Hormuz, Bab al-Mandeb must not be used as ‘bargaining chips’, analyst says

Mohammed al-Hashemi, director of the Doha-based Middle East Insights Institute, said straits and other strategic waterways should not be used as bargaining chips in international conflicts. “Passages can be protected, first, by removing them from the bargaining table and not accepting those geographical areas, or even civilian facilities, as bargaining chips,” al-Hashemi told Al Jazeera. Meanwhile the shutdown of the East-West pipeline in Saudi Arabia following an attack threatens up to 5 percent of the global oil supply. “At the moment, reopening [the East-West pipeline] becomes a concession, which means that closure would be used as a strategy, and this is something that shouldn’t be accepted in general,” al-Hashemi said. The US cannot win its war on Iran by force, al-Hashemi added, predicting the conflict will end at the negotiating table. “Today, as we can see in the case of Hormuz, nation-states start to utilise [strategic waterways] as a bargaining chip. Bab al-Mandeb is a bit different; it’s a proxy, but tomorrow we might even see that somewhere in the world terrorist groups are going to use it, and non-state actors will be using them.” Subscribe to our channel: http://bit.ly/AJSubscribe Follow us on X: https://X.com/AJEnglish Find us on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/aljazeera Check our website: http://www.aljazeera.com/ Check out our Instagram page: https://www.instagram.com/aljazeeraenglish/ Download AJE Mobile App: https://aje.news/AJEMobile #Yemen #Houthis #AnsarAllah #SaudiArabia #YemenWar #SaudiYemenTensions #HouthiStrikes #RedSea #RedSeaShipping #MiddleEastConflict #YemenCrisis #BabAlMandeb #Qatar #IranWar #HormuzCrisis #USIranTensions #BabAlMandeb #AlJazeeraEnglish