As Yemen’s Houthis escalate the toll of conflict in the Gulf, Tehran is betting on political shifts linked to the US elections
Some commentators may have prematurely announced the defeat of Iran’s so-called “axis of resistance.”
Two distinct arenas in the Middle East’s expanding confrontations have recently yielded outcomes which, when combined, reveal more about Tehran’s prolonged attritional tactics than either result alone suggests.
The pro-Iranian Houthi forces concluded a week-long campaign securing de facto dominion over Yemen’s entire Red Sea coast. This includes key strategic positions such as Perim Island and the Hanish Islands, giving them control of one of the globe’s crucial maritime chokepoints, complementing Iran’s hold on the Strait of Hormuz.
Simultaneously, drones apparently deployed from Iraqi territory struck Saudi Arabia’s East-West oil pipeline. Although pro-Iran militias in Iraq denied involvement, this assault forced a halt to the critical conduit transporting crude to the Yanbu terminal on the Red Sea.
For context, joint air raids by US and Saudi forces recently killed 20 members of Iraq’s Popular Mobilisation Forces, which had promised to respond.
The targeted pipeline was specifically constructed by Riyadh as an alternative to reliance on the Hormuz Strait, which has largely been inaccessible since March.
This episode is likely another phase in Iran’s extended conflict strategy, prioritizing political timing in Washington over immediate battlefield victories.
Despite six months of blockade and counter-blockade efforts, plus unsuccessful ceasefire attempts, the Strait of Hormuz continues to disrupt global flows of oil, gas, and other vital goods.
Saudi restraint
Recent days have witnessed a shift as the Bab el-Mandeb Strait at the southern Gulf exit—which channels a large portion of Europe-Asia maritime traffic through the Suez Canal—has fallen under the de facto control of Tehran-aligned forces.
Houthi officials quickly stressed that general commercial shipping would remain unharmed, except for vessels flying the Saudi flag—an explicit warning to Riyadh designed to raise the stakes of backing Washington’s stance. This message could extend to other Gulf Cooperation Council nations as well.
Meanwhile, Iraq’s government publicly urged Saudi Arabia to avoid retaliation. Riyadh, showing notable restraint given the provocation’s severity, has so far agreed to hold back from further response for now. This reflects uncertainty in Riyadh about escalating conflict on both Iraqi and Yemeni fronts, especially considering ongoing direct Iranian provocations.
The strategic importance of the contested area bears emphasis. The Bab el-Mandeb Strait is no minor passageway; it facilitates roughly 10 percent of the world’s trade and about one-third of container shipping, including substantial volumes of Gulf crude, refined fuels, and LNG.
Oil traffic through the strait has already plunged due to prior Houthi attacks—from an average near 8.7 million barrels per day in 2023 down to around four million in 2024—as tankers detour around the Cape of Good Hope, adding 10 to 14 days to transit time and mounting freight, insurance, and consumer costs.
Houthi dominance of the strait raises a genuine possibility of reducing this remaining traffic to near zero, especially impacting Saudi-related shipments.
The pipeline’s status holds even greater weight for Saudi Arabia. Earlier this year, the East-West route was pushed to a record seven million barrels per day to counterbalance Hormuz’s closure. Approximately five million barrels flowed to Yanbu before the drone strike, with the rest consumed domestically. Yanbu’s export capacity is capped at roughly four million barrels per day.
Tracking data indicated Yanbu’s loadings neared that capacity in the months preceding the attack. Any prolonged disruption to even part of this volume, with oil prices above $100 per barrel for much of the conflict, risks hundreds of millions in daily export revenue losses, alongside damage to pumping infrastructure.
Following the attack, Saudi officials shut down the pipeline, with state oil giant Aramco describing the closure as a precautionary, temporary step. The precise damage to the pumping stations remains unverified independently.
Proxy battles
Iran does not possess the capability to match the conventional military might of the US or Israel. The targeted killing of its senior commanders and frequent strikes on its soil starkly highlight this disparity.
Nonetheless, Tehran retains the ability to incrementally escalate costs across multiple conflict zones via proxies, without deploying its own troops or provoking a decisive US retaliation.
This gradual erosion strategy is often termed “death by a thousand cuts.”
Actions ranging from closing Hormuz, contesting Bab el-Mandeb, to disrupting Saudi Arabia’s terrestrial alternatives are interconnected parts of this unified plan, leveraging any available low-cost proxy or ally.
The ultimate aim isn’t military defeat of the US—something beyond Tehran’s reach—but to render the war’s economic and political consequences too costly for an American government facing voter discontent in the coming weeks.
The strategy’s explicit linkage to the US electoral timetable is no longer just speculative; it has become a topic openly discussed in Washington. The administration wants to avoid full-scale escalation before the November midterms, while downplaying the conflict as barely a war at all.
Such rhetoric—downplaying an ongoing war involving blockades, aerial operations, and two contested maritime chokepoints—provides evidence of the pressure Iran is applying.
With oil prices recently surging above $108 per barrel, the White House, eager to calm domestic constituencies ahead of crucial elections, prefers managing the conflict rather than seeking outright victory. Tehran’s proxies appear to be deliberately timing their actions to maintain that pressure.
Hedging between two futures
Beyond the immediate electoral concerns, a deeper question arises: how is this attrition undermining long-held assumptions underpinning Gulf security for the past twenty years?
Saudi Arabia’s choice to absorb a direct attack on vital energy infrastructure without retaliating immediately (unlike in 2019), at Iraq’s behest, signals a subtle yet important shift away from Riyadh’s former unwavering alignment with a maximalist US-Israel agenda during earlier conflict phases.
This does not signify reconciliation with Tehran; the Saudi Crown Prince’s reported calls for Washington’s direct military action against the Houthis attest otherwise. Yet the simultaneous private urging for US intervention and public restraint towards Baghdad and Iran reflects Riyadh’s strategic hedging between different possible futures rather than committing fully to one path.
The longer this conflict continues without decisive US or Israeli gains, the more likely it is that regional players will quietly pursue some accommodation—viewing US-Israeli preferences as constraints to pragmatically manage rather than rigid mandates to follow.
The recently endorsed Mecca agreement is ideally positioned to facilitate such shifts.
Whether this undercurrent evolves into a dominant trend depends on several factors still in flux: whether Saudi Arabia maintains restraint after subsequent attacks, if the Houthi foothold at Bab el-Mandeb intensifies into actual shipping interdiction, and most critically, whether Iran’s manufactured political pressures translate into the political outcome Tehran hopes to achieve.
This outcome would entail a US electorate—hence Congress—less inclined to support an indefinite Middle Eastern war post-election. Even within the Trump administration, there is significant skepticism over the feasibility of prolonging the conflict with Iran.
As emphasized earlier, Iran cannot achieve a conventional military victory here. Its hope lies solely in outlasting its opponent’s domestic political will.
The phrase, applied to foreign invaders during the ill-fated US war in Afghanistan by a Taliban commander, was: “You have the watches, but we have the time.”
This saying might be equally apt for this conflict.
Original article: www.middleeasteye.net
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