Terror in the Gate of Tears

MARY REICHARD, HOST: It’s Thursday the 21st of December, 2023.

Glad to have you along for today’s edition of The World and Everything in It. Good morning, I’m Mary Reichard.

MYRNA BROWN, HOST: And I’m Myrna Brown. Up first: mayhem in the Middle East.

SOUND: [Voices shouting in Arabic]

That’s the sound of Houthi rebels from Yemen hijacking a ship near the Red Sea. The Iran-backed terrorist group released the video back in November, and since then they’ve launched missile and drone attacks against about a dozen commercial and military vessels in a region called Bab el-Mandeb. That’s “the gate of tears” in English.

REICHARD: On Monday this week, the U.S. military announced it would lead a multi-national taskforce to protect commercial shipping through the Suez Canal…But some shipping companies have decided to take the longer route around the Cape of Good Hope in Africa to avoid the risk of rebel attacks.

Joining us now to talk about these attacks is Benham Ben Taleblu. He’s a senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, where he specializes in Iranian security and political issues.

BROWN: Benham, good morning to you.

TALEBLU: Good morning, great to be with you.

BROWN: Well let’s start with some context. Who are the Houthis, and what distinguishes them from other terrorist groups supported by Iran in the region?

TALEBLU: The Houthis are the latest or newest member, I should say, to this axis of resistance, you know, the Houthis have been around as as a people and as a movement, long before there ever was an Islamic Republic. But this represents one of those successful instances, kind of like Hamas as well, which is a terrorist group, a Palestinian rejectionist group, an Islamist group that through sustained political and material support, the Islamic Republic of Iran was able to co-opt towards its side. And through relatively low cost investments, the Islamic Republic was able to get a foothold on the southern part of the Arabian Peninsula. The Houthis overtook the capital there in 2014-2015, contested and ultimately, in my view, sadly, beat Saudi and UAE and Arab state-led coalition, and through Iran's provision of the key long range strike capabilities like ballistic missiles, cruise missiles and suicide drones have been able to punch well above their weight, both on land against the Saudis and the Emiratis, as well as increasingly at sea. And just because the Houthis are the latest elements of this act of resistance doesn't mean they're anywhere as less lethal. In fact, the capabilities that the Houthis have today are capabilities that Iran's oldest proxy, the Badr Group in Iraq, or its most successfully styled-proxy Hezbollah in Lebanon, they do not have the capabilities that the Houthis have today. And that's important to keep in mind.

BROWN: Yeah, given that context, it’s kind of surprising that global trade hasn’t been more affected before now. For a bit of geography, the Indian Ocean connects to the Mediterranean via the Red Sea and the Suez Canal. But to get to the Red Sea, ships have to go through a stretch of water between Yemen and Djibouti that’s just 16 miles across at its narrowest point.

If the Houthis decide to make these attacks part of their long-term strategy, what will the consequences likely be? And I’m talking both economically and militarily.

TALEBLU: It depends how long the Houthis decide to make this an element of their strategy, which is ultimately going to be brought to you by both political factors. Again, this is something that they've threatened to do in the past, but they've been able to actually execute because of a certain capability, meaning that they have these anti-ship ballistic missiles, they have these anti ship cruise missiles, as well as the desired political aim to use them towards. So the Houthis, as you may remember, in 2016, if I'm not mistaken, did fire anti-ship cruise missiles that a U.S. warship, but the U.S. responded and there was basically a downturn in the willingness of the Houthis to continue to be that robust, you know, maritime threat. But what we're seeing in real time, and that's really the time horizon that you you mentioned, is the Islamic Republic is exporting its anti-access/area denial capabilities, as well as its maritime harassment capabilities from the Persian Gulf and strait of Hormuz, where Iran has long been able to threaten commercial traffic, and much more oil passes through the Strait of Hormuz in the Persian Gulf than does the Red Sea and Bab el-Mandeb. But nonetheless, both are critical choke points in the global trade. And in the very, very short term, even some of these more sporadic attacks are designed to increase insurance premiums for ships that do end up traversing the Red Sea. And for those that don't and take more time, well, they'll need more fuel because they'll be going around the Cape of Good Hope to get into the Mediterranean or to go into the Atlantic. And in either way, time and more fuel equals more money. Greater insurance premiums mean more money, which means these costs are transposed onto the consumer, which increases the cause of continued global trade. And the Islamic Republic is doing this to activate economic fronts against Israel and against America even for continuing to support Israel, and in this way, tried to effectuate a blockade. So this stuff that is sporadic is even having an economic effect. The question is in the face of this new U.S. maritime security construct that is multinational, thankfully in the Red Sea, that is designed to help defend freedom of navigation in the global commons and global trade, how resolute Will these be when they see more assets, engaging in detection and deterrence by denial? My personal view is so long as there is no deterrence by punishment from the ships from these vessels from this more robust military infrastructure in the region, these threats are likely to continue and we're likely going to see more follow on economic effects of these threats being implemented.

BROWN: How has the US responded to these new attacks so far, alright, and what else might we see in the days ahead?

TALEBLU: The latest spate of interceptions have not just been U.S. alone, I think this weekend or last weekend, even a French vessel intercepted a Houthi suicide drone. So even prior to the creation of this new multinational task force, there are foreign vessels engaging in these kinds of deterrence by denial, meaning they're firing capabilities at aerial threats Iran's proxies are firing that are going towards ships. So there's been lots of deterrence by denial, you may see more chases, you may potentially see some escorting you saw this at the end of the Iran-Iraq war in a period that we call the tanker war. The real outsized question of this entire maritime security construct is, will they engage in deterrence by punishment? Will they respond militarily to the point of origin of these drone strikes of these missile strikes? Will they do something to erode the anti-ship capabilities of the Houthis, so even if the Houthis have an intent to continue to impede global shipping, they may not have the capability to carry that out beyond the short term?

BROWN: Benham Ben Taleblu is a Senior Fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies. Thank you for your time and expertise, Benham!

TALEBLU: Thank you.

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