Middle East Roundtable: Saudi Arabia's Pre-Existing Condition.

Welcome back to another episode of the Middle East Roundtable. I am Kyle Moran, and we have a very jam-packed episode for you all here today. When we started this show, it was all Iran all the time, and it's slowly been escalating and graduating into other conflicts as we speak.

But I am not alone today. I am indeed joined by... Wilfred Waimiri, Africa correspondent for All Fronts, HomeFronts, and everything fronts related.

And Evan Maloney, here with some updates on Yemen. Because last time we all spoke, the Houthi rebels were in the middle of a campaign to try and expand their control over Yemen's west coast, which borders, of course, the critical Red Sea and the even more critical Bab al-Mandeb Strait, which regulates entry and exit to the southern end of the Red Sea.

That is a waterway responsible for about 10% of global trade volume year over year.

It's very important. But the Houthis do not gain control of that land because then they can use drones, missiles, etc. to basically institute a blockade of Red Sea shipping, which would be very bad for the whole world, especially while the Strait of Hormuz in the Persian Gulf is also blocked. Unfortunately, we say that about this worst-case scenario.

It has now happened. Over the last week, the Tuthi rebels were able to surge to the coastline, first to the city of Mocha, and then pushing south. Basically, to the peninsula on Huthi territory that sticks out into the Balamandeb.

The Huthis were also able to storm multiple islands, take over the infrastructure there, including one in which an Emirati base had actually been built up fairly substantially over the last few years. So they have now taken that base, taken that territory.

They are now squatting on those islands, kind of looking out into the Red Sea, which is, again, not ideal.

There have been some limited counter-offensives. From the Saudi-backed, internationally recognized government of Yemen, that has included a push that seems to have challenged control of that peninsula. It's not clear whether or not anybody is currently situated there, or if it's kind of become a no-man's land.

Geolocated posts, videos, photos from the Houthi rebels have kind of stopped trickling in from that area. Same can be said for the southerly island that kind of splits the bubble. So some limited cause for optimism that parts of this situation could recover.

But that being said, this has been a major escalation for the Houthis, a huge unequivocal victory for them. We've seen Saudi forces, or Saudi-backed forces rather, in absolute disarray.

Some of these militias that had been intended to fight alongside the Yemeni government had been revealed to be comprised of like 80% of what's called, like, ghost recruits, so people who kind of signed their name to say that they were on these brigades, but then never showed up and had been, you know, getting paid, quote-unquote, but that money's been going

To their commanders and units and so on.

So really just kind of a horrific showing from Saudi-backed forces in Yemen who retreated back to kind of more bulwark territory, which is something we've seen from them before, right? So in late December, we saw an Emirati-backed group kind of take over a fair, these Saudi-backed forces retreated, gave up basically the entire country, then surged back.

There's some chance of that happening here.

It is overall quite unlikely. The Houthis are pretty well entrenched at this point on most of the coastlines they've captured. They're very good at defense in Yemen's highland regions.

So tough situation right now for the rest of the world. We're going to talk about global involvement at a moment, but General, what do you make of this initial Houthi push, and where do we go from here? Well, it's certainly a... extraordinary escalation that I didn't have on my radar as being likely to capture this much territory.

I also would have expected a better showing from both the Saudis and the Saudi-backed government, given just how important the battle of Mandeb is. Now, the Houthis have been able to flex muscle over the waterway for years at this point when they so choose, despite not sitting on it.

But this has been a rather... unencouraging set of developments for the Saudi-backed government there.

In particular, the other day, just yesterday, there was a report from the Saudis that the Houthis launched a drone attack on the city of Mecca, which it could have... the Houthis have denied this, but that... and it goes back and forth on where the evidence actually stands for that.

But if the Houthis were doing that, they would be taking a look at where Iran sits in terms of international support and saying, you know what, let's go even harder at making ourselves as unpopular as possible.

But that aside, there really hasn't been much of any willingness by the international community, including Saudi Arabia's own support or allies, especially Turkey and Pakistan, to actually enter the fray here.

So Saudi Arabia does not have very many good options left. So one of the things that Saudi Arabia has been doing a lot of in the past few days before we recorded this podcast is trying to convince as many world leaders as it can that joining the war is in their best interest. The most recent one I have seen them try to approach is Andy Barnum in the UK.

The UK's prime minister. And that just tells you how desperate they are. And I want to go back to something you've said, Kyle.

The fact that Pakistan and Turkey have not really lived up to their end of the deal in the NATO agreement. The whole point of that deal was an attack on one is an attack on all. And they just formed jointly.

But the fact that they haven't responded in any meaningful way is just... Honestly, an indictment of the deal. And it looks like the deal has died, you know, even before the ink has dried.

So that's completely disappointing. There's also the fact that the United States hasn't participated in the conflict so far. It seems that the Trump administration and the Houthis had a conversation, and the Houthis managed to convince Washington to stay out of this.

And there's some analysis I saw on Twitter. I can't remember the person, otherwise I would have credited them. Washington has shown an increasing willingness to talk to anyone and everyone just so that they can get out of conflicts that they have no interest in being a part of.

I had something of a little bit going with a friend of the Trump universe, Pavel Vucic, about whether the U.S. will be involved in the conflict by the end of the past weekend. And, you know, nothing really happened because, again, there's such a reluctance within the U.S. right now to just expand any theater of this conflict with Iran.

Which side of that bet were you on, if you don't mind me asking, Wilfred?

I had bet that because of Trump's general aversion to conflict, he wouldn't get the U.S. involved in the conflict. Yeah, I would have taken the same side on that one there. Good, good.

I love it when you're on the same side. So yeah, I won that bet. There was nothing on the cards for whoever won it.

It was just an empty bet, but an interesting one nonetheless. Just to show you how much American foreign policy has changed in the past few years since Donald Trump became president, it's significantly different now. So yeah, that is where we are.

On that diplomatic point, this has been well played by the Houthis, in my opinion. They are resisting the urge of going full Iran in terms of shutting down Bab al-Mandeb or targeting international shipping. Their focus has been from the outset, specifically on Saudi shipping, in response to Saudi Arabia's blockade of Yemen because of the Houthis.

In the negotiations that happened last week, last weekend, they met in Oman. The Houthis told U.S. officials that they still consider their ceasefire with Washington to be valid and are not trying to attack American shipping.

So that is, if they can continue to demonstrate that sort of restraint, in spite of what I have to imagine is some encouragement from Tehran to ramp things up, they would be very well placed.

But Evan, I'll turn that over to you. Yeah, and let's talk about the Houthi side of this first, because, you know, for folks looking into Houthi rebels and trying to figure out what to make of them, they're not really going to be like your world-beating military or diplomatic group or whatever they may be.

They are, however, a lot more savvy than kind of your average non-state actor.

They tend to get a lot further than folks give them credit. They tend to have kind of a better strategic read on a given situation than people want to admit a lot of the time.

