From a poster over at the NYT online site:
There is a very important reason why the US is involved in Yemen. The world in general would be much more expensive if maritime transport had to go around Africa instead of through the Red Sea and Suez Canal. Look at a map of where Yemen is. Now remember that Somalia is already a failed state harassing worldwide shipping.
The US will get out of Yemen when you can fit a supermax container vessel’s cargo capacity in a giant airplane. Don’t hold your breath.
The Mandab Strait. 3.3 million tanker barrels per day out of 43 million world wide. Of course that is just oil. The Persians appear to have a well thought out battle plan. The Houti and Iranian forces will drive up the eastern side of a mountain ridge that travels along the eastern Red Sea coastline. Ship bombardment won’t work. We will probably have to park an operational carrier in the Red Sea to hit the eastern side of the ridge.
And if Iran can close both the Straits of Hormuz AND the Bab el Mandeb, they can choke off the flow of oil from Kuwait, Saudi, the UAE and Iraq....
I do remember concern in the 1980s over Iran and shipping. This is same issue here, you re right.