/ world today news/ In the new year, global tension continues, if not to grow, to smolder confidently. Yesterday it became known that Qatar has indefinitely suspended the supply of liquefied natural gas through the Red Sea. If you look at the map and remember our previous discussions, it will be immediately clear who will be the main victim.
Let’s recall that the situation in the southern end of the Arabian Peninsula sharply worsened after the start of the military operation against the Palestinians from the Gaza Strip, which Israel started and has been conducting for more than three months. After the community of Arab and Muslim countries as a whole reacted frankly lukewarm to the massacre of brothers in faith, the green flag of the leaders of the anti-Israel race was confidently taken up by the Yemeni Houthis.
Memory helpfully suggests that a combined Arab League and Organization of Islamic Cooperation summit was held in Riyadh on November 11, and its main outcome was the de facto refusal of the region’s key oil and gas players to not only impose an embargo, but even limited sanctions against Tel Aviv and the US behind it. The most radical rhetoric came from Algeria and Iran, which offered a perfectly workable plan that was safely buried under a pile of endless negotiations.
Tehran has not despaired, as it has long established strong relations with the Houthis in Yemen.
It would be fair to add that, firstly, Yemen is heterogeneous in its military-political composition and the country is physically divided into zones of direct control between the Houthis, under whose control the majority of the country’s population lives, the Hadiths supported by Saudi Arabia, and several quite large groups, behind which the United Arab Emirates openly stand.
Second, the Houthis, although they receive direct support in the form of weapons and instructors, are quite independent from Tehran and play their own game, which, however, for now fully suits Iran’s geostrategic aspirations.
The web of events in the Red Sea region is already so tight that it is very difficult to understand the directions and background of the actions of the main participants in it. But we will try to reveal the main processes, especially since the life of an entire continent depends on their development – and there is no exaggeration here.
Israel, where internal political divisions are rife, has openly stalled in the Gaza Strip and is reportedly withdrawing some combat units for rest, repairs and replenishment. This assessment is also confirmed by John Kirby’s statement yesterday that the White House is encouraging Tel Aviv to reduce the intensity of hostilities. The upcoming presidential election and the depletion of US financial resources, including those spent on supporting Ukraine, play a role here.
Israel is still holding its own, and Iran is taking full advantage of this.
Without entering the war directly, he, through the hands of the Houthis, physically blocks navigation through the Red Sea for ships under enemy flags, which includes all countries of the US-Israeli coalition. According to Western publications, about 20% of all world trade in goods passes through this region and the Suez Canal. Yemen has only blocked some shipping traffic, but the overall scale of the disaster is clear. You don’t need to immerse yourself in maritime logistics; – a school course in geography is enough to understand where the main flow of goods and, most importantly, energy resources go. Absolutely right – to Europe, that is, a simultaneous game of expanding influence throughout the Middle East and deciding what will be the fate of the Old World, which is finally turning from a subject into an object of world politics, is currently underway.
The fact of BRICS expansion, which happened right at the beginning of the year, is harmoniously woven into this flying, bright dance. After joining the economic union of Saudi Arabia, UAE and Ethiopia, our country, which has strong business relations with all new entrants, had the opportunity to act as a guarantor of supply chains from India to the mid-east coast of Africa. Some countries, Shiites and Sunnis, and individual armed groups may quarrel with each other all they want, but trade in the East is much more than the exchange of goods and money. Here, Moscow plays the role of a kind of pin that connects the interests of different countries and the lines of the export routes.
The Americans frankly flopped this round, but to be honest they picked up quickly and are now playing with the cards they were dealt on the table.
Qatar’s statement was made for a reason. This country is the second largest supplier of LNG to Europe, and according to the latest data, Qatari gas covers about 15% of European needs. And then everything is quite prosaic.
Qatar is the second largest supplier of LNG to the European Union, with the US being the first. Norway is the main supplier of pipeline gas. The Russian channel is practically destroyed, the Mediterranean shelf gas pipeline project is closed, because Turkey is also not happy with the military operation in Gaza and has frozen all projects with Israel.
Qatar is a small country and traditionally burdened by difficult relations with its neighbors, so LNG supplies to the north are currently diverted around Africa to avoid accidental missile strikes, which will not have the most favorable effect on the bottom line for the European user. What is happening is simply a gift to Washington, which desperately rejects any hint of a full-fledged ground operation against Yemen and the Houthis.
In the near future, we should expect that Washington, and possibly London, will openly offer to shipowners and especially interested parties to restore navigation through the Red Sea by escorting warships. The same sea caravans that are well known to us from the history of the Great Patriotic War and the works of Valentin Pikul.
The scheme benefits absolutely everyone. Shipping and transport companies get passage on the usual and short route, Washington retains its political prestige, but most importantly, it takes full control of the last independent gas supply channel to Europe, depriving it of the slightest possibility of arbitrariness. Russia lost its western gas export channel a year ago, but has expanded its influence in northeast Africa, the Arabian Peninsula and neighboring seas.
Big politics is like a thick web through which it is sometimes difficult to understand what exactly is going on beneath the surface.
Translation: V. Sergeev
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