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C. After the United States and Israel began attacking Iran on Feb. 27, Iranian leaders closed the strait on March 2, 2026. They warned that any ship entering the waterway would be set afire. About a fifth of the world’s natural gas and oil passed through the Strait of Hormuz last year, and fuel prices shot up after the shutdown.
B. The Hormuz and Bab el-Mandeb straits are gateways to the Indian Ocean and, from there, to the Pacific and key East Asian markets for Middle East oil. The Houthis said they would only choke off Red Sea shipping by Saudi Arabia, which has fought them in Yemen’s civil war.
B. The vast majority of Iranians, 90%-95%, follow the Shia branch of Islam. About 60% of Iraqis are Shia, and about 35% of Yemenis are Shia. However, about 85% of the world’s 2 billion Muslims are Sunni, including most Saudis. A dispute in 632 over the successor to Islam’s founder, Muhammad, led to the sometimes violent split between Shia and Sunni Muslims.
D. The rising price of diesel increases the cost of producing and transporting everything you buy and the prices you pay. Fossil fuel prices everywhere are determined by worldwide supply and demand. Nations that rely more on other energy sources, such as hydro, atomic, solar, or wind, are less impacted by changing fossil fuel prices.