0:00 Why is Saudi Arabia involved in Yemen in the first place? >> It's a major miscalculation. >> Saudi Arabia's done it for 7 years. [music] The Americans did it for 52 days solid and nobody really gained anything. Saudis have paid Trump a lot of money for their [music] so-called security umbrella. Trump's let them down time and time again. >> I suppose if your aim is to alleviate the the cost of living crisis, I don't think getting more involved in bombing the Houthies is going to help that scenario. >> The people absolutely responsible for this are Trump [music] and Netanyahu. It is clear that they were warned before, don't mess with this uh region because it will get more and more complicated and it will go completely out of your control. Hello and welcome to the forecast. Yemen
0:45 has exploded onto the news agenda this week and is one of the most complex wars in the world with disastrous humanitarian consequences. So why are the Houthies at war with Saudi Arabia? And how does it fit into the civil war which has divided the country for more than a decade? Iran is offering to mediate, but they support and supply the Houthies. So are they a credible broker? And what will Trump do when he's got bases in Saudi Arabia which could come under attack if he joins in? Most critically for the world economy, the Houthis are claiming control of another vital choke point for shipping using the Red Sea in the Babamandab Strait. I'm joined by the editor-inchief of the Middle East Eye as well as Iona Craig who lived in Yemen for many years as a journalist and covered it for more than
1:31 15 years. Welcome to you both. Let's start with a very basic look at the background to this. Iona, why are the Houthies and Saudi Arabia at war? Well, this really goes back to the Houthis takeover of the capital Sonar in in 2014 uh 12 years ago um when I was living there. Uh they continued after they taken the capital to push on south into the rest of the country. Uh then President Hadi who was uh the president who took over after the Arab Spring was put under house arrest in early January 2015 and he managed to escape that house arrest and fled to Saudi Arabia. And that was when Saudi Arabia got involved and started launching its bombing campaign and um is all too familiar to
2:18 many nations, I suppose. Thought it would last a couple of weeks and they'd be able to bomb the Houthis back to Saud, which is their home territory up on the border with Saudi Arabia. Um but that didn't happen, of course, and that war was still going on with the Houthis uh until 2022 when there was uh a ceasefire agreed between Saudi Arabia and the Houthis. By that time the Houthies had taken control of the majority of the population in Yemen. So they controlled a third of the country but sort of twothirds of the population. But what sparked things off again more recently was in July when Saudi Arabia bombed SA airport which is under Houthi control to prevent an Iranian uh passenger jet from landing in SA. And in
3:05 retaliation to that then the Houthis announced they would uh impose a blockade for blockade as they put it on Saudi Arabia. They started attacking Saudi vessels uh and then launching strikes into Saudi Arabia. But it also then kicked off the ground war once again. And and so now we're in back in the stage of full-blown civil war now in Yemen as a result of this because it's just been escalating tip for tat uh since July which really then peaked in September when the Houthies in this kind of lightning takeover of the southwest of Yemen and the Red Sea coast around the Babel Mendab seized a huge amount of territory in a very small amount of time. uh and then have you know in
3:51 recent weeks been launching almost daily attacks in the last week on on Riyad's airport and other airports inside in Saudi Arabia and the Saudis have been carrying out air strikes at a level we haven't seen since sort of January 2022 inside Yemen. um and sort of so it continues and I don't think there's any indication that that the the level of fighting that we're seeing right now on the ground is going to ease anytime soon and in the last few days the Houthis have lost some of that territory they gained around the bubble menab but they've also gained a lot more territory in and around Tai city which means the city of Ty which is Yemen's third largest city and have been um contested but largely under
4:36 government control uh since 2015 is now surrounded and is under siege by the Houthis which they've done before by the way. Um but now the humanitarian situation entire city is sort of um getting worse on on a daily basis and the population in there is now at real risk of a dire humanitarian um situation. >> I mean David why is Saudi Arabia involved in Yemen in the first place? What is their interest? >> Well, it's I mean, it's always been involved in Yemen. Um, ever since the the kingdom was formed, it originally there was a big fight between the Saudis and and and NASA over whether it would become a republic or whether it would become um tribal dynasty. Um, there's
