Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) has threatened to block “all other export corridors that benefit the U.S. and its allies”, state media reported on Wednesday, as Washington reimposed a naval blockade and launched fresh strikes against Iranian coastal targets. The statement, which declared that “regional energy exports are either shared by all, or denied to all”, came hours after a senior Houthi official warned that the Yemen-based group was prepared to close the Bab el-Mandeb Strait if Saudi Arabia continued its attacks. Mohammed al-Farah, a member of the Houthi political bureau, told Iran’s Press TV that such a move, in an “operational alliance” with the closure of the Strait of Hormuz, could send oil prices to $200 a barrel.

Viewed from Tehran, the threat to extend the maritime standoff to the Red Sea represents a deliberate widening of the conflict. The IRGC linked the Hormuz closure—now in its second week—to what it called “the end of America’s evils”, and claimed to have struck US-linked facilities in Bahrain, Kuwait and Jordan in retaliation for American strikes. From Washington, President Donald Trump threatened in a Fox News interview to hit Iranian energy infrastructure unless negotiations resumed, while US Central Command said its latest seven-hour wave of strikes aimed to “degrade Iranian capabilities used to attack commercial shipping”. Analysts in London and Beirut describe the Bab el-Mandeb card as Iran’s “last major reserve” and a “nuclear option” that would be deployed only if the IRGC concluded that all-out war had become unavoidable.

The simultaneous disruption of the two chokepoints would place extraordinary strain on global energy trade. The Strait of Hormuz normally handles about a fifth of daily oil and gas shipments; Bab el-Mandeb, linking the Red Sea to the Gulf of Aden, is the conduit for Saudi oil exports and a substantial share of global shipping. Houthi forces have already demonstrated their capacity to choke this artery: after the Gaza war erupted in October 2023, they launched attacks on commercial vessels they said were linked to Israel, forcing major carriers to reroute around southern Africa and prompting US and British airstrikes. A dual closure, analysts note, would compound the economic shock and transform a bilateral US-Iran confrontation into a direct challenge to the sea lanes underpinning international energy supplies.

The current escalation follows the collapse of a fragile truce reached in June after months of fighting. The Houthis broke a four-year ceasefire with Saudi Arabia on Monday, firing missiles at the kingdom after accusing it of bombing an airport under their control. The IRGC’s threat to close additional export corridors, combined with its claimed strikes on regional US assets, signals that Tehran is prepared to raise the stakes across multiple theatres. Former US negotiator Dennis Ross observed that Washington’s central question is “how do you change the Iranian calculus” to bring about acceptable talks. With no negotiations scheduled and both sides intensifying military action, analysts warn of a slow but relentless “mission creep” in which each party escalates without crossing into direct state-on-state war.