I believe the Houthi escalation against Saudi Arabia carries an Iranian wager on the days left before the American midterm elections. Striking airports and threatening oil installations cannot be explained by the Yemeni conflict alone. Someone wants the cost of these attacks to reach the American voter's pocket, so that he walks into the polling station angry and hands the Republicans' opponents a majority that will constrain the president for the rest of his term. More than one official in Tehran has repeated that if Iran cannot export its oil, no one in the region will. That is clear evidence.
The elections fall on November 3, less than three weeks away, at the midpoint of the presidency. Voters renew all 435 seats in the House of Representatives and about a third of the Senate. They do not choose a president, but they decide whether he governs with a supportive majority or a hostile one. Losing the majority would obstruct his legislation and spending, though not his powers in foreign policy.
Energy is the crux. An American who pays more for gasoline and for his daily needs will not read the details of the Middle East conflict. He will hold his government to account. That is what Tehran is counting on: cut supplies, prices rise; the governing party weakens; the governing party weakens, Tehran buys time. It is a tempting calculation for those used to reading events as they wish, in the service of their own project.
The Kingdom is a principal target in that calculation. It is the region's largest oil exporter, and its East-West pipeline carries oil to the Red Sea ports, bypassing the Strait of Hormuz. The UAE has a second outlet through Fujairah. But the sheer volume of Saudi supply gives it special weight in covering shortfalls. Whoever strikes its installations wants to disable that role, and make consumers pay for his threat to the sea lanes.
This explains why the attack on Saudi Arabia coincided with the Houthi attempt to tighten their grip on Bab al-Mandab. When the threat to Hormuz lost some of its force, control of Bab al-Mandab became the requirement. When that failed, and the chances of disrupting navigation in the southern Red Sea receded, the Houthis- and, reportedly, the Iranian weapons experts and Hezbollah members with them- turned on the Kingdom, which keeps the world's oil flowing, and struck its civilian institutions.
The Houthis play their part in this equation, and they have their own ambitions in Yemen. But what guarantees that Tehran will stand by them once it is offered a deal that lets it survive? Nothing. I fear they will learn too late that weapons from Tehran do not make them a partner in its decisions. Tehran's need for them may end, and Yemenis will be left alone with the ruin their adventures have brought.
Trump, for his part, has tried to ease the cost of these final weeks. He has announced arrangements on Russian energy and increased diesel supplies, which I read as an attempt to calm the market before Americans vote. Success depends on fast implementation and on the shipments actually arriving. An announced agreement does not lower the price at the pump the next morning, but the electoral motive behind the haste is clear enough.
What Tehran's calculation misses is that a Republican loss, if it comes, is not a victory for Tehran. A president constrained at home by an opposition majority can still act broadly abroad. The Democrats may disagree with him on how to deal with Iran without accepting its blackmail of the world. Calling him a "lame duck" flattens a more complex reality, and offers Iran's leaders a reassurance that rests on nothing.
Nor are American voters the only ones paying for the threat to energy. Industrial states, developing economies, and consumers far from the region all bear the cost. I do not say the world has agreed to bring down the Iranian regime. I do say that the wider the damage, the costlier any leniency toward Iran's conduct becomes. An escalation meant to divide its adversaries may end by drawing them together and widening joint action against it.
The Houthis, in my view, have made two mistakes: attacking the Kingdom, and threatening Bab al-Mandab. The first targets a state with broad interests and partnerships. The second touches a passage the world needs. Together they widen the confrontation and make the Houthi danger harder to ignore. They may score a military hit here or there, but the hits hide from their supporters what this adventure will cost them.
Yemenis rid themselves of the imamate more than half a century ago, and they have the right to a state that grants no group a divine mandate to rule. Yemeni resistance to this project is broad, even if divisions have weakened it. Supporting Yemen means gathering the forces that reject the coup around a state and citizenship, rather than leaving them to quarrel while the Houthis impose themselves by force. The quarrel with this project is about the right of states to stability, the right of their peoples to development, and every Yemeni's right to a school, a hospital, and a job.
We in the Gulf cannot afford to wait for Tehran's mistakes. The Kingdom's security is the security of all of us, and protecting its installations and sea lanes is a direct Gulf interest. That requires serious defense coordination, political work that brings allies together, and media that explain plainly what is happening. Our preparedness should not hinge on who wins in Washington. The elections are America's business. Protecting our societies and our development is ours, and we will do it with our friends, starting with ourselves.
Last word: the results of the American elections may change, but Tehran's predicament runs deeper than a ballot box.