5:25 always been tension. They've always regarded Yemen as their backdoor. uh uh and they regarded themselves as the big brother of the Yemenes. Uh so there's always been that tension. Uh I mean specifically um Crown Prince uh Muhammad bin Salam's made two very large strategic mistakes of which we're now seeing the second evolve. The first one as I only was saying uh was what happened uh in the Arab Spring when his primary enemy and the enemy of uh of Saudi Arabia and the threat that they felt wasn't to the Houthis as such but to Isl to to the Muslim Brotherhood uh forces uh uh in
6:12 Yemen and they were determined to stop the Arab Spring uh flourishing uh uh in Yemen. And what happened when the Houthis advanced into Sana was that the advance was unopposed and the Saudi plan was that the two enemies should fight each other i.e. the Houthis should fight Islam. They didn't think that Isla would would withdraw from Sana then. But Isla did withdraw. Um and that was the first major miscalculation. So basically they handed the keys of Sana to to to the Houthis. Uh the second one came um recently. Um now in spite of with with everything that I only has been saying there's another conflict of over Yemen and that
6:57 is now between um between two neighbors between Riyad and Abu Dhabi. Now initially they were uh uh allies. Uh but Abu Dhabi had its own designs on the STC and the south of Yemen and um uh Saudi Arabia woke up to this very recently and rather late um and kicked um the uh Emiratis out of Yemen. They didn't it wasn't annexed, but they were they were funding and controlling uh and arming uh uh the the Southern Traditional Council. um flushed with that success and that there was a major rift between between Riyad and Abu Dhabi. Flushed with that
7:43 success, they they piled the pressure uh uh on the Houthis uh resulting in their attack. It was the Saudis who started this latest run. They broke the ceasefire um on Sana airport as Zion said um but they didn't expect um uh the Houthis to be uh as well prepared as they are to strike back with with with their missiles at the heart of Riyad and they and the Houthis really have exposed um uh the SA's vulnerability. There's about to be a major uh investment conference uh in Riyad. real is now completely shut down. It feels much less safe for western interests and this war is blowing a hole in vision 2030 which
8:28 is what uh how bin Salman uh is all about. He's all about investment. He's all about modernization. So um it's a major miscalculation to to to have to have started this war and actually broken the ceasefire. >> Yeah. I mean I I want to pick pick that up. But before we get to that, could you also just explain who are the different sides in Yemen? You know, h how do the Houthies differ from the people who are running who you know, the officially recognized government um in the south of Yemen? You know, do they do they have a fundamentally different vision for the country? >> Absolutely. Yeah. I mean, the Houthis um hail from Sarda in the north. They came um out of a youth movement from the
9:15 1990s and really evolved as a response to the their Zadei Shia um movement. Um although the Zadis are very uh similar theologically um at least to the Sunnis in in Yemen, but they rose out of the response to the spread of Saudi salifism into uh Saud um and fought the sort of first war with the government of what was then Ali Abdul Asal who was in power for 33 years in 2004 and that was the first of sort of six wars. Now the internationally recognized government as as they are known um uh were the group that was basically pushed out when the Houthies took control in 2014. But theologically I mean the the ideology
10:01 sorry of the Houthies is you know they they believe they have a divine right to rule. um they believe in um being able to trace their their lineage back to the prophet Muhammad um gives them uh a sort of uh supremacy over the rest of the population if you like. Um they have since they've taken control in 2014 imposed a kind of indoctrination on schools and on children and summer camps where they're recruiting. But yes, they believe they have a divine right to rule both Yemen and I think if if you know in the in the greatest of schemes that they would like to rule the whole of the Arabian Peninsula as they said all the way to Jerusalem. Um but yes they you know it's not like they sort of believe in any kind kind of democratic processes
10:49 um because of that whereas the internationally recognized government um who see themselves as the legitimate government but I think that is equally debatable. I think you know any government that has to call itself the internationally recognized government um probably gives an indication that there is an issue over legitimacy in itself. There have been no elections in Yemen since 2003. The government has been ruling largely from abroad mainly in Riyad. um uh rather than being present in Yemen in any shape or form um I think a large amount of the Emni population who may be anti-Huthi are still not massively in favor of this government which they see as being very corrupt um but ultimately the internationally recognized government is um uh believes in a more
