Israel's rapid and crushing victory over Hamas, Iran's proxy in Gaza, it is leading the Axis of Resistance to desperate, dangerous measures.
Attacks by Hezbollah in the north are pretty ineffectual and leading to heavy losses (75+ fighters dead and major infrastructure losses) for Iran's Lebanese proxy. Nasrallah, who is not an idiot, nor completely controlled by Iran, is scared to escalate further lest the IDF do to Lebanon what it is doing to Gaza.
Yemen's Houthis (another Iranian proxy) have fired a substantial number of missiles (including big ballistic missiles) and drones at Israel but have been unable to penetrate Israel's multi-layer missile defence systems. Arrow III just chalked up the first operational interception in space.
So now the Houthis have decided to escalate by engaging in piracy on the high seas.
The Galaxy Leader is a Bahamian registered, British owned, Japanese managed car carrier. It was carrying Turkish cars from Turkey to India and was in Saudi Arabian waters when it was captured by Houthi armed forces. Its crew includes Ukranians, Bulgarians, Filipinos, and Mexicans.
How to turn most of the world against you in one easy step
So a lot of countries, some pretty powerful and important, are going to be very angry about this blatant act of piracy in a crucial international waterway - the Red Sea.
What is missing from the above is any Israeli connection at all. The Houthis's alleged that it is an Israeli ship but there is no confirmation of this.
Perhaps some Israeli may own a percentage of the British company that owns the ship, but this is going to be true for hundreds if not thousands of ships. The Israeli connection is tenuous, if it exists at all.
But what is very real is that a tinpot, third world country with very limited military capacity has made a whole Galaxy of new enemies.
Protecting Global Trade Routes - thats what Navies are for
Some of these countries may not care very much about Hamas massacres or Israel's response, but they DO care a whole lot about global trade routes remaining open.
Furthermore, for the United States, freedom of navigation on the high seas is a fundamental national strategic goal. The US Navy and the United States of America itself was created to deal with Muslim pirates harassing American shipping off the coast of Africa.
The Houthis seem to think they can just target "Israeli" ships but they obviously completely misunderstand the whole global shipping and insurance industry.
This attack and threats against other "Israeli" ships will push up insurance rates for ALL ships transiting the Red Sea. Insurance companies cannot (practically and legally) and do not investigate deep into the multi-layers ownership structure of the companies that own cargo ships. Discriminating against Israelis is illegal under anti-discrimination law in most Western countries anyway.
And higher insurance rates will push the countries most affected, particularly NATO countries, to take military action to eliminate the piracy threat, just like they did off Somalia. NATO may be weak in land warfare, but it is still very powerful as a naval force.
China and India will also not be happy at the disruption to global trade and their navies also fought piracy off Somalia.
Some ships will abandon the Rea Sea altogether and go the long way around the Cape of Good Hope, thus depriving Egypt of crucial Suez Canal income.
So this action by the Houthis hurts many many countries, but Israel is one of the least affected.
Another Crucial Strategic Error by Iran
This blatant piracy will unite a large number of countries to take action against the Houthis and likely their Iranian sponsor.
Iran faces complete destruction of their proxy forces as Hamas is obliterated, Hizbollah smashed into submission by Israel and the Houthis severely punished by a global coalition of navies.
The problem with Iran's asymmetrical proxy warfare strategy is that they can't properly control their proxies and they do stupid things that cause Iran's enemies to engage in full scale warfare that the proxies are not prepared for and can't defend against.
Please vote for my Hive witness. (KeyChain or HiveSigner)