From Hormuz to Suez: the chokepoints of global power
6/25/202651 min
Oil may dominate the headlines about the Middle East, but the real power often flows through water. Three narrow passages - the Suez Canal, the Strait of Hormuz, and Bab el-Mandeb – shape how the world moves. In times of crisis, they've become chokepoints, disrupting global trade, rattling markets, and shifting the balance of power way beyond the region. In this episode, three stories from these waterways… how they've helped define the modern Middle East and, as we've seen recently with Hormuz, the economic currents that affect us all.
Guests:
Alex Von Tunzelmann, author of Blood and Sand: Suez, Hungary, and Eisenhower's Campaign for Peace
Harold Lee Wise, author of Inside the Danger Zone: The U.S. Military in the Persian Gulf, 1987-1988
Farea Al-Muslimi, Yemen and Gulf researcher at Chatham House in London
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[instrumental music] As evening sets in on July 26th, 1956, the president of Egypt, Gamal Abdel Nasser, stands at a podium in Alexandria, looking out at a crowd of 100,000. [cheering] He's about to throw a wrench into the plans of the most powerful countries on earth. At first, the speech seems fairly standard, kind of upbeat, but about halfway into the nearly three-hour speech, Nasser begins to rail against what he calls the imperialists who have mortgaged our future, his voice growing more fiery. Nasser. And then he repeatedly says the name. Ferdinand de Lesseps. Ferdinand de Lesseps, the 19th century French developer who built the Suez Canal in the 1860s, which dramatically cut down the travel time between Europe and Asia. The canal was mostly built by Egyptian laborers. It runs through Egyptian territory, but the