11:35 democratic process I suppose doesn't have the theological aims that the hoodies do um but they are made up as David already outlined of a multiple the anti-outhy side anyway um of multiple groups that have fought each other over the last 10 years have are deeply divided fighting for different reasons. Some are fighting for religious reasons. Some have fought because they believe in the southern cause i.e. separatism and do not want to be ruled by uh a northern government. Uh some are fighting for very local reasons and come from from the local areas in which they're fighting. Um but yes, the issue is over a a sort of uh yeah, very divided groups on the anti- Houthy side which Saudi Arabia has only had real
12:21 control over since January when they kicked out the UAE. Um and the command and control over those multiple groups and factions has clearly not been working as they would like it to and may and and they will continue to struggle because the the anti-Huthi side, you know, the the gains that the Houthies have made have have not always been about how good a fighters the Houthies are have often been about the divisions in the opposing side and that's part of the problem. Um, so yeah, I I I don't think any kind of well, the two governments that exist really can claim great legitimacy on either side to be honest with you. >> Okay. Well, that's been a very useful uh backgrounder on on on who's who and why um they are doing what they're doing.
13:08 But what what's surprised the outside world uh recently is the success with which the Houthies have both taken uh the land that gives them effective control of shipping through the Babel Mandab strait but also the you know the very successful targeting of the airport [snorts] in Riyad. You know, people had thought the the Houthies had pretty primitive weapons and didn't have the ability to do precision strikes. How has this suddenly happened where they can hit with great accuracy terminals in Saudi Arabia's main international airport? >> Um well, I think there's two things going on there really. Um the interceptors and the Patriot missiles
13:53 that Saudi Arabia has no doubt been relying on, there's a shortage of those. Now, you know, there is a global shortage of Patriot missiles because of Trump's war with Iran. Uh, and that's likely playing into this. Also, the Houthies during that period of quiet between 2022 and and July of this year when there wasn't a war has certainly been preparing for more wars. So, they are now able to manufacture a lot of their own weapons. Um they have extensive capabilities that they have learned both from training from heads bulah in the past and the Iranian revolutionary guard. But the components that they get are smuggled in from you know as far away as China which means they have um the the ability now to
14:41 build a lot of these weapons themselves. Certainly the drones uh and the other sort of ballistic missiles are are often sort of smuggled in in parts and then rebuilt inside Yemen and then deployed. But yes, I think it speaks to both the what the Houthis have been up to in the in the sort of period when there wasn't war, but also about um Saudi Arabia's vulnerability in its interceptors and its systems to be able to defend its own airspace because essentially because of the war with Iran. >> Right. Well, that's David precisely that. Tell us what Iran's role is here and to what extent the Houthies are Iranian proxies. to what extent they are controlled or influenced, you know, and how much of their own autonomy do they have?
15:27 >> Well, I think it's mistake to regard uh the Houthies in the same light as the Shia militia in Iraq. They don't they do not take their orders from Iran. They certainly have uh modeled themselves on on Hezbollah and Iran has been involved in training um and given them an awful lot of help uh militarily but as Iona said uh they are very very they've got very very much their own agenda and their own ideology and that can be seen in the uh missile hits uh on Israel. Um the Houthis were the most active in targeting um Israel even when Iran and Hezbollah were were were hesitant after
16:14 October the 7th Hamas attacks. And I disagree with the notion that you know it's suddenly a surprise that uh uh the Houthis can can can hit with great precision. Uh if you remember the um uh two uh I think F-15s were nearly downed by the Houthis in the first American attack because in America and Israel have already attacked the Houthis. Uh and that is uh partly explains Trump's reluctance to get involved with this game because they know they've got extremely good um air defense um um capability probably more so than the IRGC has in Iran. Houthis Houth is the skies above the the the territory that Houthie control are not open uh as as a book.
