Will the U.S. Strike the Houthis For Saudi Arabia? | EYES ON GEOPOLITICS

dee takos (0:00)

Hey everybody, welcome to another episode of Eyes On Geopolitics. I'm here with Jonathan Hackett, Marc Palamiropoulos, Mick Mulroy, and Andy Milburn will be joining us shortly. A lot cooking, a lot of things blowing up. It seems like, what's that saying about things that happen? Like nothing happens for 10 years and then something happens. I don't know, I'm fucking up the phrase, but you guys can look it up. But a lot of things, and within a week, 10 years of things happen, it's something to that effect, don't hold me to it. We had yesterday, Twitter was a light of, Trump was at Camp David, and it's been kind of a pattern. He goes to Camp David to make big decisions on attacking different countries or not. He got back early, so Twitter was buzzing. They thought a B1B that flew out of UK was on its way to Yemen or Iran, maybe, who knows? It was a training exercise. There was so much, just people freaking out on Twitter. It's an amazing place, and it's also a scary place because things can really get out of hand there. The big thing is the Houthis have been attacking Saudi Arabia consistently, probably over the last week.

The big debate is whether the US is going to help Saudi Arabia defend itself, jump in the fray with it, essentially. Let's start with that, because there's so much other stuff, too. We have the European people freaking out in Europe, people meaning like the National Security Establishment in Europe about Intel supposedly saying that Russia will try and at least probe or do something with a NATO country to test out the Article 5 There's also rumors in Russia about a mobilization. I think that might be getting mixed into this as well. I mean, we obviously see what's going on in Ukraine. They're barely making any kind of headway there. So if they're going to mobilize, I think anyway, they're going to mobilize for Ukraine specifically.

That coupled with a couple weeks ago, John Ratcliffe rolled up to Moscow and gave, I don't know what they did. They had a three-hour meeting and he left and there was a ton of speculation about that as well. I mean, so it's just a myriad of shit happening. Your Ukraine shot over like over a thousand missiles over the like the last few days into Russia, have hit in and around Moscow. So big refineries and stuff like that. So also while the Duma is being elected, the fake parliament that Russia has essentially is having their elections. So there's a ton of stuff happening. Let's start with the Houthis. And will we attack them in response and defense of Saudi Arabia?

I'm gonna go with Mick Mulroy first. New grandpa, congratulations.

Mick Mulroy (2:41)

I'll go with Andy because he's like in the mix. I guess I'm a new grandpa.

Wow, yes, there's a ton of stuff to talk about. When it comes to Iran and its offshoot, the Houthis versus Saudi, we have a ceasefire agreement with the Houthis, the US. At least from media reports, that was affirmed last week in Oman. The reporting is that the US talked to the Houthis and requested that they not close the Bab al-Mandab, which they are now in better position to do so than they were a couple weeks ago because they have taken over some of the key islands around the Strait itself and position themselves to do more damage. So the question for the US is do we join militarily the Saudis and potentially rupture that agreement where they do more than just strike the petrol line from Abqaiq to what's the coastal facility, I guess, I don't know.

And whether they do more than just attack the ships, the Saudi ships that are trying to get through the BAM. They go after every ship. So they do that. So you've got 21% of the world's energy supply in the Strait of Hormuz, which is effectively closed. And I don't know the ones, I don't understand the transponder. They turn them off because they're eventually going to turn them back on. So I think the tracking systems would still see that a ship that was in one side is now somewhere else, right? So they could be able to keep up with the ships getting through. So the tracking systems are at about four to five ships right now, when it should be around 30 And then the petrol line, which is going to take weeks to be repaired, and they could get struck again, is seven percent, so now up to 28 percent. And then if you add the shipments to the BAM, we're talking serious problems. And I would agree with you, D, on the Twitter was flying yesterday, not just on the prospects of us attacking either Iran or the Houthis, but what's happening to the world energy market right now. Even if it's only partially true what's being said on the, all over social media, we're about to hit some major shortages of, especially diesel, around the world. And it's going to have a major spike on prices, not just for the energy to put in our vehicles, but also everything we purchase. So this is about to go, I think, substantially more pressing right at the time. Of course, politically, we're going into the last five weeks before the election.