump, but they were using that to get some oil out. If the Red Sea were indeed to be shut to tankers, you would see that number drop precipitously close to zero, most likely. And so at that point, it's not just the maybe 10 million barrels a day that's cut off through Hormuz, it's another 7 million on the Saudi side. It means really the only oil coming out of the Gulf is what the UAE can export via its bypass pipeline and then the small amount that Armand exports. What then are you keeping an eye on right now? I suppose you'll keep an eye on

whether or not that does shut down if the blockade works, but other things that you're watching. Well, I mean, on the American side, they seem to be building up forces in the region. Once again, you've had squadrons of fighter jets that have been sent to the Middle East. The U.S. has started using last night B-1 bombers, long-range bombers, flying from bases in Europe and carrying out strikes in Iran. And then there are reports of special operations troops being deployed to the region as well. So what is all of this going to be used for? We saw earlier this year is that when the U.S. sends lots of troops to the region, it tends to use them. So is there some sort of escalation that the Americans are planning?

Will the Israelis get involved? They have sat on the sidelines in this latest round of fighting, but I would imagine that's not going to last for too long. And then what happens between Saudi and the Houthis directly, aside from this naval blockade? Do we see renewed fighting in Yemen by Saudi proxies there? Do we see renewed Houthi attacks on Saudi infrastructure, which is something that they did a decade ago?

there are various places now in the region where it looks as if things might escalate. Okay. Greg Carlstrom, thank you very much for this. Thank you. Greg Carlstrom is the economist Middle East correspondent. Hi, Steve Patterson here, host of the debaters. And while I love a funny fight, there's one thing that's not up for debate. The Stratford Festival is world-class theater right here in Canada. Whether you're a fan of Shakespeare, musicals, or classics like Death of a Salesman or Waiting for Godot, there's no better time to experience Canadian talent and no better place to see it than the Stratford Festival.

So get your tickets now at straptfordfestable.ca and experience world-class performance the whole family can enjoy. You know, we even tape the debaters there once, so I guess we're world-class now. The firehose of news from America can feel like a lot these days. If you're trying to figure out what to make of it all, we got you. I'm Katie Simpson. And I'm Paul Hunter. We're correspondents here in Washington. working just around the corner from where much of the action is taking place. Two blocks from the White House. And that's the name of our new podcast.

For top-notch analysis of U.S. politics from a Canadian perspective, find two blocks from the White House every Wednesday, wherever you get your podcasts. Including YouTube. For more on what the Houthi announcement of a blockade means for the conflict in the Middle East, I'm joined now by Tomah Juno. He is a professor at the University of Ottawa's Graduate School of Public and Ineastern. international affairs. He's also an associate fellow with Chatham House and a non-resident fellow at the Yemen-focused think tank, the Sana'a Center for Strategic Studies, and he is in Ottawa.

Tomah, good morning. Good morning. Why do you think the Houthis are doing this now? Well, first, I think that Greg in your previous interview highlighted a lot of the really important points in terms of how we've gotten to where we're at now. What I would add, to answer specifically your question is I think that the Houthis, along with Iran, are basically perceiving a window of opportunity right now. Because the issue is not just why are they doing what they're doing, but why now? If you look at what's going on in the Persian Gulf, Iran perceives that it has won the war. Iran perceives that the U.S. has painted itself in a corner, that the U.S. has run out of viable options. It's not only unable to defeat the and overthrow the Islamic Republic, but the U.S. is even

unable to force the reopening of the Strait of Hormuz. And that's why. why we're seeing Iran on the offensive now in the Gulf to try to reshape the rules of the game in the Gulf to its own advantage to basically institutionalize. It's de facto control of the Strait of Hormuz. And I think what we are probably seeing now in the Babelmandab and the Southern Red Sea is the Houthis making the same calculus. Because they perceive that the U.S. is losing the war, that their ally Iran is winning the war, they want on their own side to institutionalize this reality of their own influence and control on who goes and who doesn't go through the Babelmandat. Do you believe they're doing this on their own volition or is there some pressure here from Iran?