17:02 Obviously, they're, you know, they're they're outclassed by by the targeting of uh of America and and Israel, but they could they can nearly shoot down aircraft, and they and and they have uh and they've they've demonstrated that. Um uh the other thing is that um uh my information is that the Houthis and Lebanese um uh uh operatives uh where in southern uh Iraq and they use their longrange drones to target the um Saudi pipeline. What's happened in in very very broad uh circumst get round to your question but what's happened is that the that the focus of this war has has shifted
17:48 continually firstly it was Iran and re regime change then it was the straight of hormuz then it is the bear bal menip and it gets more and more complicated and the people absolutely responsible for this are Trump and Netanyahu it is clear that they were warned before don't mess with this uh region because it will get more and more complicated and it will go completely out of your control and that is exactly what's happening now. The relationship between to go back to your question Iran and and the Houthis is obviously strategically the Houthis uh uh are um building up cards for for Iran to play. And the latest card that Sirran offered was to negotiate between uh Saudi Arabia and
18:35 and uh and Sana uh which they did before actually. It was Hezbollah that that that got involved in talks in uh in Beirut. Um which started which which which led to the first ceasefire. Um and um Iran is gradually uh getting more and more cards to play. Trump is and Netanyagu are both running out of them. Interestingly, uh Saudi Arabia rejected a an offer of help from Israel uh to to to bomb Sana because playing over all of these um uh uh conflicts and a very very deep conflict civil war in in Yemen is a
19:20 power struggle between two military alliances. On the one hand, you've got the UAE, Israel, and India. Um, and the attempt to try and drag uh Saudi Arabia into the Abraham Accords, which Saudi Arabia have been even more unwilling to enter after the Hamas attack than it was before it. On the other hand, you've got this fledgling uh counter alliance between Turkey, Saudi Arabia, and Pakistan. uh the so-called Mecca defense agreement and that's playing that rivalry is playing out now uh uh uh in in in Yemen. Um as far as I can see Iran is is gaining cards but at the moment the feeling in in in Tehran itself is a preparation for another round of air
20:06 strikes. They're convinced that all of this is a precursor to another round of uh of air strikes after the midterm elections. >> Do you agree with that analysis? >> Yes, I do. And I think it also speaks to why Saudi Arabia and the Saudi backed forces of the of the Emmy government are struggling so much on the ground because the UAE is not with Saudi Arabia this time. They were the first time around um and they made a huge difference in being able to push the Houthis out particularly of Aiden in the south um back in 2015 and 2016 and other moves up the Red Sea coast towards Heda in in a couple of year a couple of years later. And the U the UAE had deployed their own troops um to command and control the Yemen forces on the ground. Uh and
20:51 they'd also brought in Sudanese mercenaries of course. Um uh but it it made it it was a gamecher. I was in Aiden during 2015 when it was besieged by the Houthies and the entire city was about to fall. The only people fighting were the were the old Yemenes who used to be part of the of the former um socialist state um army before 1994. uh and they were fighting illquipped um and and you know they were certainly the senior members of society until the Emiratis came in brought in weapons, troops uh and heavy uh heavy equipment uh and that's what turned the tables. Um since the UAE fallout with Saudi Arabia in in January in Yemen, they're not existent anymore on the ground. Um and I
21:39 think Saudi Arabia is really feeling the pinch on that now because Saudi Arabia is not willing to commit itself and its soldiers um like the UAE did uh sort of 10 years ago. >> What is the humanitarian situation? I mean the last time I was in Yemen was about 9 years ago um when the Saudi blockade was having huge humanitarian consequences for the civilian population. There was widespread malnutrition. I remember being in the hospital in SAR and and and watching babies being brought in who were on the verge of death and dying and it was it was quite horrific. Um the you know the main port in Heda had effectively been disabled by Saudi air strikes using British and American weapons. is worth
