I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about maritime geography.
When you command forces in the Persian Gulf — when you’re the one responsible for freedom of navigation in waters where a miscalculation can become an international incident overnight — you develop an almost physical relationship with chokepoints. You feel them on a map differently than most people do.
So when the Houthis entered this war I saw the geometry change.
For weeks, Iran has controlled the narrative through the Strait of Hormuz. That’s the eastern exit — the one the world’s been watching. But the Bab al-Mandab Strait, that 16-mile bottleneck at the southern end of the Red Sea, is the western exit. And now it’s in play too.