That is to say, right, it's not really a huge surprise that the Houthis are looking at the situation and kind of managing to make inroads with the U.S., managing to leverage it to kind of be in the same rooms and the same conversations where decisions about straight security would typically get made.

We've said it last week and we'll say it again. This is a play for legitimacy above all else for the Houthis. They see this as a way basically to leverage physical control of a really major global choke point to get the world to start working with and negotiating with them.

The idea being, even if the world doesn't necessarily love us, even if we keep on receiving condemnations, right? People still have to engage with us as if we are a nation state with sovereign control over the straight, which at this point, right? You know, the Houthis have not gained sovereign control over all of Yemen.

At the same time, they are a robust internally self-sustaining state infrastructure that it's really hard to look at them and say, like, there's nothing even like proto state, like a rogue state, like about this group. Thinking about Iran, right? The Houthis are an Iran backed group.

They receive weapons, they receive support, they receive trading, they receive financial aid, so on and so forth. They are also the toughest Iran backed group for Iran to control directly. The Houthis very much have their own interests.

They are happy to diverge from Iran when it suits them. And even though the two groups can kind of look at this situation and leverage control over two really important joke points to mutually, mutually mutual benefit. It's not really so cut and dry as to say the Houthis are an Iranian proxy acting fully as an Iranian proxy.

So as we look at the idea of the U S stepping in and the rest of the Middle East starting to get involved, do you think that the Houthis can really leverage this into kind of a greater legitimacy play in their area? Every time I think about the Houthis and legitimacy, one thing gets down to mind Syria, Al-Sharra and HTS.

It's a similar play that he made, right?

The world might not like me, but I am such a staggeringly powerful way she was that you have to take notice of me, that you have to put your prejudices and bias aside and your personal dislike on Al-Sharra to the side and actually engage with him as a state level actor.

And of course, Al-Sharra has the benefit of the fact that he, got to kick Al-Sharra out of Syria, but that's neither here nor there. So the Houthis have their own, have their own needs, right?

And they will, they will be successful in getting that legitimacy if they can cause enough global pain. Because if they can't, then, you know, the Saudis will be able to help them and the world will be able to ignore them just as they've been doing for the past, you know, couple of years.

But if the Houthis are able to cause enough pain on a global scale, and, you know, by this I'm talking about pain on the oil markets, we've already seen what happened when Iran had control of just the state of Hormuz.

Now we, the Babylonian, as close to, you know, being the Houthis trust as possible. And what's coming now is that the Houthis want to mine that water body, this is the best chance they have to just legitimize themselves.

Because if people, if the world wants to, wants to avoid a global economic catastrophe, their best bet is to actually clear ball with the Houthis.

The fact that the U S you'll have those negotiations with the Houthis and actually expect them to be not, not to get involved in the war. It tells me they're already at least halfway there to their, to their need for legitimacy.

I think it is worth noting the U S and other countries have tried to kinetically engage the Houthis before in operation prosperity guardian, when the Houthis were launching these longer range drone and missile strikes against shipping to kind of show their solidarity with Moss.

That was roundly condemned as a failure. I mean, you can governments will frame it the way they want to frame it. But if you looked at the results they were able to achieve with the non results they were able to achieve, suffice it to say, you can look at what's happened in the last week or so and say, the Houthis are not deterred.

But Kyle, I want to turn it over to you because I know you have a lot of thoughts here as well. Yeah. So on the failure specifically of Prosperity Guardian, I think that really just demonstrated and showed the Houthis sort of the same type of dynamic that's going on with Iran, where, you know, the international community can not just like condemn you.

They will actually take military action. And you're still there. You're still kicking.

You're still attacking these ships. And so that can really be an emboldening factor, even though they were taking losses from the ongoing bombing campaign. It was almost like they were looking at it and saying, is that all you got?

So when it comes to this type of dynamic, like in 2026, how does Saudi Arabia go about fixing this? Well, so much of it has already been tried. And really shown as not being particularly successful.

So right now, the Houthis have claimed this week alone that they've dropped, or Saudi Arabia has dropped 450 bombs in the country. So where does it go from here? Because it simply doesn't look like they're going to be able to actually accomplish much of anything.

And on this front, there is a lot of concerns internationally. But when push comes to shove, the internationally recognized government in Yemen does not have the capability to get this under control. Saudi Arabia does not have the ability to get this under control.

Nobody in particular seems willing to step in with the Saudis. So where does that leave the Houthis? I think that it leaves the Houthis in a relatively envious position.

I want to talk about that figure for a minute. 450 bombs that Saudi Arabia allegedly dropped on Yemen. Those are a lot of bombs. But 450 airstrikes, right?

That's such a high figure. And the fact that it has had almost no impact on the Houthis' ability to conduct their activities in the way they see fit, that's such a great failure of the Saudi Arabian military system.

And I don't know if it will have any backlash on MBS, Mohammed bin Salman, but it should, because how do you have one of the wealthiest countries in the world consistently having such a poorly organized nation to the point where the Houthis are not, they're a non-state actor?

So you'd imagine that 450 airstrikes would have more of an impact on them, right? So how is Saudi Arabia, with all of its wealth, with all of its actors to American intelligence, and so much more? Or is it still struggling to slash?

The process, those days seem to be over. I think from here, the only real option for Riyadh is to pursue some military buildup, at least. Evan, I think you wrote an episode on specifically this, though.

So do you have any thoughts? Oh, yes, I did. And oh, yes, I do.

So Saudi Arabia is one of the few countries that kind of has taken its wealth, and Indonesia is another really good example of this, and basically buys a whole bunch of military kit, from various countries, as kind of a geopolitical signaling tool, right? So when you buy a weapon, you're essentially purchasing a long, like, sustainment chain, right?

So if you buy, like, let's say an F-15, because the Saudis have a ton of those, if you buy that, you're now buying 30 to 50 years of support and training and kind of customer service from the U.S. and from, goodness, what makes a F-15?

Oh, I don't know why I'm having a memory lapse on that, but hopefully, you know, Lockheed Martin don't sue me, but all of that is to say, right, the Saudis have kind of built their military as a signaling tool, so they'll take from the U.S., they'll take from France, et cetera, to kind of say, like, hey, we're going to be on sides with you guys for about the

Next several decades.

You have nothing to worry about because if we were to cross you, right, we don't get access to these weapons anymore. We can't maintain them.

We can't use them. Saudi Arabia also is very concerned about internal threats to the House of Saud, right, the ruling house that governs Saudi Arabia. So they try to keep the military intentionally kind of not that great so that they can keep it fragmented, so it doesn't really pose a coup d'etat threat to the Saudi state itself.

Internationally, they rely on Bratsy forces like the Yemeni government, the internationally recognized government that Saudi supported for a long time. They also rely on mercenary forces, all of this kind of to offset the responsibility from Saudi Arabia itself to take large-scale military action. That's going to have to change in some way.

