President Donald Trump's deeply unpopular war against Iran took a drastic turn Thursday, one that could send energy prices skyrocketing and sparked immediate alarm from analysts and critics alike.
According to multiple news outlets, Yemen’s Houthis captured the Yemeni town of Mocha near the Bab el-Mandeb Strait on Wednesday, and are inching closer toward controlling the entirety of Yemen’s west coast along the Red Sea, a critical shipping waterway. With traffic through the Strait of Hormuz reaching its lowest levels since May earlier this week, analysts fear record-high U.S. energy prices could soon climb even further.
“This is very bad for Trump's war with Iran because the Iran-backed Houthi rebels can now more easily threaten ships in the Red Sea and potentially choke off more Saudi oil exports,” noted Tommy Vietor, a prominent podcast host and former Obama administration official. “It could also restart the catastrophic Saudi-Houthi war. Bad bad bad.”
Joe Kent, a former senior intelligence official in the Trump administration who resigned over the U.S. war against Iran in March, called the development “very significant,” and further warned that the Trump administration’s “policies and interventions abroad” would ultimately “get more people killed” as Trump’s “senseless war” sparks mass “radicalization” the world over.
The Bulwark’s Catherine Rampell sarcastically quipped that the new development would be “great for gas prices,” and Faraz Chaudhry, a Pakistani opinion writer, warned that the development would see crude oil prices — which sit at around $101 a barrel as of Thursday — “go up to $150.”
Polish terrorism researcher Paweł Wójcikcalled the Houthis’ latest move an outright “disaster,” and Hasan Piker, the prominent progressive streamer and political activist, hammered Trump for what he characterized as the president’s handling of the conflict.
“[The Houthis are] moving to establish primacy over the bab al mandeb strait as the [Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps] expands its targets to us naval assets in the strait of hormuz. they’re lobbing more [medium-range ballistic missiles] at jordan every time a tanker is struck,” Piker wrote in a social media post on X to his more than 1.7 million followers.
“Meanwhile trump is so desperate he’s lying [about] bribing americans w 5k stimmies. we have to learn the right lesson from this bloody nose. we must end american militarism, treat other nations w respect and engage in diplomacy.”
The Houthis’ rapid advance is just the beginning of the blowback effects we are now going to face as a result of our counterproductive policies in the Middle East & because of this senseless war in Iran.
The Houthi’s ability to capture key terrain and strategic ports along the… https://t.co/icr4JiUCBZ
— Joe Kent (@joekent16jan19) September 10, 2026