22:25 mentioning. Um, you know, since the the ceasefire in 2022, has has all of that gone away or is there still a real problem with the humanitarian situation? >> Uh, no, it hasn't gone away at all. Um, it did improve somewhat, but you're still looking at a population now of 40 million people where more than 22 million are in need of humanitarian aid. Um, I think the biggest thing we've seen over the last few weeks, since the 1st of August, there's been over 210,000 people displaced by this escalation and fighting, that's a rate of 3,000 people a day being displaced. Um and you know obviously from what you've just said we know how fragile the systems are in Yemen. How there is a lack um of
23:12 resilience when a country imports the majority the vast majority 16 well up to 90% of its food and basic goods that when there is conflict when there's any disruption to to those supplies that it's going to have a very immediate impact on the humanitarian population. The the the issue is of course now is that we've had defunding of aid programs. The UN has stopped working in the north because of the Houthies arresting local Yemen um aid workers working for UN agencies. And at the end of last year um the humanitarian response was less than 25% funded. So as things get more and more difficult in Yemen, there is less and less support from aid agencies and and UN agencies to
23:57 help those people that are being displaced and affected by the conflict. So yes, I think the real concern is that the humanitarian situation is going to deteriorate and very rapidly and I think particularly in the city of Tires that I mentioned already because of the situation of siege that they're now facing um that if that city continues to be um held by the Houthis I I was there before when it happened and and the city of Tires is one of the most water scarce um towns or cities in in the country in a very water scarce country and they have to truck in the majority of their water. And the last time that city was put under siege by the Houthies, they were blocking even the water trucks coming in. So people were having to smuggle food and goods into the m over the mountains which are over 3,000 mters
24:44 high in and around tires in order to get food and and even water in into the city. So yeah, I mean there there is very little capacity to cope in Yemen when um the situation gets squeezed on in terms of of any kind of blockade um or any spike in conflict that we're seeing right now. >> And can you just explain as well the the Houthi approach to this because I remember being very confused by it myself. you know that they seem to want us to tell the story of how the Saudi blockade was having this terrible humanitarian impact and yet they have this very you know controlling, suspicious, hostile um attitude towards outside agencies, foreign journalists, very restrictive
25:30 um you know and and not you know is it because they are essentially in a rebel mind you know mindset? >> Um there's an element of that. Yeah, I mean certainly um with a lot of it it's you're all spies. Um and I suppose that's not without grounding considering what happened to Hezbollah. Uh but I think a lot of it as well with the Houthies is about wanting to have control about how aid is distributed want they were trying to force the UN agencies to put all of their their funding and aid through their own sort of governance system which would mean extra taxation. they would be able to determine who got that aid, where those food supplies were going to people that obviously supported them to even their
26:15 troops um to the the Hashemites that I mentioned before which is the kind of the tracing back to the lineage to the prophet Muhammad of those are the people that they favor in their territory. Um, so yes, it's about having absolute control over all all means of kind of finance, but also aid. And I think that was what the falling out was in the end really. The the kind of um the arrests of of aid workers was something of a cover for that to to kind of twist the arm of the UN to try and force them to to run their operations through the Houthy mechanisms. Um, but it just became unviable in the end. it wasn't safe or or logistically possible for the UN agencies to do that. So they haven't been operating now in Samar for some
27:00 time. Um but yeah and the Houthis have also you know they complained about the siege that the Saudis did place um on Heda and on their territory but they've used siege tactics themselves. They used it in Aiden. They've used it in tires but also in villages up and down Yemen and across Yemen. They put those places under siege and also in order to put people under pressure. David, could you then talk about sort of where this leaves Saudi and and Trump? I mean, can Saudi wage this war, you know, by themselves? Do they want the Americans to get involved? And why is that such a problem? >> The Saudis have paid Trump a lot of money for their so-called security umbrella, and it is not a security umbrella. They paid over a trillion dollars. Um and uh Trump's let them down
