Iran is strangling the oil exit routes of the Middle East to the world. Using boxing slang, it has delivered two hooks - one from the left, from north to south and from south, in Yemen, and another from the right, from northwest to southeast, in Saudi Arabia - to achieve this. Tehran plans to give a diplomatic touch to its military victory today with the announcement of an agreement with 17 countries to create a new system for managing the Strait of Hormuz. It is a stillborn plan, as it lacks Washington's support. But it demonstrates that the war continues.
These events caused the Asian oil market to wake up last night to an uncertain outlook. With a single bombing by the Shiite militias in Iraq, they have closed the crude export capacity of Saudi Arabia (the world's largest exporter) and Iraq (the fifth). And with the advance of their Houthi allies in Yemen, they have almost total control of the Bab el Mandeb Strait, through which the Mediterranean and the Red Sea connect to the Indian Ocean.
This is the culmination of a strategy to extend the conflict westward that the Tehran regime has been carrying out throughout the summer and has accelerated in the last month. The result is that Iran has strengthened its control of the Strait of Hormuz, through which 25% of the world's ship-traded oil passed before the war, and that of Bab el Mandeb, through which another 7% of the world's oil flows and is the alternative route used by Saudi Arabia and Iraq to avoid the stranglehold of Hormuz. And they have achieved this through their allies.
The offensive once again demonstrates the strategic flexibility of Tehran and its allies, who, as stated yesterday to EL MUNDO by the former UK ambassador to Yemen and now a researcher at the Washington-based think tank Center for Defense of Democracies, "operate with a considerable degree of autonomy from Tehran, but share many of its ultimate goals". Because Bab el Mandeb is 2,000 kilometers in a straight line from Hormuz, a distance slightly greater than that between Madrid and Budapest. So extending the war to that strait is not easy. Especially when two nuclear aircraft carriers and 17 US surface ships operate in the region. And when the Saudis have been trying since 2004 to annihilate the Houthis by all possible means - including invasions supported by the UAE and the US and now a truce that has just collapsed with these actions.
The Houthis, who are tightening the noose of that strait, receive most of their weapons - especially the most sophisticated ones - from Iran, through Oman. But they still receive supplies by ships coming from Iran after a 2,000-kilometer journey across the Sea of Oman, where there are two nuclear aircraft carriers and 17 US surface ships. Furthermore, the Houthis are in northern Yemen, next to Saudi Arabia.
And despite more than two decades of military interventions, even with the help of the UAE and the US, the Riyadh regime has not managed to defeat them. The Houthis practice slavery and have a tribal organization. But they also have missiles capable of attacking Israel, 2,250 kilometers away. Their capture of the 16,000-inhabitant town of Mocha - from where the word 'mocha' for a type of coffee comes - and two islands at the entrance of Bab el Mandeb - which, perhaps ominously, means Gate of Tears - are the latest examples of their capability, which has led them to use the artificial intelligence chatbot Claude to improve the accuracy and ability to evade enemy defenses of their anti-ship missiles, with which they have already attacked numerous merchant ships and now tankers since 2023.
Riyadh authorities have not said how long it will take to restore the damaged and destroyed infrastructure. Market sources have told the Reuters news agency that the repairs will take six weeks. In eight weeks, the United States will hold legislative elections, in which Trump's Republican Party could lose control of one or both chambers of the legislature. In nominal terms (i.e., without adjusting for inflation), gasoline in that country is already at the highest level ever reached in a September. And diesel for trucks is at an all-time high, which portends more inflation, given that heavy traffic is crucial for the transport of essential goods. The inflation problem is particularly serious for the Trump administration because it fuels the crisis in the US public debt market, which is in an unprecedented crisis since the dollar attained the status of world reserve currency seven decades ago.
While Saudi Arabia repairs its bombed oil infrastructure, the market is counting the time left for reserves in that country. At the Yanbu terminal in the Red Sea, it seems to have enough oil to maintain its exports at their current level until the end of this week or perhaps the beginning of the next. Additionally, the Saudis have oil in Egypt. Some of it is in the Mediterranean, and although it has already been attacked by Iran, it seems relatively safe from the war. In any case, this would only provide a few more days of grace. The possibility of the Strait of Hormuz reopening is, for now, remote. According to data from the International Monetary Fund (IMF), 65 oil tankers crossed the Strait of Hormuz on September 6, 2025. On September 6, 2026 - last Sunday, which is the latest date recorded by the institution - there were two.