It's not clear how they're going to do it. All of those internal concerns from the House of Saud remain pretty acute. Saudi has not done a great job getting its armed forces into fighting shape.

There's a lot of kind of showmanship that goes on with these young elite members of families going and doing military services, kind of like their way of proving themselves within the internal Saudi hierarchy, right?

Culturally, it's less of a, I joined the military to go and fight abroad than it is, this is kind of a display of machismo and preening and whatever it is. That has to change in some way.

At the same time, that takes real time and investment, and there's just not that opportunity right now, right?

The Saudi government could embark on that change, that will take 5, 10, 15 years to really get right, and by then, on current course, right, if we take the last few weeks and we kind of project outward, will the Houthis be recognized as either the sovereign leaders of Yemen or possibly in a split Yemen that kind of goes back to the Cold War era where you had

This one state on the territory that the Houthis mostly control, then another state in what the internationally recognized government controls.

We also saw the, not to bring them in again, but the Emirati-backed separatist group that took a bunch of territory last year kind of made a similar play where they were going to break Yemen in half.

There are a lot of ways that the Emiratis, for this to spiral really, really far out of Saudi Arabia's control before Saudi can get itself together. And right now, the Saudi government just does not have what it takes to come in and really intervene here.

And to your point about the Houthis and the kind of lessons that they learned from Prosperity Guardian, that campaign was so mismanaged, largely because it both signaled to the Houthis very, very clearly, hey, the West is going to rely on bombing runs, it's going to rely on international pressure to stop you, and that's not enough.

But it also signaled, hey, when you bother shipping in the Red Sea, the entire world really, really, really cares. They want to step in, they want to create these huge results.

So the US, Europe, all the other countries that participated in that kind of gave a game away in those last few years, where they really did show like, no, you can force us into a really compromising position, force us to respond with mass military action, and it won't be enough if you drive in the streets.

So that's kind of where we are now. Evan, I have a question for you as someone who has looked at the Saudi Arabian military a lot more in depth than I have.

So there's a claim going around on social media right now, I don't know if you guys have seen it, that every prince within the Saudi Arabian system, and there are a lot of them, is born with a general's birthright, you know, basically the ability to command sections of the military at least.

Is this true? And then second, there have been reports that Saudi Arabia is enlisting Somali army personnel to fight in Yemen, right? And you know, right now, Somalia is dealing with its own internal crisis.

So how do you see that Saudi Arabia drawing from Somalia's limited military results affecting Somalia's own crisis and its friendship further with Saudi Arabia, its relationship? Absolutely. So love those questions.

So on the first one for the Saudi kind of princess being born with the rights of the general, that is, so there are a few layers to this, right? So on the one hand, the Saudi civilian government is like overrun with memory of the royal family, which it's a giant royal family. Like it's truly incomprehensible.

And it's not necessarily unusual for countries to kind of assign military rank, so to speak, to people in civilian positions.

So like in the U.S. system, for example, I know the diplomatic corps, right, high-ranking diplomats have kind of an equivalent military rank, but they can, usually they don't, right, but they can, if necessary and in a crisis, use that to kind of put themselves within a military chain of command. So in a way, that is part of it.

On the other hand, if you are a young Saudi member of the elite and you go and join the military, it's not going to be a very hard time for you. You know, there's not really a ton of Saudi drill sergeants or high-ranking officers who are really going to be trying to put you through the paces.

It's more to do with those folks trying to curry their own favor by being really nice to the 19th in line for this minor house that happens to feed into the House of Saud.

There's a lot of institutional leeway for young Saudi elites joining the military to kind of use it as just really just an exercise in self promotion more than anything else. Now, as for your other question and the involvement of Somalia here, Somalia and Somali fighters are actually on both sides of the conflict.

So the Houthis have built up a relationship with al-Shabaab for a few years.

Now, al-Shabaab, of course, being the jihadist group that is working to slowly but kind of surely wrap in around Mogadishu and really threaten the security situation there.

There have been some reports from the Yemeni government and, you know, treat this with as much legitimacy or not as you want to that basically all Shabaab forces had come in to support the Houthis directly on the ground. Now as for Saudi, for the Saudi government bringing in Somali fighters on the opposite end, right?

Mogadishu and Riyadh are getting closer and closer right now. Same with Mogadishu in Turkey, same with Mogadishu in Cairo, so on.

It would hardly be a surprise if the Saudis kind of look to Somali forces for additional manpower that being said Somali forces are really like kind of a two-track group where on the one hand you have these small units, not small but like smaller, a small proportion of the military they're genuinely really elite a couple years ago we did an episode on World

Fronts on Dendab which is Somalia's kind of leading command brigade.

Those guys for, you know, for the resources that they have, for the training they have, they are genuinely excellent, right? These are guys who will sweep into villages and kind of clear it out of al-Shabaab or who ever else and really do a great job locking down control. Then, of course, they have to move on, right?

Because they're kind of these shock troops that are these offensive units and then the regular Saudi military, sorry, the regular Somali military comes in and kind of holds that territory and they are in a word, abysmal. Really, really, really awful. Very prone to routing, very low training standards, very high corruption.

All of like the, you know, if you can think of something bad to say and you try to say it about the Somali military, it's probably accurate if you're looking at kind of the main bulk of Somali forces. So the question I would have is, which of those two groups did Saudi Arabia take, right? Did they take from the commando units?

We're now going to be able to kind of spearhead anti- Houthi operations, but now coming off the front line in Somalia at a time when Al-Shabaab is looking kind of resurgent. It's been a kind of a back and forth contested couple of years, but Al-Shabaab is kind of creeping closer and closer to the moment issue.

So if you take those elite troops off the front line, are you handing Al-Shabaab an opportunity, especially when Al-Shabaab itself is so connected to what's going on the Houthi side?

Or, if you're Saudi Arabia, did you take the other group of Somali forces, the ones that really are not up to scratch? And in that case, why did you do that in the first place?

Those are just going to fill these kind of empty ranks of the Yemeni backs, sorry, the Saudi-backed Yemeni government, and fill those ranks even in further with kind of some more empty personnel numbers.

So yeah, certainly it's a tough situation for the Saudis because they really don't have a ton of other places to turn, given that the U.S. and their other allies are not going to step in. But pulling from Somali forces is kind of a lose-lose proposition no matter how you do it.

We know for a fact Saudi Arabia caused 1,500 Somali personnel in 2015 to face alongside the Yemeni government.

If we assume that it took the same numbers, given what you do know about Somalia, do you think this will come more just from the sheer volume of numbers? Do you think it's more from the commando guys or from the regular army? Because I do remember that video you did.

It was one of the videos that convinced me that I really needed to work here. So, yeah, thank you. Well, first, I'm honored in that, you know, that means a ton, because we've, of course, loved having you on staff and on the roundtable and everywhere else.

So, thank you, and glad to know that, you know, putting that out into the ether had some good results for us. That number, 1,500, is still low enough that you certainly could make up part or all of it from the commando forces. That said, they're already stretched so thin.

