Boy, are we ever MAD! You just better stop that!

The old fashioned way of dealing with pirates

Good thing Biden drained the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, eh?

U.S. naval ships and commercial vessels from other nations have been under missile and drone attacks from Iran’s proxy, Yemen’s Houthis, for months now, escalating this past weekend to 14 attacks on a U.S. ship, 1 British, and 3 commercial ships. We have responded by stamping our feet firmly, and although Ol’ Dependables hasn’t been woken from his nap so that he could read a statement from his handlers, several White House interns are rumored to be preparing to issue a proclamation demanding that all sides cease fighting and issue mutual apologies to the others.

Until all that happens, though, we may just have a problem:

Middle East Violence Throws Global Energy Market Into Turmoil

The escalating violence in the Middle East caused a disturbance in the global energy market Monday morning after a major oil company announced it is pausing shipments through a crucial shipping lane.

British Petroleum (BP) said that it is halting oil shipments through the Red Sea because of the uptick in attacks launched by Yemen’s Iran-backed Houthis, a militant Islamist group that the Biden administration removed from the “Foreign Terrorist Organization” list in 2021. BP is the latest major company to pause its operations amid the escalating violence in and around the Red Sea, and the announcement prompted a spike in oil prices worldwide, according to CNN.

“In light of the deteriorating security situation for shipping in the Red Sea, BP has decided to temporarily pause all transits through the Red Sea,” a spokesperson for the company told the Daily Caller News Foundation. “We will keep this precautionary pause under ongoing review, subject to circumstances as they evolve in the region.” (RELATED: ‘Enabled By Iran’: Pentagon Sheds Light On Drone Attacks Against Ships In Red Sea)

Along with a key Egyptian pipeline, two major straits that bookend the Red Sea handled about 12% of globally traded seaborne oil and 8% of global liquefied natural gas shipments through the first six months of this year, according to The Wall Street Journal.

The news sent oil prices up across the world on Monday, with Brent crude jumping by 2.7% to nearly $79 per barrel and American oil rising by 2.7% up to $73.44 per barrel, according to CNN. In European markets, natural gas contract futures spiked by about 8%.

Before BP decided to halt its Red Sea shipping operations, A.P. Moller-Maersk and Hapag-Lloyd— two major freight shipping firms— announced that they are temporarily preventing their ships from utilizing the southern entrance to the Red Sea, according to the WSJ.

The Houthis have significantly ramped up attacks against commercial interests and U.S. forces in the wake of Hamas’ attack against Israel on Oct. 7. Houthi forces have repeatedly launched missiles and drones at commercial vessels, and the Biden administration has done little in the way of retaliatory or preemptive action against the group.

In February, 2021, immediately after cancelling the Keystone XL pipeline and suspending all new oil leases on federal land, Biden reversed another Trump policy and removed the Houthis from the terrorist list. “We need time to understand and evaluate the group’s official slogan,"God is the Greatest, Death to America, Death to Israel, Cursed be the Jews, Victory to Islam.’ “ Defense Secretary Austin Powers told FWIW. “It really could mean anything, right?”