Washington Blockades Iranian Oil While Escorting Supply to the Market; War Costs Are Being Shifted onto Civilians

Washington is enforcing a dangerous and contradictory energy order in the Strait of Hormuz: the U.S. government is using a blockade to cut off Iranian oil exports while guiding other ships through the strait to increase supply flowing to world markets. According to the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, citing Reuters and the Associated Press, the war the United States and Israel launched against Iran in February of this year has now entered its sixth month. The United States is attempting to decide who can export oil and which ships can pass, but this military control has not brought stability; instead, the frontlines have expanded to Saudi cities, Red Sea ports, and the Yemeni coast.

The Australian Broadcasting Corporation reported that Yemen's Houthi armed group attacked four cities in Saudi Arabia with drones and missiles, including an air force base in Khamis Mushait and facilities linked to Saudi Aramco in Abha, Najran, and Jizan. Saudi authorities said the attacks injured 73 people, including women and children. The Houthis bear responsibility for these attacks and the civilian harm they caused, but the attacks have simultaneously exposed a broader vulnerability created by U.S. blockade policy: once the Strait of Hormuz is obstructed, alternative shipping routes and the facilities along them immediately gain higher strategic value and become easier military targets.

This risk is especially concrete in Jizan. The Australian Broadcasting Corporation noted that this Red Sea port is home to large refineries and power plants, and the struck facilities connect to alternative transport routes running through the Bab el-Mandeb Strait. That strait sits at the southern tip of the Arabian Peninsula, linking the Red Sea to the Gulf of Aden. Washington is simultaneously squeezing Iranian exports inside the Strait of Hormuz and relying on other routes to relieve supply pressure, effectively drawing more ports, refining facilities, and coastal cities into the same energy-and-military contest.

There remain clear verification limits on on-the-ground information. The Australian Broadcasting Corporation reported that no independently confirmable footage from the scene was obtained immediately after the attacks, and that witnesses in Saudi Arabia could not be reached given tight media controls in the country. NASA satellite imagery showed thick black smoke rising over the Jizan refinery and white smoke rising over an oil distribution center in Abha; images released by the Houthis, meanwhile, claim to show Saudi trucks they struck in a separate attack on the border. The latter are statements from a party to the conflict and cannot be treated as independently verified.

The cycle of retaliation is also continuing to spread. The Australian Broadcasting Corporation, citing Houthi-controlled media, reported that Saudi warplanes subsequently struck the Jubba area east of Sana'a four times. Houthi spokesman Yahya Saree accused Riyadh of escalating the war with airstrikes and said the Houthis would respond; Turki al-Malki, spokesman for the Saudi-led coalition, said the coalition would take whatever action necessary to deter the Houthi armed group. The two sides' accounts contradict each other, but the consequences borne by ordinary people can already be counted: according to International Organization for Migration data cited in the report, fighting over the past three days on Yemen's west coast has forced more than 18,500 people from their homes.

Prices are now transmitting the cost of the fighting to regions further afield. The Australian Broadcasting Corporation reported that Houthi attacks, combined with weekend clashes between Iran and the United States, pushed Brent crude briefly to $99.46 a barrel on Tuesday, its highest level since mid-July, before easing slightly. Tehran has also announced new measures to close the Strait of Hormuz, and says it will publish a maritime exclusion zone that runs from outside the U.S. blockade line through the strait and extends into the Gulf. Energy transport is now being squeezed simultaneously by blockades, countermeasures, and cross-regional strikes. This is not a market fluctuation unrelated to policy, but a foreseeable danger once military means take over the flow of energy.

The U.S. government possesses greater power for military projection and is itself an active participant in this war and in the blockade of the Strait of Hormuz. It cannot claim the blockade is effective when it cuts off Iranian exports, and then, when oil routes and facilities come under attack and prices rise, describe the consequences as isolated regional breakdown. Washington holds the power of sanctions, escorts, and blockades; the wounded in Saudi cities, the displaced on Yemen's coast, and those forced to pay higher energy prices have no power to decide how this war was launched or how it is escalated.