I mean, even if you take 300 of those guys off the front line, you assume that some of them are always going to be in training or resting or away from the front lines, right? Then you take 300 of the available front line troops, and let's say 1,200 of kind of the hold this territory section of the Somali military.

That still is maybe not enough to force really substantial al-Shabaab gains, but it's certainly enough where al-Shabaab can do what it does best, kind of creep in around the periphery.

Really, the best way I've kind of found to think of al-Shabaab getting closer to Mogadishu, right, if you think of like imagine like a big wad of paper towels, right? This is a weird analogy, but go with me here, right? We're going to think of Mogadishu as this big ball of paper towels, right?

Al-Shabaab is not taking a flamethrower to that thing and just like bursting it into flames. It's like dripping little drops of water here and there, right? Here and there and here and there and here and there until that whole thing is saturated, right?

And outwardly it doesn't really look any different, but it's just soaked, right? And that's kind of what al-Shabaab has been trying to do and like slowly just glom itself onto the periphery of Mogadishu wherever it can get deeper and deeper into the city.

And if you take, you know, 300, let alone 1,500 guys off the front line on Somalia's side who are really kind of willing to lean on to keep that security, that's going to be a real problem moving forward.

It's hard to say how huge of a problem it'll be, but it's certainly non-zero. So I hope that does an okay job answering your question. Absolutely it does.

And then for my final question before, you know, we transition out of Somalia, I think we'll definitely check out of the conversation for a minute here. I'm going to talk about the technology transfer between the Houthis and al-Shabaab.

We know the Houthis are one of the most technically capable of Iran's proxies with capabilities that to some degree rival Tehran's own capabilities.

So how big of a threat is it that the Houthis and al-Shabaab have this seemingly ever-growing partnership? How big is that idea of technology transfer between the two groups? Yes, it's huge.

It's a huge problem. So it's less likely that the Houthis are going to, let's say, send a bunch of ballistic missiles to al-Shabaab. Al-Shabaab would need a bunch of launch infrastructure.

We need to keep those hidden, which it's going to really struggle to do. That's going to be less of an issue.

What the Houthis can supply is one, just kind of an endless supply of small arms and munitions and kind of the everyday stuff that al-Shabaab needs to keep up the fight they can also supply drones and drone components it would be really dangerous for al-Shabaab to kind of expand its use of FPV drones excuse me, wow, I can't say FPV drones today expand its

Use of FPV drones kind of similar to, think of what you would see on the Ukrainian front lines obviously bad if al-Shabaab learns to do that at scale, even worse if al-Shabaab can kind of set up these garage factories to produce their own stuff, which means that these could certainly help with, right?

The Houthis, by the way, take a lot of these Iranian designs and just like spin up their own production lines, which is kind of impressive and unusual for a non-state actor of that size.

So in that way, right, thinking of the Houthis being able to get their hands, I'm sorry, the al-Shabaab being able to get their hands on that kind of technology could be a really huge issue.

And then the other side that I kind of worry about, especially in this short-term horizon here would be direct Houthi action against Mogadishu or against other Somali forces.

If, you know, al-Shabaab is in position to make major gains in the ground, if it can devote the ground resources to that, and the Houthis are kind of already in this internationally challenged, ostracized position where they feel they can get away with a little bit more, who's to say that we couldn't see Houthi ballistic missiles turned toward Somalia?

That is, again, one of those concerns that does feel really out there, even just to voice it, but looking at the situation looking at how close those two groups are, and looking at how much the Houthis would like to have al-Shabaab and their kind of related pirate affiliates active in the Gulf of Aden to kind of help to assert a Houthi-led maritime order,

Right?

It's difficult for me to look at the situation and say that's not a possibility, if that makes sense.

Absolutely makes sense. So let's move on from the situation in Somalia, gentlemen, and talk about just how bad an economic impact this is having the entire situation within the Babel Mandate is having on the global economy. Kyle, I'll throw this to you.

It has just been sort of one thing after another here. So for a little while, oil prices and its related products were still significantly elevated compared to pre-war levels, but it seemed as though the energy market had basically stabilized for a few months there, honestly.

And back and forth between the U.S. and Iran with various kinetic strikes were almost becoming something where the oil market sort of looked at it and goes, oh, there they go again.

They're almost banking on the fact that Hormuz is just a mess, that they're going to be lucky to get almost anything out of, but at least we have Suez and we have Bab al-Mendab. And by way of, in large part, the Saudi East-West pipeline here. So, last week, on September 11th, the Houthis attacked the Saudi East-West pipeline.

This is a massive project that carries as many as 7 million barrels of oil from Saudi's East Coast, where a lot of the drilling takes place, all the way to its West Coast, to the city of Yanbu, where it is able to export to the North via Suez and through the South via Bab al-Mandeb in the Red Sea.

So, overall though, the fact that the Houthis were able to not just hit, but actually shut down, and at time of recording on September 16th, it remained shut down. This pipeline is pretty enormous.

That was a significant amount of oil that was being passed through, and basically being able to bypass the mess in Hormuz. That is a very concerning development. Now, we have seen some indications that repairs may get this thing back up and running, hopefully sooner rather than later.

I have to imagine if you're Saudi Arabia, you are fully committed to getting this up and running as fast as humanly possible. We have seen that the U.S. Energy Secretary Chris Wright said crude could start flowing again within days. That might be a little optimistic.

Reuters sourcing has said that it would range from relatively quickly to as many as five to six weeks for full repairs. That's an enormous time span, so it's hard to pin down exactly where it stands. But point being, today, September 16th, no oil flowing through.

And we've already seen that yesterday, I believe, Saudi Aramco, cancelled all of its September European crude oil allocations and is scrapping every cargo slated for late September, loading onwards. So Europe taking the brunt of it here, but I have to imagine that they're not going to be alone moving forward.

And just given how much of this of the energy markets rely on oil flowing through these various choke points, right now it's just Suez that is still fully functional, and even if Suez is open, though, Saudi Arabia can barely get the oil to the West Coast to export it, which leaves a lot of the Middle East just sort of sitting around twiddling their thumbs,

Waiting for something to open up.

Yeah, just looking at the numbers here, Brent crude has not come down from over 100, or sorry, at least over 99.75, if you will, since last Friday. We're now seeing those continue to climb. We're seeing the world really not able to step up here.

I do want to go back to the idea of Saudi Arabia's kind of mecha-tact with Pakistan and Turkey. Pakistan has basically said outright, we're not going to intervene here. To use medical language, they've essentially written off the Houthi threat as a Saudi pre-existing condition.

Their idea in the situation is this was an issue that you faced before. This is not something that we're going to come in and really try and change the status quo on because this is not what we signed up for, so to speak.

There's a lot of implications out there with the Mecca Pact and how this was really kind of more focused toward Israel and the Emirates and that kind of alliance from the start.

We're seeing the U.S. not step in. We're seeing Pakistan not step in. We're seeing Turkey not step in.

