Bab al-Mandab
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The Bab al-Mandab is the strait where the Horn of Africa almost meets the south-western tip of the Arabian Peninsula, about nine miles of water across from Djibouti, a crossing John Kiriakou made on his last trip to Yemen in 2011.

Why it matters

Ships that would otherwise transit the Suez Canal and the Bab al-Mandab must, if the strait closes, go all the way around Africa, thirty days added to the trip and billions of gallons of fuel. Kiriakou's assessment of the consequence is unqualified: "we're talking about the entire planet going into a recession and having to fight what's going to be out of control inflation."

The American interest

When the United States maintained that it had no national interests in Yemen, Kiriakou argued the opposite in a 2010 debate on Capitol Hill against Senator Susan Collins: the interests were counterterrorism, counter-piracy, and open trade through the Bab al-Mandab. Collins disagreed. The next day John Kerry, then his boss on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, asked whether he had debated her; Kiriakou said he had, and "if I may say so, I kicked her ass." Kerry did not think that was funny and told him never to do it again.

2026

The Houthi blockade declaration of July 2026 made the chokepoint the second front of the Iran war, alongside the Strait of Hormuz, and raised the prospect of Israeli F-35 strikes flown from Somaliland.

See also

- Houthis
- Yemen
- Strait of Hormuz
