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Von der Leyen finally put a number on it... She told the WinWin summit in Brussels yesterday that since Hormuz shut, Europe has paid an extra 127 BILLION euros, about $142 billion dollars, for its oil and gas, and in her own words without a single molecule of energy in addition. Same oil, same gas, $142 billion more, and Europe got nothing back for it. And they are paying it with the storage tanks almost at bare. EU gas storage went into this winter at its LOWEST since 2013, Germany barely half full. There is no cushion left, and that matters as the next thing that closes in that region is going to hurt a lot more than it should. And people keep missing this bit... That $142 billion did not disappear. A big chunk of it went straight to the United States, because the gas Europe bought to replace Russia is mostly AMERICAN LNG now... So the same country at the very heart of this war is also the one selling Europe the fuel to get through winter. Europe empties its pockets and Washington fills its export terminals, and you cannot turn around and fight the country that is selling you the gas. This is what I keep saying: Ultimately the Europeans will have NO choice but to line up behind the United States, because the United States rules over Europe and can lean on it hard, the security, the currency, the gas, all of it runs through Washington. France has already done it, troops and air defences pushed forward into the Gulf. Britain has already done it, its own navy and air force now branded terrorists by Tehran. The rest of Europe is going the same way, just slower and further back. And it gets worse from here. When Bab el-Mandeb closes and the Suez becomes unnavigable, the cheap road to Asia and the Gulf is gone, the insurers will stop providing coverage, and the LNG routes Europe depends on get hit the same way the oil did. With no storage to fall back on, staying neutral ends up costing them MORE than picking a side. That is how a continent's population that wants nothing to do with a war still ends up in it, over time, gradually, then suddenly all at once... 𝗦𝗜𝗚𝗡𝗔𝗟, 𝗡𝗢𝗧 𝗡𝗢𝗜𝗦𝗘!

Riyadh's King Khalid International Airport was targeted AGAIN overnight. Second time in under a month. Around 3am Riyadh time Saudi authorities put out a danger warning over the capital and cleared it about 20 minutes later. By evening the Houthi military spokesman Yahya Saree claimed a ballistic missile on the airport, plus 3 more operations in Jazan and Najran with a radar among the targets. Riyadh has NOT confirmed any impact. The last strike on that same airport, in early October, killed 3 Saudis. And the strikes run BOTH ways. Saudi missiles and artillery is shelling the Ghamr border district, Iranian state media reports a Saudi-led strike on a market in southwest Yemen that killed 8, and the Houthis put out footage of a Saudi Wing Loong II drone downed over Taiz. The Saudi-Houthi front everyone filed as frozen is open again. But WHY now? The calendar. This came hours after the US midterms, where the Republicans took a beating and JD Vance came straight out and blamed the Iran war for the losses, with Trump accepting the defeat. Same morning, the IRGC claimed 4 tankers burned on mines in the southern Hormuz lane. General Qaani, the IRGC Quds Force commander, has said for months that the US faces a single front running from Hormuz down to Bab el-Mandeb. I have written before that these two straits are the "other" nuclear bombs Iran controls. Yesterday Tehran pulled on both at once, the IRGC in the north and the Houthis in the south, and kept its own hand off Saudi soil. And Riyadh is boxed in. Washington ordered its non-emergency staff out of Saudi Arabia back in October and renewed the warning for its citizens, which tells the Saudis that US force protection comes BEFORE any reassurance to them. That leaves Mohammed bin Salman two bad roads: 1. hit back harder in Yemen and own a second war, or 2. quietly reopen a channel to Tehran and the Houthis through Oman or even directly. And the cost travels a lot further than Riyadh. Every missile warning over the capital pushes up the war-risk premiums for the airlines and insurers using that airport, and puts a question mark over the expats and contractors behind the Vision 2030 projects. A Saudi Arabia that wants this to stop has every reason to lean on Washington for a settlement, at the exact moment a Democratic House is promising to end the war. My read is that this conversion, pressure on Riyadh turning into pressure on Washington, is WHY Riyadh is getting hit at all. And if Riyadh cuts its own deal, the US-led coalition loses its southern flank on Bab el-Mandeb in the middle of a Hormuz fight. My marker, for the record. If Riyadh or Jeddah takes another strike before the end of November and Saudi air operations in Yemen widen, the southern front stays open through the winter. If Omani-hosted Saudi-Houthi contacts surface first, Riyadh decided to pay its way out. I do not see a position whereby Saudi Arabia will abandon Trump or USA, therefore, the war will eventually proceed regardless of the election results. 𝗦𝗜𝗚𝗡𝗔𝗟, 𝗡𝗢𝗧 𝗡𝗢𝗜𝗦𝗘!