You would think Egypt might be kind of a candidate to play a role here. They're nowhere to be found. Europe obviously has a vested interest in making sure that this is locked down.

Europe is nowhere to be found. The countries of South and Eastern Asia, so South Korea, Philippines, Japan, really can't afford these kinds of energy shots right now, and yet they also are nowhere to be found.

So looking at the destruction of the East-West pipeline, especially where you kind of take the Suez Canal off the table just by default because you can't use the Saudi, the export terminals that rely on the Suez and not the Balboa Manda, it really is kind of a situation where the Houthis have gained the ability really quickly to throttle the global oil

Market in a way that nobody seems to be willing to wait in on.

We are most surprised by Egypt's lack of assistance, for lack of a better word, because they are one of Saudi Arabia's most important allies in the region, and Egypt is one of the most influential, powerful states. So if Egypt had stepped in, I don't think, especially in other states, you're still to step in. It will have really a lot of support.

So for me, Egypt, I have to say, all of this is the most shocking. Kyle? Yeah, so Egypt has long had this reputation, the Egyptian government, many Egyptian governments, I should say, of basically playing all sides very, very well.

So they'll tell them that they're on, they'll say, oh, yes, we are resolutely committed to whatever is going on at the current time, while also cozying up to the other side, telling them the same exact thing. They have made for, and they've been quite good at this.

I'm not saying this as like a hit on them, but I also am saying it with the recognition that whenever you think Egypt is on your side, I would just urge, a little bit of caution.

So the whole like Saudi Islamic NATO thing, originally like the whole thing was step. So Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Egypt, Pakistan, right?

That was not the final result of what actually got negotiated and finalized and agreed upon because I think some of these leaders sort of recognized, okay, I'm not really sure Egypt is going to be there for us when push comes to shove.

So when it comes, to like, if Pakistan is pulling a United healthcare situation where it's denied, and here we go. Yes. I'm sorry, guys.

I had it and then I just totally lost it with the United situation, but okay. That's staying in by the way. We're totally fair enough.

But yeah. So if, if Pakistan is pulling that ultimately I have to imagine like Egypt, which didn't even sign onto the accord wasn't going to be too enthusiastic about it. But again, that just sort of leaves Saudi Arabia high and dry.

And that brings in another potential here, something that I have been very interested in for the course of the entire Iran war. And that's the relationship, the relationship that Israel has with the rest of the world.

And something that I've frequently pointed to or occasionally pointed to here on this podcast is back in March, I believe, or perhaps early April, the economist ran a piece where it was basically showing the Israeli flag lying on the ground, like the wind blowing it down and saying Israel alone.

And I've constantly been wondering, is this going to be something where the world does move away from Israel? Or is Israel losing part of the world but gaining new allies elsewhere?

And so when it comes to this Houthi conflict, in addition to the ongoing situation with Iran, where Saudi Arabia's air force was actually flying with the Israeli air force to conduct strikes for brief periods of time, it's now the Israelis, who Saudi Arabia has been meeting with on basically what the heck do we do now?

So Axios reported that Saudi Arabia and Israel with CENTCOM mediating are discussing Israeli ISR and intelligence support for operations against the Houthis modeled specifically on the intelligence assistance that Jerusalem provides to the United Arab Emirates.

The Emirates, of course, being the signatories of the Abraham Accords and perhaps one of the perhaps one of Israel's closest Arab allies. So overall, I have to I do feel like Saudi Arabia is being torn in two different directions here.

So obviously the Gaza Palestine situation front and center to their foreign policy, especially because of domestic opinion on the situation there.

But at the same time, if nobody is really willing to help them, and Israel is also not willing to throw their hat in the ring here just yet, by the way, but if Israel, Israel is willing to provide actionable intelligence, help them coordinate, that's further integration than we saw against Iran. So this is just another step towards them sort of normalizing.

But Evan, I know you have some thoughts on this as well. Yeah, this is a fascinating situation for Israel, I think, especially on the eve of an election in Israel. The Israelis have a chance to come in and save the day here, right?

Of everybody else in the Middle East who does seem very reticent to take offensive action, right? Say what you will about Israel, say what you will about the Netanyahu government. These are folks where if you show them an enemy of Israel, an ally of Iran, and you ask them, hey, can you please start bombing over here?

Generally, they're going to be inclined to at least consider the possibility, right? I think we can all at least agree to that. At the same time, as you mentioned, Kyle, Israel is pretty overstretched right now, right?

They're looking at the ongoing occupation in Gaza. They're trying to deal with their challenges to be a Hezbollah. They're trying to maintain kind of a pulse on these Iraqi militias that can get involved in this conflict.

They're trying to remain on guard for escalation in Iran. They're also trying to pivot to their rivalry with Turkey over Syria, where we've seen some violence in the southern parts of Syria over the last few weeks that are deeply tied in with these groups that have Israeli support. So the question is, I think, are can Israel afford to restrict itself?

And can Israel justify getting really connectedly involved here to kind of win an ally potentially in Saudi Arabia or at least win some greater tolerance than they've been receiving in the past and possibly earn the gratitude of the international community if it could somehow unlock the problem at them, right?

Versus how far do you want to go to overstretch your own capacity and take the risks inherent in that, right? There are also no guarantees that the Netanyahu government would see this as a win, right?

You could also kind of frame this from an electoral perspective, from the perspective of Netanyahu's adversaries to say like, you know, we have so many problems, we're stretched so thin, we can't take on something else. Why are we going and supporting the Saudis, right? So it's a gamble, but certainly you could see the upside from the Israeli perspective.

And I'm really curious to both of you guys, do you think that it would be kind of an advantage for Israel to use this opportunity to get involved kinetically, or is Israel just too overstretched right now to really do anything more than, the ISR support that they're offering?

Tactically and strategically, it would make a lot of sense for Israel to get involved on the Saudi side and really enrich itself with Syria. Because this is one of the few items in Saudi Arabia getting convinced to sign the Abraham Accords.

And that's been one of Israel's long-term goals. But realistically, I don't see them being able, to handle bad resources to Saudi Arabia. Kyle, you usually have a much better read on Israel than I do.

What do you think? I have a hard time imagining this being anything other than a win for Israel if they step in. So even unlike Iran, where this was sort of like the be-all, end-all, where they wanted this to be a fight that either, at the very least, would neutralize the Islamic Republic, severely weaken it, etc. They don't have to do that here.

Even if they drop some bombs with the Saudis and provide some strategic intelligence, this would go a long way towards winning favor with the Saudi intelligence and Saudi government writ large.

Because again, right now, they're feeling very isolated, very abandoned by their own allies, given the pre-existing condition denial that we have been seeing and even though Pakistan has deployed troops to Saudi Arabia a little while ago, they just have not.

And for what it's worth, the alliance that they signed is in its infancy still, so it doesn't have the same command and control structures that one would expect for a more developed alliance.

