Over the past few days the gang of morons led by Donald Trump and Pete Hegseth suffered a devastating defeat in their already disastrous war in the Middle East.
AMMAN, Jordan — A key Saudi Arabian pipeline to the Red Sea was shut down after it was hit by “several drones” launched from Iraq, the Saudi Foreign Ministry said in a statement early Saturday, as Iranian-backed Houthi fighters claimed major victories in Yemen, expelling Saudi forces from the country’s Red Sea coast.
The separate attacks posed new challenges to the region’s ability to export oil amid the ongoing U.S. war with Iran, and further unnerved global oil markets. The price of oil briefly jumped above $110 per barrel, its highest level since May.
“This is the first day that Iran really started winning the war,” said a Yemeni official, who is part of the country’s internationally recognized, Saudi-backed government.
The Saudi statement said it would reserve the right to retaliate for the pipeline attack, but in response to a request from Iraq, would give Baghdad the opportunity to prevent such attacks.
The Iraqi government condemned the attack and confirmed that it was launched from Iraqi territory. A statement from the Iraqi prime minister’s office said that the military commander in the southern Iraqi province of Maysan, where the strike originated, had been dismissed.
The Houthis in Yemen and militant groups in Iraq, both allied with Iran, this summer opened new fronts against Saudi Arabia and its alliance with the U.S. In July, the two countries launched joint airstrikes against what they said were militant sites in Iraq.
Saudi Arabia and other oil-producing countries in the region have relied increasingly on alternative, land-based pipelines and sea passages to replace shipments through the traditional Persian Gulf export route, where vessels have come under attack in the Strait of Hormuz during the months-long standoff between Iranian and U.S. military forces.
The Houthi territorial claims, following a large-scale military operation aimed at controlling the Bab al-Mandab Strait entrance to the Red Sea, would mean that Iran and its Houthi proxies can now threaten — if not entirely block — energy and other cargo shipments through two key chokepoints.
Brent crude is climbing, even hitting $110 a barrel in the past few days:
We will need to brush up on our geography in the coming days but here is the best map I could find that helps explain the gravity of what is happening:
As of September 11, Houthis had destroyed two sections of the Saudi’s East-West pipeline as well as closing the Bab-al-Mandab. The Strait of Hormuz is all but closed, with only 6-8 ships a day passing through instead of the 120-150 before Trump’s ignorant war. The Suez Canal does not have the capacity to replace the Bab al-Mandab.
By taking control of key areas this week, including islands off the coast, the anti-west Houthis hope to gain a direct presence near the Bab al-Mandab strait, a 20-mile stretch of water and vital trade and energy route that connects Asia with Europe.
The strait’s name is roughly translated as “the gate of tears” or “the gate of grief”, and its strong currents and winds made the passage between the Arabian peninsula and Africa’s east coast hazardous for centuries. Modern-day cargo ships have no physical issue passing through.
But with the Houthis close to closing the natural chokepoint, the impact on the global economy could be disastrous. Ships would have to reroute around the southern tip of Africa, adding thousands of extra nautical miles.
The fighting in Yemen, as well as Houthi missile strikes on Saudi Arabia, is the most significant violence in the country since the UN-brokered peace plan in 2022.
The UN special envoy for Yemen, Hans Grundberg, told an emergency security council meeting on Thursday that the country faced “a new and more dangerous phase of war”.
“This renewed war should alarm us all,” Grundberg said. “It effectively marks the end of the relative calm that Yemen has experienced for over four years since the UN-brokered truce. It not only threatens to plunge Yemen into a prolonged and expanding war, but also risks yet again dragging the country into the wider and unresolved regional confrontation, with global repercussions.”
When your President is a moron with no sense of history and when your Secretary of Defense is a failed alcoholic who was released from the National Guard because he lacked the competence to serve . . .
Gas prices in the US have taken off again:
Diesel prices have exploded, hitting all times across the country, right as we enter the fall harvest season. In California, our most important agricultural state, diesel is approaching $8 a gallon right now:
Interest rates are taking off, raising the price of everything for everybody:
Trump also hit his lowest mark of the cycle in the Civiqs daily tracker, clocking in at -26:
Congress returns on Monday to this fresh new Trumpian disaster. Calls for Pete Hegseth to step down should become very, very loud.
Trump has had his shot and he has screwed ujp the US and the rest of the world so badly that the US and the rest of the world will be at least a decade recovering from the reign of this moron, supported by the 35% of the American voters who are just as stupid, if not more stupid.
The most important thing about what is happening now in the US – and it is bad – is that we have the opportunity to set a new course – a new beginning – for the country this November.