For the first time since late May, oil crossed the $100-per-barrel threshold — not because the world's crude arteries were severed, but because an armed movement in Yemen has learned that selective, unpredictable enforcement of a maritime chokepoint is enough to move global markets. The Houthis, aligned with Iran and emboldened by the simultaneous closure of the Strait of Hormuz, are choosing which vessels pass through Bab el-Mandeb and which do not — a geopolitical calculus that rewards Chinese operators and punishes Western and Saudi ones. In this moment, uncertainty itself has become the co