But even still, the response, and especially by Turkey, Turkey has been just like, get me out of this thing, in terms of whether it wants to actually deploy anything, about the Houthis, they just, they want to be doing their thing, not getting bogged down in some forever war in Yemen.

So ultimately, I think that, I just, I don't see a way in which if Israel stepped in to the Yemen conflict, they would come out with anything other than some form of a win, because even if the intelligence they give doesn't meaningfully change the reality on the ground, and the past campaigns, especially in 2023 and 2024, did not, but even still, it would

Win over some friends in Riyadh.

Certainly, and I do want to bring in as well the note that you mentioned before about Saudi Arabia and Libya as well, both kind of shutting down their export of oil for the next couple of months at least.

How much of an impact do you anticipate that having on Saudi Arabia's international standing? Because the Saudi deal with the rest of the world has kind of been straightforward for a while. We can get away with autocracy at home.

We can not really pull our weight as a security guarantor in the Middle East. In exchange, we ensure a consistent supply of oil, and that just never changes. So now we see Saudi Arabia kind of failing to uphold that end of the bargain, where Saudi Arabia took on Yemen, essentially.

Saudi Arabia chose to be the leading security guarantor in that country, chose to be the main backer of the international economic tax government, kind of made this implicit promise to the rest of the world, hey, we can keep Yemen on lockdown. That has now completely fallen apart, and Saudi exports are no longer flowing.

So what do you see as the longer-term impacts on Saudi Arabia's place in the world, especially if these disruptions continue for longer?

Saudi Arabia's bargain in the world is one of the strangest outcomes, or the development of a combustion engine that you could have predicted. And one thing I have been predicting for the past few years is, as we get closer and closer to an all-electric future, whenever that may be, Saudi Arabia's position in the world will significantly drop.

And it seems like we're getting closer to that point.

The fact that they've cancelled delivery contracts with Europe, which is one of the biggest cases they need to have influence with, to the point where they're investing heavily in soccer and in all manner of sports just to try and photo-share image within the wider West, but mainly in Europe and the US, that tells you that they will really take a big hit

From this.

And it's not the kind of thing that they can't recover from. Their oil will go back to flowing at some point.

Unless, you know, the UPIs decide to completely destroy any, any attempts at rebuilding the pipeline or any attempts at transiting oil through the Babel Manga.

But Saudi Arabia will take a big hit, but it's not one that the exemptions cover from, but during that period where they are taking that hit, where the world is considering other alternatives, it might get to a point where the world says, hey, these alternatives might just be better than you guys.

They don't come with the same moral complications, and I know geopolitics doesn't really care for morality, neither does economics, but it will get to a point where Saudi Arabia can not really recover its standing in the world.

I think that it will be able to bounce back more than that. It made a bet that it couldn't, and lost the bet, basically. It couldn't do everything it wanted to while ensuring that this oil kept flowing, but it also has several things going for it.

So first being that it's in good company. Riyadh is not the first and perhaps not the last capital in 2026 and the last few years who has started or been involved in a war that they assured the rest of the world under no circumstances would escalate into some wider long-term thing that they would lose control over. I have no idea who I'm talking about.

Perhaps someone in the audience might have a clue. But overall, I think they have that going for them in terms of like, how can the U.S. sort of look at Saudi Arabia and be like, how did you guys lose control of this situation while still bogged down for six and a half months in Hormuz?

And that gives Saudi Arabia another leg up in terms of the situation with the sort of cause of this.

So the Houthis certainly are, as Evan has pointed out, much more autonomous and more like self, more willing to go at their own way than other members of Iran's axis of resistance like Hezbollah. But they are still a very Iran-backed group, and they very much look at the Iranian operations in Hormuz. Hormuz saying, wow, isn't that cool?

What if we could do that? I have to imagine that the situation with Iran has played large in the minds of Houthi leaders. Iranian leaders, IRGC officials have made multiple visits to Sana'a, both to coordinate with them in terms of basically giving them a how-to lesson on setting up tolls in international waterways.

They have not actually done that yet. But if they want to. Now they have the educational resources and more writ large, the blockade that they put on Saudi Arabia for their blockade of Yemen has been very heavily inspired by Iran's success in Hormuz.

So overall, Saudi Arabia has plausible deniability on both of these fronts to sort of say, look, we didn't do this. We had everything under control and they have a. Decent track record of being able to continue exporting oil when this was going on.

Keep in mind, the Yemen conflict has been raging for over a decade now. It's it ceased for quite some time, but it's certainly not a new thing. So they can say we didn't kick this off.

We didn't start this up again. This isn't us. And I think overall, when you look at politicians who have tried to move away from Saudi Arabia, that never really goes too well for them.

Joe Biden was. A prominent critic of the Crown Prince. And after the Ukraine war kicked off, he ended up with the legendary or legendary fist bump of Mohammed bin Salman.

So there are people, the government, they're full of people who the West tries to break away from periodically, but never really manages to. Yeah, in the words of a great geopolitical expert, we didn't start. Kind of situation from Saudi Arabia.

That being said, it is still really stunning to see how kind of the lessons that most of the world can kind of see could be coming Saudi Arabia's way at some point have kind of been learned in the last little while. We at WarFronts and elsewhere in kind of our Simon adjacent universe love to lampoon a Saudi megaprojects whenever we get the chance.

I, the guys know this, I personally am a huge like combat sports fan, so I've seen like Saudi and Emirati influence kind of battling back and forth in the atmosphere.

We've seen it all over the sporting world. We've seen it everywhere, right? Kind of in contrast to the very real geopolitical threats that have always existed right on Saudi Arabia's doorstep.

And it is really kind of a coming home moment for Saudi Arabia right now, kind of having to deal with the geopolitical realities that it's put off for so long. Now, I do want to shift course a little bit away from Yemen, because obviously that's the big story, and at least right now, for good reason. But I do want to touch on the situation in Iran.

So over the last couple of days, we've seen limited but non-zero U.S. and Iranian action toward each other. So just today, at the time of recording, so on the 16th, Iran reported explosions on Chechen Island. Not yet clear what happened there.

Also, according to some reports that are just kind of trickling out now, the Iranians may have been fired on a U.S. contractor vessel in the Strait of Hormuz. It looks like a couple of Americans were injured. It's not clear yet what their role was.

So it has been a relatively quiet week on the Iranian front, but not totally silent. So gentlemen, what do you make of the recent developments there, and are we looking at kind of a new hold while we see the Houthi situation play out, or should we expect some more escalation in Iran pretty soon? So in multiple episodes of this podcast, I have

As I said, the escalation ladder, just this idea that Iran will do something, the U.S. will respond, and Iran means retaliate because it doesn't probably seem weak in the face of material American aggression. So right now, the strikes seem to be set in a holding pattern, but not, you know, in the traditional sense.

When I see the strikes right now, what comes to mind for me?

Is the idea that Iran is trying to make it as expensive as possible for Washington to stay in the Middle East and, you know, just to keep rising that cost to the point where Washington can't really accept it anymore.