I think the truth is probably somewhere in between. And to be fair, there's been a longstanding debate on the nature of the relationship between Iran and the Houthis. And different analysts have different views on that. There are some analysts who view the relationship as being very much top down in the sense that Iran. more or less tells the Houthis what to do. I don't really view it that way. In my view, yes, Iran, as Greg correctly said, Iran does provide a lot of military and financial and other support to the Houthis intelligence support as well. But the Houthis are quite powerful. They are very autonomous. They are fiercely independent. They are fiercely aggressively nationalist. And I just don't think that they take orders from anybody. I don't think that's how the relationship works. But the Houthis in Iran are very closely aligned. they share interests. There is a bit, but not a lot of daylight, between the two of them,

in terms of how they view the role of the U.S. and Israel and Saudi Arabia and the region. So my assumption here is that the Houthis in Iran are closely coordinating. They're working together, but it's not a matter of Iran telling the Houthis what to do. And do they have the capabilities? You said they're really powerful. Do they, to follow through on this threat and blockade the Red Sea? Yes, they do. And again, as Greg very correctly said in the previous interview, the blockade the southern entrance to the Red Sea, the Babelmandab, or the Strait of Hormuz by Iran, we've clearly seen in the past few months in the case of the Gulf and in the past few years in the case of the Red Sea that actors like Iran or the Houthis don't need to attack every single ship that go through. They only need to threaten. And that's enough to get a lot of ships to turn around and choose not to go. And they only need to to remind people of that threat on a regular basis as they do, and maybe every now and then actually attack a ship as they appear to have done on Wednesday. And so the Houthis absolutely

have the capability to do that. They are well-stocked in drones and missiles and naval mines. And they've also even developed in the past few years, basically an amphibious boarding capability where they've got a few helicopters and they've trained for this. They've done it a few times, they can actually board ships and take control and basically take the ships hostage. And so if they have their own interests, what ultimately do they want from Saudi Arabia? Well, the Houthi's overall objective, and this drives a lot of what they're doing, is to consolidate their power inside Yemen. They right now, as we speak, control about a third or of Yemen's area, so the northwest quadrant of the country, with about two-thirds of the population under

their control. They control the capital, but they don't control the rest of the country, which is governed loosely, but governed by an entity called the internationally recognized government of Yemen. And the Houthis are recognized only by Iran as the legitimate government of Yemen. The rest of the world, including Canada, recognizes the internationally recognized government. So in the long term, the Houthis objective is to consolidate their authority over Yemen and to eventually be recognized as at least de facto and eventually the legitimate government of the country. So a lot of what they do, whether pressuring Saudi Arabia, establishing their influence in the Red Sea, is often geared towards that goal. How do you think this piece of

the puzzle then escalates what we're seeing in the Iran War? Do we see this become a regional conflict? I mean, it sounds as though it's already going in that direction. Well, it's been a regional conflict since October 23. I think what we're seeing now is a new phase, but, you know, with the Gaza, you know, the Gaza war and the extension of that war to Lebanon, to Iran, to Yemen on and off, it's been very much a regional war for a good while now. I think that what we need, one of the many things we need to be watching in the coming hours and days and weeks is whether the U.S. and perhaps Israel jumps in against the Houthis. You know, when the Houthis started attacking shipping in the Red Sea in 2020 and 24. At first, the U.S. and the UK, starting in early 24,

struck back at the Houthis, but in a pretty timid way and in a cautious way, and it basically had no effect. But in 2025, the U.S. and Israel, in the spring and summer of 25, hit back at the Houthis very hard. They hit leadership, they hit key military installations, weapons stockpiles, and so on. And that probably did have an effect in terms of not fully but partially deterring the Houthis because it did impose a serious cost on them. So now the calculus on the U.S. side will be if we want to deter the Houthis, or at least try to deter the Houthis from doing this again, the only way to do that is to hit back hard.

