Politico reports:

It’s not just Hormuz. There’s a second strait in the Middle East vital to global energy markets that Iran is threatening to close if President Donald Trump fails to wind down the Iran war.

The world is already experiencing the worst disruption to global energy markets in history following U.S. and Israeli attacks on Iran. But if Iranian proxies close the Bab el-Mandeb strait — a busy Red Sea choke point — it would compound global financial woes and likely push oil prices to $150 a barrel, experts said.

An Iranian military official told the country’s semiofficial news agency Saturday that if the U.S. and Israel attack more of the country’s energy infrastructure, Iran would escalate “insecurity in other straits, including the Bab el-Mandeb Strait and the Red Sea.”

The strait, hundreds of miles from the Strait of Hormuz, at Yemen’s southwestern tip, is a pathway for ships carrying about 10 percent of the world’s oil and natural gas supplies.

Bab el Mandeb has been targeted previously by the Houthis, a Yemen-based rebel group supported by Iran that blocked the strait by attacking ships, using drones and missiles.

“I have no doubt in my mind that eventually the Houthis will enter and they will do two things — first, block the Bab el Mandeb strait, and second, try to prevent the Saudis from having tankers in [its] Yanbu port taking oil,” said Danny Citrinowicz, a former top Iran researcher for the Israeli Defense Forces. [Continue reading…]