27:49 from their point of view time and time again. They let them down when uh Iran attacked Aramco in 2016. Uh Trump did uh assassinate uh Kasam Solommani uh which I think was a huge mistake because he was a very effective ambassador as well as general. Um and um now uh Trump is very very reluctant to get involved uh with the Houthis. In fact in a uh in the last meeting in Sana there was a meeting between American officials and the Houthis uh and they they they basically agreed not to hit each other's territory uh and and and assets. Um and that let Saudi down
28:37 because it meant that they they didn't have uh uh Trump. I think um what's happening now as as a result of the Iran war, but particularly uh this war is that Saudi Arabia realized that uh their main strategy with uh for the last decades uh that they are under the American security umbrella doesn't work. Uh and they don't have anything to replace it at the moment. So they're really scrambling around. It's not just the Saudis who are scrambling around. The Qataris are scrambling around. No one has a vision for for the future. I think the the the I think let's not be too pessimistic about this with all that we've said and I wouldn't disagree with a word that I has said. Um you can negotiate with the Houthis, right? It
29:22 has happened before. Um and you can negotiate with Iran. Not on your terms, but you can. And I don't think this war is uh winnable militarily. It absolutely is not. It all it does is prolong a massive crisis, humanitarian crisis uh uh in Yemen. So what's the way out of this? Now this is extremely unpalatable. But as far as I can see, the only way out of this is for the Saudis, Turks, and the Pakistanis to go as an alliance to Iran and say, "Right, let's start talking about a security pact." And then one of the things would be you help us uh uh uh deal with the Houthies. have got to realize that they're not the government of Yemen. They're one part of it. Uh and they have to uh aim for a
30:08 federal structure. Whether any of that is possible, it sounds like pie in the sky. But you've got to start from from the position of we've had a series of really bruising wars in attacks uh on Iran. It has completely destabilized not just one waterway, but another. It's threatening to go right into the Horn of Africa. there's a there's a war brewing between between Eratraan and and and Ethiopia and um you know if you just want the insecurity to carry on please just keep on bombing Yemen. start um if you actually want something to stop, you really do have to put an awful lot of these processes in reserve and start talking seriously uh to people who
30:53 who who you say are, you know, the the the the ideological enemies of the West. The only thing that is equally unpalatable for Saudi Arabia is the fact that they would also effectively have to pay off the Houthies because the deal that was on the table before um everything sort of started to collapse in July was a deal whereby the Houthies would get the salaries of their government workers paid uh um which hadn't been paid for many many years and a bill that would run into the several billions of dollars for Saudi Arabia and at a time when Saudi Arabia is getting targeted on a on a daily basis. That's a quite a humiliation the humiliating climb down for the Saudis to have to
31:39 make is to then make an agreement with the Houthies for them to stop but also then to effectively have to pay them off to the tune of tens of billions of dollars. >> Yeah. And they would also have to pay the Iranians off as well as the Emirates did. There's also the question, isn't there, of how Iran will respond if there is, as they expect, a resumption of American bombing um and who they will target in the Middle East um in response, you know, and that and that makes presumably a deal between Saudi Arabia and Iran even more difficult. >> Yeah, it absolutely it would. I'm, you know, I'm not arguing about pie in the sky. And the Iranians have actually said exactly what they will do. Um if uh if they're bombed again, they would now bomb economic assets of uh of the
32:26 American companies uh in Saudi Arabia uh and everywhere, Qatar and and the Emirates. And they and they would go for that and they go for the data centers, they would go for the oil uh uh refineries, everything. Um, so yes, it but at some point someone's got to realize that this is a road that leads to hell >> and and and in the immediate term, where does this leave the Baba Mandab Straits and shipping going through it? You know that the Houthies have said Saudi ships can't pass. Can anyone pass at the moment? Realistically, >> I ships are passing. American ships are passing. Um, there's a lot of traffic. I mean the other end of this is the so canapse and a lot of ships. But what me
