War in Ukraine and the Middle East may be spreading, but is still con-call convenient

(Originally published Jan. 16 in “What in the World“) The good news is no one was injured in Monday’s Houthi attack against a commercial vessel with an anti-ship missile.

The bad news is that the Houthis have anti-ship missiles and are using them to retaliate against U.S. attacks against them for their sporadic missile and drone attacks against commercial shipping to and from the Suez Canal in the Red Sea. Their actions are also starting to look like a more coordinated effort by Tehran to enter the war against Israel. Another Houthi attack Sunday targeted a U.S. destroyer in the Red Sea, with a missile heading towards it knocked down by an American fighter jet.

The U.S. isn’t alone defending Suez traffic: British forces took part in last week’s air strikes against Houthi targets in Yemen and Prime Minister Rishi Sunak on Monday told Parliament more could come if the Houthis persisted.

The same day, Iran’s Revolutionary Guard said it launched missile attacks against Israeli spy facilities in a suburb of Erbil, the capital of Iraq’s semi-autonomous Kurdistan region. The attack killed at least four people, including local multimillionaire Peshraw Dizayee, a property tycoon with ties Kurdistan’s ruling Barzani clan. The Revolutionary Guards said they had also carried out attacks against ISIS in Syria, ironically the same group that U.S. forces in Syria to wipe out but which have instead faced a spate of attacks from Iran-backed militias.

At least the spreading war in the Middle East and Eastern Europe remains in roughly the same time zone: Ukraine sits conveniently north of Gaza in the very time zone. Yemen and Iraq are just an hour ahead. That means that when they arrive at their desks in the Pentagon at 9 am, it’s still only 4 pm in Kyiv and Tel Aviv. And you can still catch the folks the Baghdad before they head out for dinner.