So whether the U.S. will want to do that or not is going to be one of the key variables moving forward. You know, we're just seeing on the wires coming across just now that Trump says the U.S. will hold Iran responsible for Houthi attacks. And I'm curious what you make of that and what that suggests to you on what the next move from the U.S. will be. Well, I think there is a good chance that the U.S. will hit back at the Houthis, especially if it becomes clear as it started being on Wednesday that they are serious about the blockade on Saudi Arabia.

And, you know, one thing that's become clear in the past few months is how linked all of these theaters are. Remember a month ago when we were talking about the ceasefire, that has now obviously collapsed, but the ceasefire between the U.S. and Iran in around mid-June. Iran was insisting that Lebanon be involved in that ceasefire, whereas Israel was resisting. And the point on Iran's part was it's the same front, right? It's one front throughout the region, Iran, Lebanon. And now what we're seeing with what's going on in Yemen is that it is all one integrated war, where everything is linked.

So for the U.S. to say we're holding Iran responsible for what the Houthis are doing is just consistent with that logic that this is one war where everything is mixed. What does all of this mean for the Yemeni people? And we know this is a country where we're seeing some of the world's worst humanitarian crises take place. What do you think this spells for them? Well, it only spells bad news. And I think it's good that you ask the question because we tend to forget a lot about the Iranian people, the Lebanese people, others, you know, civilian victims of war. In the case of Yemen, as you say, because not only of the war that started in 2014 when the Houthis took the capital, Sana'a,

2015 when Saudi Arabia intervened, but even before that, the country had been going through years and decades of instability, we government, periods of war and insurgency in different parts of the country. Yemen was before this war, the poorest country in the Arab world. And since then, it's become, as you said, one of the worst humanitarian crises in the world. More than two-thirds of the population is in need of humanitarian assistance, and in most cases is not getting it. The health and education systems, which were already very weak, have been completely destroyed. Just to give you an example, there was a massive cholera epidemic with more than a million cases just a few years ago. And I could go on with a whole list of other

indicators. So what's going on right now is just telling us that the situation in Yemen is from a humanitarian perspective is going to get worse before it even gets better. And so ultimately, what's at stake here for the people in Yemen and the region if tensions in the Red Sea continue to rise? Well, what's at stake for the people of Yemen is the future governance of the country. Like we said a few minutes ago, the Houthi's objective is to consolidate and institutionalize their control over Yemen as much as possible. Their main adversary, which is a loose coalition of anti-Houthi forces, the internationally recognized

government is weak, it's fragmented, it's not perceived as legitimate by a significant proportion of the Yemeni population. And that's always been a major problem. I mean, you know, we talked a lot about how the Houthis have received Iranian support. And that's been key in the Houthis rise as a regional power in just a few years. But the other half of the story of why the Houthis have been so successful is that their adversaries have been so weak. And that's been constantly the challenge. And one of the many failures of the Saudi intervention in Yemen for 11 years now has been their systematic inability, their consistent inability, to really build up a unified anti-Houthi front. And there has been renewed efforts on the Saudi side recently, but it has still

not been a success. Just before you go, and we only have about 30 seconds, but I am curious, having these two waterways, these threats lingering and persistently being over top of them, how does that change how we think about global choke points just like these? Well, very briefly, the Iranian and Houthi strategy is very clear. It's to recognize the absolute critical importance of these global choke points on the global economy and an understanding, a confirmation in the recent war in the Gulf and now in the Red Sea, that four actors like Iran and the Houthis, the ability to close, not necessarily control, but the ability to shut down these global choke points is not only not that hard. It's cost effective and it provides them with tremendously. leverage. Okay. Tamajuno, thank you very much for this. Thank you. Tomajuno is a professor at the University of Ottawa's Graduate School of Public and International Affairs. He's also an associate fellow with Chatham House and a non-resident fellow at the Yemen-focused think tank, the Sanae Center for Strategic Studies, and he was in Ottawa.

You've been listening to the current podcast. My name is Matt Galloway. Thanks for listening. I'll talk to you soon. For more CBC podcasts, go to cBC.ca.ca slash podcasts.