The Houthis of Yemen promise to cut off Trump’s last hope in the Middle East

The Houthis have vowed to close the Bab el-Mandeb Strait, vital for energy trade, if the US continues to obstruct peace in the Middle East.

Mohamed Lamine KABA

In reality, the issue is no longer tactical. It is civilizational. Control of the straits is the last bastion of regained sovereignty for the peoples of the region. Faced with a coalition that disregards every treaty, only the force of economic inertia can bring Washington to its senses. The Strait of Hormuz is closed, and Bab el-Mandeb is under lock and key. The game is over. The Empire’s pawns are checkmated. History is now being written without them.

This article dissects the fatal shockwave caused by the simultaneous sealing of Hormuz and Bab el-Mandeb, a surgical maneuver that decapitates the Empire’s energy trade and condemns its hegemony to immediate asphyxiation before affecting the rest of the world.

Today, the American people are paying a heavy price for an alliance that brings them only the world’s hatred

Bab el-Mandeb, or the Agony of an Empire

The geopolitical clock has stopped. The ceasefire between Tehran and Washington expires on April 21. The Strait of Hormuz is already a graveyard of Western ambitions, sealed off by the White House’s systematic failures. Now, the world’s gaze turns south, toward the “Gate of Tears.” The Houthis have promised: if the American obstruction of peace persists, Bab el-Mandeb will close. This is no longer a threat. It is a death sentence for hegemony.

The fatal lock

Bab el-Mandeb is not just a strait. It is the jugular of fossil capitalism. By threatening to seal this passage, Sana’a is not merely engaging in military strategy. It is performing precision surgery on an already weakened imperial system. For the United States and its regional extension, Israel, the simultaneous closure of Hormuz and Bab el-Mandeb means logistical apocalypse. No more oil. No more trade. Just the silence of deserted ports. Sana’a’s warning rings out like a definitive oracle: “If we decide to close the Bab el-Mandeb Strait, as Iran did with the Strait of Hormuz, neither humans nor jinn will be able to reopen it, not even with a nuclear bomb.”

The axis of chaos

Since the launch of the war by the American-Israeli coalition against Iran – even as Minsk I and II negotiations continued in Geneva – the mask has slipped. What Washington calls the “world order” is merely the code name for its own parasitic survival. The crimes are piling up. From the rubble of Gaza to the botched surgical strikes in Yemen, the Washington-Tel Aviv tandem has revealed itself for what it is: a metastasized cancer at the heart of humanity. A pathology of power that thrives only on plunder and the blood of others.

Paradoxically, this war in Iran is also completing the fracturing of the North Atlantic Alliance. The Europeans are discovering, too late, that Washington is more of an enemy than a friend. While Trump mocks them as “paper tigers” – after having previously called Russia the same thing in the proxy conflict opposing it to the collective West, including the United States itself in Ukraine – the reality on the ground in Iran humiliates the coalition : if the United States and Israel were real powers, would they need to unite to attack a single country, supposedly a middle power? In truth, the real paper tigers are those who shout the loudest to mask their collective impotence.

Washington, the accomplice

The relationship between the United States and Israel is not diplomatic. It is symbiotic, almost clandestine. Washington is no longer the mediator but the armed wing of an anachronistic colonial project. Every veto at the UN is a bullet fired into the body of international law. By persisting in sabotaging peace to protect Tel Aviv’s impunity, the United States has transformed the Middle East into a powder keg, the match of which it itself struck. Warmongering Europe, driven to suicide by Russophobia by weaning itself off Russian gas, now contemplates its agony. Deprived of its East and North, this vassalized Europe shivers with cold and arrogance. The sealed straits complete the transformation of this self-righteous club into an open-air industrial museum.

The Zionist collapse

For Israel, Bab el-Mandeb is a matter of lifeline. Without this strait, Eilat becomes a ghost port. The Israeli economy, already weakened by a war of attrition it cannot win, collapses under the weight of attrition. Isolation is no longer diplomatic; it becomes physical. The country transforms into a besieged island, unable to maintain its technological and military infrastructure. It is the end of the myth of invulnerability. The colossus with feet of clay teeters on its own ideological foundations. Tel Aviv, ridiculously, prematurely recognizes Somaliland, vainly hoping that this diplomatic puppet will suffice to secure its sinking ships. Except that when the Empire chokes at the “Gate of Tears,” even its last diplomatic contortions in Somaliland are nothing more than a pathetic swan song.

Energy as a weapon

The energy trade is the lifeblood of the Empire. By cutting off this flow, the Houthis are striking where it hurts: the wallet. Crude oil prices will skyrocket. Western stock markets will plummet. Inflation, that monster the Fed is desperately trying to tame, will devour the last vestiges of the American middle class. The United States thought it could impose its peace by force. It will discover peace through scarcity.

The Price of crime

The heinous crimes committed by this coalition will not go unpunished. History is a harsh judge. By exporting chaos everywhere, from Iraq to Libya, from Syria to Yemen, the United States has sown the seeds of its own destruction. Bab el-Mandeb is the backlash. It is the oppressed’s response to a scorched-earth policy. Resistance is no longer an option; it is a biological necessity in the face of relentless aggression.

The gray area

Tel Aviv’s influence on American power circles is the worst-kept secret of the century. This toxic symbiosis has dictated an irrational foreign policy, pushing Washington to act against its own national interests. Today, the American people are paying a heavy price for an alliance that brings them only the world’s hatred. The shadows are finally being illuminated by the fire of Iranian and Yemeni missiles.

The final fall

April 21, 2026, marks the beginning of the end. If Washington does not back down, if it continues to obstruct the path to a just peace, it will sign its geostrategic death warrant. The closure of Bab el-Mandeb will be the final act of a tragic drama written by arrogance. Humanity no longer needs self-proclaimed guardians who know only how to destroy. The cancer will be eradicated. The world will finally breathe.

In short, before our very eyes, the Empire is dying, strangled by its own hubris. Washington and Tel Aviv, once masters of the world, are now merely powerless spectators of its maritime decline. The Strait of Hormuz is closed; Bab el-Mandeb is locked. The party is over. The colonial cancer is fading, giving way to the dawn of a world finally freed from its parasites.

Mohamed Lamine KABA, Expert in the geopolitics of governance and regional integration, Institute of Governance, Human and Social Sciences, Pan-African University