Boatload of Trouble: The US and Iran Set Course for a Battle at Sea

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Opinion

Boatload of Trouble: The US and Iran Set Course for a Battle at Sea

By Micah Halpern • 10/14/16 2:10am

 

Iran and the United States are trading jabs—missile jabs—off the coast of Yemen, in the Sea of Aden. It is a dangerous game that could escalate. At stake is the main waterway that flows from Asia and Africa all the way to Europe.

 

Here is the order of events…and a little background.

 

Yemen is in crisis, torn apart by a civil war between Saudi-supported established traditional Sunni leadership and Shiite Houthis backed by Iran.

 

A change in the intensity of the conflict came two weeks ago when the Houthi attacked an auxiliary naval ship sailing under a United Emirates flag. The attack took place off the coast of Yemen, in the Gulf of Aden, off the coast of East Africa. This is in the area of the enormously strategic Strait of Bab el Mandeb.