There was an old channel that I shared with you gentlemen before we started recording that the U.S. military had fired up to 70 or more of its high-end air defenses last week when Iran launched a missile at the Jordan. So, U.S. forces fired at least 60 or several decreased interceptors to counter an attack which consisted of about 20 ballistic missiles.

So, every time Iran is firing something, the U.S. is countering with really expensive interceptors that, and we'll discuss this in more detail, it doesn't really have the capacity to make that scale as much as, you know, it would need.

So, in the way on which Iran is being struck back, it knows that if they're all dealt a little bit more than Washington, because, as I've mentioned before, the regime in Tehran can just pass the bill to the people without, you know, really much of an impact on them. As long as they survive, they're good.

So, even this most recent attack will just fit that pattern. Kyle, what do you think? So, I have to think that this is just sort of Iran seeing what it can get away with in this as well, because overall, certainly they may want to just keep the pressure up on Washington.

But overall, Washington has, without admitting it, come around to the fact that, okay, it's not going to get anything that it really set out to achieve here. But at this point, they're just fighting for status quo. Hormuz gets to be reopened.

International tolls do not. They do not come to be. And the Strait of Hormuz is not some big toll booth for the Islamic Republic.

I don't think Iran has necessarily the capability to make the United States just give up on that.

I mean, we have seen that they do have the capability to withstand what the U.S. can dish out in terms of kinetic strikes and in terms of what they're able to like to stop whatever Washington's strategy to either topple the country or variously just get it to make further concessions. That's out of the cards.

But here, I don't see that they have what they what they think they might. And I would love to bring in a graphic that you had shown us prior to talking about the U.S. losses that have possibly previously gone unreported in the Middle East. Can you tell us more about that?

Yes. So this is. This is a graphic that was shared with that was originally by the congressional budget office.

It's a report on the cost of Operation Epic Fury, and it contains a lot of details that, you know, we didn't really know about, you know, just how many losses the U.S. has sustained with doing this war. For me, the biggest one is perhaps the inclusion of an F-35 jet here. This is the first time at least.

To the best of my knowledge, that an F-35 has been lost in combat. And, you know, there's obviously a lot of other interesting claims here, including the MH-6 helicopter, four of those were lost, F-15E, four of those were lost, KC-135.

We initially knew that one had been lost, but the document indicates that two have been lost, and the total estimate of this, you know, from the Congressional Budget Office, is that all of these losses cost the U.S. taxpayer about $1.9 billion, and there's an alternate estimate that it costs $3.3 billion.

So, if we take the lower end of that figure, the U.S. is making way too many losses in states.

These are not sustainable figures from my understanding, especially considering that the Strait of Hormuz was opened before the war, its closure has caused significant economic losses within the U.S. We're talking about Brent being at past $100 a barrel because of this war.

And we're looking at an even greater economic calamity if the Houthis can continue to frustrate Saudi Arabia.

All of these losses put together are just staggering, and I do not know how the U.S. plans on sustaining all of this, or at the very least sustaining it without descending. I don't believe it's sustainable. There was a report earlier today that Amazon Web Service said it couldn't restore access to its cloud computing facilities in Bahrain.

It's not just Bahrain, the UAE as well has been hit.

So if Amazon is losing such important infrastructure in the Middle East, infrastructure that is severely relied upon by the AI industry, which is one of the very few industries powering the U.S. economy right now, we're looking at something that has the potential to cascade into even more areas of the economy. It genuinely has me worried.

I may share some of those concerns. I'm not nearly as pessimistic as that may seem. So the overall situation is not great.

So diesel in particular is sort of a bellwether because it's used for the trucks that transport goods across the country and even abroad as well. So that is elevated, significantly elevated. And that's definitely a concern for inflation.

We have seen the Fed hint that there may be rate hikes coming down the pike as well. None of these are good for growth. And it's totally self-inflicted.

So certainly going to be a negative self-inflicted wound for sure. Overall, though, I mean, the situation is not, the economy is still growing. Inflation is a concern, but not an emergency level.

And while people have certainly soured on the performance over the last year or several years at this point, it's nowhere near like anything like catastrophe or economic health, shall we say. So I do think that overall, I would give it like a moderate disapproval. And I think that's generally reflective of where things stand writ large.

Now, could it spiral further? Sure. But oil being above 100 is never good, but it's also not catastrophic.

So back in the 70s, when the original oil shocks took place, the U.S. was really hit hard by that. The lack of access to that really ramped up. Lack of access to oil really ramped up the pressure on people throughout the economy.

We have become the world's largest, we as the United States have become the world's largest energy producer since then. And overall, that does show. So despite being largely cut off from a lot of Mideast sources, we're significantly down from Mideast sources.

The economy is still there. It's not in some massive crisis is all I'm saying there. Yeah, I think the question of economic pain to the US in particular, because the US is, of course, the other party in this war, versus the question of like the economic collapse in the US are two very different issues.

The US economy does not appear to be like really on the verge of any major catastrophe right now as it relates to this war. I mean, we could talk about economic analysis kind of more generally all day, I'm sure.

But just from this war itself, these, I mean, the spike in diesel prices, as you mentioned, Kyle, are obviously going to be a major problem, but they're not going to single-handedly tank the U.S. or the world economy.

That being said, I think there is a conversation about how all of these added costs for the U.S. are stacking up, also at a politically difficult time for the Trump administration, where we have midterms in T-minus two months now, a little bit less than that, closer to six weeks. And these shortages and these price rises are only going to get worse.

So I think the political impact of economic pain can't be ruled out.

The thing that I'm more concerned about when we talk about the losses on the U.S. side would be that the costs of this war do seem to be pretty substantially underreported.

This has been kind of clear from the first estimates that the Pentagon put out, where the costs associated with moving this much equipment, these personnel numbers, even just to the Middle East as an operating theater, are estimated to be, according to the credible expert analyses that I've seen, estimated to be substantially higher than the total cost of

War that the U.S. initially reported.

That kind of divergence between what you would expect this war to cost, given munitions expenditure, given the price of transportation, given the amount of warplanes that are in the air at a given time, and the sustainment costs on those, the divergence between costs that you would expect and costs that have been reported, have only kind of grown wider and

Wider.

Now, the U.S. can, of course, pull funds from other areas of its own budget, right? It can kind of do some economic pushing and pulling behind the scenes to kind of make all of this work. That being said, it does seem like there's going to be a larger bill for this war that may not become clear for a little while yet.

So, tough to really project what the cost of that will be on the American side, but it does seem like something to watch moving forward. Now, I completely understand why both of you gentlemen and I don't want to seem just pessimistic for the sake of being pessimistic.

I do want to highlight the fact that U.S. energy executives have been warning for a while now, and their warnings got a lot sharper in the past two days.

There's a piece in the Wall Street Journal that came out saying that we are in the middle of the energy crisis that they have been warning about, that the kind of buffers that would have existed to protect the Americans.

