US commanders are issuing a flurry of statements Thursday promising to use military force to ensure “freedom of navigation” in the Strait of Hormuz. They are trying to present this as a response to an Iranian “threat” to close the area.
The “threat” amounts to Iranian President Hassan Rouhani saying a US attempt to block Iranian exports had “no meaning” so long as regional oil continues to be exported. This was extrapolated by US officials as a threaten to shut down all regional oil shipping, when it could just as easily be interpreted as noting that Iran can basically export its oil under the guise of it coming from other regional countries, which is common behavior during sanctions.
The bellicose interpretation was virtually universal among US officials and media outlets, and echoed on Thursday when the Iranian Revolutionary Guards praised Rouhani’s statement, and said shipping of oil through the Strait was for “all or none.”
Again, this could be interpreted as a threat or a statement of policy. Iran is continuing to export oil despite US attempts to prevent them from doing so, and there is no reason to think they’re suddenly going to commit a series of acts of war in the Strait of Hormuz just to give the US a pretext to attack them. It is unsurprising that the US is using this as an excuse to issue a bunch of new statements about their military commitment, and is liable to be an excuse for more US naval operations along the Iranian coast.
Thrump is trying to use the old Rosevelt strategy that was pulled on Japan prior to World War II. Blockade all oil revenue of a country to force them to commit one false act of desperation to ignite the flames of war.
Luckily, I.ran has read history and knows this maneuver. If this doesn’t work, the next goating will involve sending a warship into I.ranian waters.
Iran is left with little choice.
Some other options….Iran could run the blockade, and force the US to put up. A sunk tanker would force US allies, and public opinion. Or, more dangerously, Iran could sign a mutual defense pact with both North, and South Korea, linking Iran with the Korean peace mission, and linking an preemptive attack on NK with the South.
I wrote this a few years ago. The second part is relevant. It’s a really scary situation https://jvictus.blogspot.com/2012/10/grand-theft-uraniumin-hormuz-iran-wins.html
This is a self fulfilling prophesy. An attack on Iran would cause Iran to attack passing shipping of those who attack it, which are all of those tankers.
They sail hundreds of miles down a narrow channel in sight of the Iranian coast, which is honeycombed with tunnels into its mountains, and there are hundreds of antiship missiles there now.
The US Navy studied an attack on Iran in many wargames, and concluded the only way to keep the oil routes open would be to invade and occupy the mountainous coastline of Iran. There is nothing remotely surgical about that sort of attack. It would be a mess, and a long war.
You don’t even need a war to bring about economic devastation as explained here. https://www.foreignpolicyjournal.com/2018/07/02/trumps-iran-gambit-wont-pay-off/
The USA wants to control the world, and has only threats and violence as strategies.
We are also one of two really paranoid countries–the other being our BFF Israel.
It’s also a lie, because the US can’t keeo the Straits open if Iran wants to close them without putting tens of thousands of US Marines and Army on the actual shores of Iran. Mark’s comment is absolutely correct.
Iran’s shoreline is long, Iran has the ability to release mines into the Persian Gulf as well as small boats armed with with everything from anti-ship missiles to RPGs and machine guns. The last time the US conducted a mine-clearing operation, they only found fifty percent of the dummy mines used for the test.
And the more the US puts ships into the Persian Gulf, the more likely it will lose one or more ships to the more advanced anti-ship missiles Iran has. In fact, most strategists believe that we will know when the US plans to attack Iran when US ships LEAVE the Persian Gulf and retreat to more open water, due to the extreme threat US ships would be in inside the Gulf.
https://www.foreignpolicyjournal.com/2018/07/02/trumps-iran-gambit-wont-pay-off/
A must read.
The US policy choices vis-a-vis Iran only make sense when viewed from the Israeli perspective. From the American perspective we just flushed a whole lot of influence, hundreds of billions of business, and thousands of jobs down the toilet for absolutely zero gain. From Israel’s perspective, they’ve completely recovered from the blind panic they were in when Obama made *one* phone call and requested an abstention at the UNSC. They lost their minds at that moment and pulled out all the stops to tighten their grip on US policy.
Also, when viewed through an Israeli lens, the perpetuation of animosity towards Russia is good for business. They let America do all the heavy spending (R&D especially), then they get the tech for free and turn around and sell it to Russia and China for leverage.
The Japanese didn’t want the F-35. They really wanted the F-22. The problem was that they’d have to make an export version of the F-22. That meant Israel would get the first one. That also meant the tech would go straight to Russia and China for leverage against Iran. Both sides of the isle came together and quashed the Japanese F-22 and sold them the F-35 instead.