Why have flights from US to Middle East increased by 80%? | Iran war briefing with Michael Clarke

[00:00:00]If wars don't end quickly, they tend to get wider. And now we've got oil at $100 a barrel. And both sides in the Iran war looking as if they're back to where they were a few weeks ago with no real end in sight. Sentcom have released this footage of the strikes overnight. 13th consecutive night of widespread strikes around Iran in an attempt to force the Iranians to open up the straight of Hormuz. Well, while they're doing that, data and forensics at Sky have logged in the last three days an 80% increase in air traffic from the United States, the continental US into Europe, bouncing out of Britain and Germany in this case, into the region. That's relatively normal. It's what they do. But the fact that there's been such a spike in air activity in the last three days tells me that the Americans are preparing now to continue their current policy for the indefinite future. They probably think they've got to give the president options to carry on as if nothing else has changed and just keep hitting Iran for as long as it might take. And so overnight the Iranians have been hit all the way down the coast. I mean we know that they've been hit quite badly in Kim Island there opposite Banderabas and several other places even as far north as Isfan. And equally the Iranians have responded with their strikes as they've done before with strikes on American bases in Jordan, Kuwait and Bahrain. and they've hit further north in Iraq at American bases in Iraq and even as far up as the Kurdish areas of Iraq in Urbil right up in the north in the mountains they've hit really there so the war is widening in that respect but it's widening in other respects too remember that when this war began this phase of the war on the 28th of February the Israelis are really quite glad to have a an opportunity to attack Hezbollah to break that ceasefire because Hezbollah fired on them first and they moved into Lebanon the Israelis have got their own war to fight in southern Lebanon. It's consistent with what the Americans are doing in Iran, but the Israelis have got their own agenda. This is a war that is facilitated by the the big war. And the other war is in Yemen. It rapidly became a proxy war between Saudi Arabia backing a deposed government and Iran back in the Houthies who deposed the old government. Very complex situation. It sort of ran out of steam in 2020 and there was a ceasefire, then a peace process in 2022. But this week the Houthies have said that they would fire on any Saudi tankers coming out through the Babel Mandev Straits and they fired on two tankers, damaged them. So all of the other Saudi tankers turned round and are sitting there in the Red Sea.

[00:02:26]There's nowhere they could go. So the Houthies are now making war again on the Saudis. They've reignited that war on behalf of Iran in the big war with the United States. So it all comes down to the Babel Mandeb Strait. Have a good look at this part of the map. You'll be seeing it for some time. We said a while ago that if uh the straight of Hormuz and the Babo Mandev straits were closed simultaneously then the world economy really would have a problem and we're very very close to that now. Babo Manddev is narrower than the straight of hummus is at the narrowest point 21 miles. Babel Mandev is about 14 miles and again there's a separation traffic scheme up and down through the uh the Babel Mandev itself. Also if anyone's interested it's full of cables, power cables, fiber optic cables. There's an awful lot of damage you could do if you want to play games in the Babel Mandeb straits. And the Houthies have now indicated that at least in relation to Saudi Arabia, they're going to do that.

[00:03:20]And so here we are. Wars tend to get wider. This war when it began on the 28th of February was bad enough between the United States and Iran. It facilitated a resumption of the war between Israel and Hezbollah in Lebanon.

[00:03:32]And now it has reawakened the war in Yemen, allowing the Houthies to come in to take up again their antagonism to their neighbor, Saudi Arabia.