33:13 what it means is the Houth is at the moment however much of the the territory of of southwest Yemen they control and and the shoreline they can pick off individual ships because they've got ship toshore very accurate missiles and they can do that. So they're not letting any Saudi Arabian traffic through but they are letting uh other traffic through. >> Iona I mean do you think that's likely to continue? Yes. And I think that's probably part of the calculation of of the US as well is they when we know there have been, you know, repeated requests from Muhammad bin Salman and for the US to get involved is um not only not wanting to open another front when they're already um focused on on trying to uh deal with the strain form and Iran. Um but it's also the fact that
33:58 they've got this deal with the Houthis and that if that unravels then it will be their ships that will be targeted in the Babel Mendab. Equally if Britain um gets more involved than it already is. The Houthies are watching that closely. You know they know that the Voyager that has been sent by the British government to support Saudi Arabia is as Britain has announced being used for defensive measures. that if it is used to in order to facilitate air strikes inside Yemen or Britain does what it has previously done with US support um for air campaigns which is then eventually get the RAF involved and actually carry out direct strikes in Yemen then similarly the same thing will happen to British or British link ships going through the Babel Mendab and the Red Sea. The Houthis have this leverage now. They know they can use it. Um and equally
34:46 Iran knows that at this point in time they have more leverage because of the straight of moves already being blocked. So um it's beneficial to both parties i.e. the Houthis and Iran at the moment um because it gives them in turn leverage for their own aims and their their own deals that they want to do respectively whether that be with Saudi Arabia or the US. I mean it does put Andy Bernham in quite a difficult position doesn't it? I mean at the moment he has sent one Voyager refueling aircraft to help Saudi Arabia but he will have people saying look you know Saudi Arabia needs to get its oil out. You know the world economy is depending on it. We're all looking at higher inflation, higher borrowing costs and impacts on our domestic economies. Um he's going to have to decide whether to
35:32 leave it at that or step up his help. >> Yeah. I mean, I suppose if your aim is to alleviate the, you know, the cost of living crisis, I don't think more bombing or getting more involved in bombing the Houthies is going to help that scenario to be honest with you. Um, and as I say at that point, you know, the Babel Mendab is actually most crucial really for cargo shipping. Yes, Saudi Arabia has been using it as an alternative route for the straight of Hormuz. But um previously when they were disrupting shipping going through the Babel Mendab in the southern Red Sea, uh all the cargo shipping was then diverting around South Africa and having to go a much longer route into the Mediterranean. Um and it had a little bit of an impact, but the the market adapted. But the scenario now is different. Um if you go around that
36:18 longer route, what does that mean? More fuel. um that's up to two weeks added on to a journey of a cargo vessel if that was to happen now. And then that pushes up the price of all your goods coming from from Asia and from China. Um so it's only going to add to those problems um rather than alleviating them. So yeah, if that's your calculation, I I I can't see any kind of solution coming out of just continuingly to bomb the Houthies. Saudi Arabia's done it for seven years. The Americans did it for 52 days solid and nobody really gained anything. So I I don't think there is anything to be gained um by by Britain becoming more involved um other than a deteriorating situation for Yemenes on the ground. >> David. >> Yeah. And it's very interesting to note that despite the uh deal between uh
37:05 Trump and Putin uh on diesel oil, the actual price of diesel has gone up. Uh and that's a reflection of what Iona was talking about. uh the the the the that uh the supply of of oil and and diesel is actually despite Saudi Arabia saying they're going to increase production um is not getting through and and that's because of of of what's going on in Hormuz and the Babel Mendip. The other interesting thing is that uh tankers with Farsy markings have been seen, it's not confirmed, but been seen by satellites in Russia. So there's a suggestion that Iran is getting its oil out through Russia as well. So one one conflict is morphing into another.
37:53 >> Well, we'll leave it there. David Hurst, I Craig, thank you both very much indeed for your time. That's the forecast. Until next time. Bye-bye.