Just anyone within the global economy from the worst of these shocks have been tapped to the point where they can't really be tapped anymore. And yes, I might be a little bit pessimistic because the figures I'm looking at don't really give me any reason to be hopeful.

I just want to preface that before we move on to the next topic. Yeah, I do share your pessimism more broadly. Again, there's a question like economic collapse versus like real economic pain, especially for the U S and I think we're headed into real economic pain territory in the, in the near future.

I do think it's worth noting, right? Once you kind of release the effect of a major economic shock into the rest of an economy, the ripple effects can be really, really unpredictable.

Like I, you know, this is going into a conversation that probably belongs on its own podcast, but I personally look at the AI bubble in the U S right now, and I'm very, very concerned.

About how that's all going to come toppling down, which I kind of do expect it to at some point in the near to mid future, you introduce a global oil shock to that. And it's, it's tough to see, you know, stuff to really project where that goes.

So I do want to kind of, you know, at least voice my agreement that like, yeah, this could get a lot worse before it gets better, but that's actually the thought of that's actually one of the reasons why I am really pessimistic about just how much of an impact this energy shot will have.

Because if money is being taken out of the economy, if the central bank is raising rates, there won't be as much money to go around for AI CapEx as there has been. And AI CapEx has been the thing really, really driving the economy forward. So I don't know, I just feel deeply uncomfortable with the situation as is right now.

Yeah, and just so we don't end too, too pessimistic, I do have a little bit of news. Out of the little country of Lebanon, which has just played such an outsized role, especially earlier this year, for all the wrong reasons.

This time the news has nothing to do with the Iran war, but rather the Beirut blast where we just passed the six month, excuse me, six year anniversary.

August 4th, 2020 was when 2,750 tons of ammonium nitrate blew up in the Beirut port. It killed 220 people, but it just completely leveled an entire area of the city, which raised the question of just like, how the heck could something like this happen? How could that just sit around exposed?

It was in a warehouse, but not like a well-protected one or anything. For six years, Hezbollah basically controlled the port, especially the area of the port where the ammonium nitrate was used, was stored. They used the port for smuggling operations in and out.

And the president at the time, Michel Aoun, who has no relation to Joseph Aoun, was essentially, he was from the Free Patriotic Movement, which is basically the party that's, the Christian party, more aligned with Hezbollah in Lebanon. And he was just very, very supportive of the group. Hezbollah helped him become president.

When he re-entered Lebanese politics, and they had a very unique and interesting relationship.

But overall, he has been recommended, Lebanon's top prosecutor, rather, recommended that Judge Tariq Batar indict former President Michelle Owens for criminal negligence, alleging that Owens knew that the ammonium nitrate was at the port, knew that it was dangerous, personally saw reports indicating just how much of a threat that this posed to the city, and

Failed to take any accurate or adequate measures.

Hezbollah has since tried to cover their ass as much as possible.

So after the explosion, Hezbollah became one of the biggest and loudest forces trying to remove the judge proceeding or presiding over the investigation, Batar himself. And they organized protests and all these things.

And then there was a man by the name Lachman Slim, who was a prominent, he was a journalist who did reporting on the group's responsibility for the blast.

And on February 4th, 2021, he was shot multiple times in the head by what was assumed to be a Hezbollah member. Hassan Nasrallah tweeted shortly thereafter that, let me find the exact quote, some is in fact a gain in a form of unexpected kindness. So certainly the group was none too shy about indicating that they were behind it.

Michel Aoun presided over all of this and did almost nothing to actually stop it from taking place or to crack down on the group's just total stampeding of the Lebanese state. And so if justice is actually to be served, I think starting with the man at the top during the blast, and it's immediate aftermath, would be an excellent place to start.

And the fact that it may be very delayed at this point does not take away from the significance that Judge Tariq Patar is indeed still in his position and may ultimately get some proceedings going against the former president.

Yeah, really good to see some accountability there. Remembering that explosion, that was like, you know, early on in my career, starting to keep up with this, kind of worldwide geopolitical rhythm as best I could. And that was one of the things that really stuck with me early on.

It's cool to hear that there's a bit of accountability on that. Seems like Lebanon and its current state could use a bit more accountability for a bit more people. So if you're going to start anywhere, that's kind of a good place to start.

On that note, though, now that we have something a little bit more optimistic to end on, I do want to wrap it up with a little conversation with both of you guys about what you would like to flag for each of us, for everybody listening, for us to be watching and paying attention to in the coming weeks. So, Wilfred, let's start with you.

As usual, I will be looking at the energy markets just to see which way the winds are blowing and whether there's going to be any form of economic hope coming anytime soon.

Similarly, I'll also be watching China's efforts at getting a deal done or even just getting both sides together. Talking again, because China has been one of the countries working behind the scenes to really, really push some sort of peace agreement, peace deal, just anything, because it understands how much of an impact this is having on the global market.

And by this, I mean the way we run, obviously.

So yeah, that is what I'm watching. I'm going to, as always, stay very focused on the Middle East.

So where this... situation for Saudi Arabia goes with Yemen, any particular Israeli involvement, which I have to imagine would be coming down the pike in some way, shape, or form, even if it's just further intelligence sharing or not, is going to be something that we'll have to see where it goes.

And finally for me, I will be watching, of course, Yemen to see where this... who the offensive goes, where the Saudi-backed counteroffensive goes, if it goes anywhere today, appears that... that a Saudi F-15 was shot down and destroyed. Some of them are circulating right now, so it does not seem like this is going to calm down anytime soon.

I'm also going to be watching, and this is kind of a little bit divergent for our purposes, going to be watching Pakistan and Afghanistan.

There's been some discussion in our war front scene internally, kind of trying to keep an eye on some developments in that area that have led us to believe in as well as a fair proportion of international lawmakers that there may be a new front opening up there as well, which is relevant to everything else here because of the way that Pakistan has tried to

Be both this security guarantor for Saudi Arabia, for Turkey, that it now isn't really willing to act as.

And also because Pakistan has been one of the top mediators between the U.S. and Iran for Pakistan to be wrapped up in potentially another escalating conflict would be kind of another pressure factor on the rest of this war that could have really serious impact on where this goes.

So with that said, I believe that's all from our team today at Fronts.co and WarFronts at HomeFronts at all the, all Fronts associated products, including the new things we're going to be launching now before the month is out.

So big, big stuff coming. Keep an eye out for that. If you were at this point in the podcast, you were almost certainly one of our pre and end subscribers here at Fronts.co.

If so, thank you so much for your support. We truly could not do what we do without you. You allow us to stay.

You allow us to really focus on stories that matter. And we really, truly are grateful for you. If you are not a premium subscriber and you're listening to this far, firstly, hello, thank you.

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Anyway, this has been Evan Maloney with Wilford Mina and Cal Marin here for the Middle East round table at frontstop.co. Thank you very much for being with us. We'll see you next week.