Iran's 10-day military exercise on the Strait of Hormuz has lent credence to its threat to block oil shipments through the critical waterway if the U.S. ratchets up sanctions. Threatening the Strait, which flows north of Oman and south of Iran and moves approximately 40 percent of the world's oil, seems like a pretty great hand. But oil accounts for 80 percent of Iranian exports, and blocking the Strait would hit their economy hard. In all likelihood, Tehran is bluffing. But the administration shouldn't call it.
The newest round of sanctions (embedded in the defense bill) would penalize foreign institutions for doing business with Iran's financial sector. By leveraging the centrality of the U.S. banking system, the new sanctions would punish those countries who do business with Iran -- particularly the big consumers of Iranian oil. Iran's Navy is prepared to blockade the Strait in response stating that U.S. efforts to constrict their oil exports will be taken as an act of war. Although the sanctions passed unanimously in Congress, Obama should use his veto.
The potential efficacy of the sanctions is not worth the risk of a skirmish in the Strait. The U.S. Fifth Fleet, based in Bahrain, has made clear they will not stand idly by if Iran makes moves to block. With the force of some 20 vessels and 20,000 servicemen and women, the Fifth Fleet would pose a formidable challenge to an Iranian blockade. Going down the rabbit hole -- the U.S. military responds to Iranian muscle flexing in the Hormuz Strait in retaliation against the latest round of U.S. sanctions -- is antithetical to Washington's mainstay objective; preventing Iran from arming.
Iran's potential motivations for weaponizing are chiefly security and prestige. The buildup of U.S. troops on Iran's borders has been a reminder to the regime of its vulnerability. Iran's military never recovered after the Iran-Iraq War and Iranian inability to defend their borders with conventional means has entered into Tehran's calculus. After Libya was invaded in March 2011, Aisha Qaddafi, Muammar Qaddafi's daughter, said "every country that has weapons of mass destruction, keep them or make more so they will not meet the same fate as Libya." Her advice has not been lost on Tehran.
Were Iran to block the Strait, and the U.S. Fifth Fleet to retaliate, oil prices could spike and the skirmish would ultimately play into hands of Iranians calling for weaponization. If the sanctions targeted a domestically controversial initiative in Iran, they might spur discontent among the people. However, the Iranian population has illustrated they are willing to endure a level of austerity to pursue their nuclear program.
It is unclear which factions support weaponization now, but engagement in the Strait would strengthen, not diminish, those voices in favor. With India, Israel, Pakistan, and Russia armed and Turkey under the NATO umbrella; Iran's nuclear program provides Iranians with security, and potentially a deterrence capability. Exacerbating Iranian insecurities is not going to push them to the negotiating table. If the Fifth Fleet engages with Iran, Tehran's hardliners could consolidate power and the case for the deterrence capability a weapon could bring would gain momentum.
The other responses Tehran may opt for are no more appealing. These include encouraging Hamas and Hezbollah to fire rockets into Israel; attacking military outposts in Afghanistan; attacking supplies transported from Kuwait through southern Iraq; launching missiles at oil installations in Saudi Arabia; and inciting upheaval in Shiite-majority Bahrain. Any skirmish could set off a series of events akin to those of a U.S. airstrike against Iranian nuclear facilities.
Again, Tehran is most likely bluffing. But sanctions require balance, and those passed by Congress are a bridge too far. Secretary Geithner previously stated the administration's "strong opposition" to the new round of sanctions citing the potential for increased oil prices. If the bill is signed, spikes in oil prices may be only the beginning.
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It would take weeks, if not months, to clear such a mine field. And that process cannot begin until you have eliminated the dozens of mobile missile batteries that the Iranians have, that are capable of hitting ships from launch points tens of miles inland from the coast.
So it seems clear the Iranians could indeed close the straits for at least weeks, possibly months, despite our overwhelming firepower. Of course, it would be suicidal for Iran to attempt such a thing, but pretty much by definition a theocracy is not limited by rationality.
Iran won the Iraq Iran war and the US has just crept out another country that was supposed to be a 'cakewalk' with its tail between its legs and is on the way toward doing the same in Afghanistan.
I have long given up on environmental policies that decrease the use of fossil fuels. I only pray we run out of them before we destroy the planet.
But if Iran's government wants to play chicken with nuclear capabilities or block the flow of commerce of other countries I say put their navy at the bottom of the Strait of Hormuz. If given the choice of global annihilation for failing to impede Iran's development of nuclear weapons and the opportunity to let Iranians liberate themselves, I'll take the latter.
We have got to deal with North Korea at some point. We do not need to look weak.
There's a recruitment office down the road.... if you want to be a hero so much.
Or... do you believe other folks' children ought to pick the chestnuts out of the fire for you?
I know that seems counter-intuitive but imagine this conversation after Iran achieves nuclear weapons.
My personal wish is that the Iranian people liberate themselves. That's tough to do under the circumstances.
why should we care?
Call off the cyber-warfare. Call off the assassinations. Call off the sanctions.
Not only are United Nations sanctions counterproductive, they are not even legal. The UN charter clearly outlines the conditions needed to kick off such sanctions - only after a determination of "the existence of any threat to the peace, breach of the peace, or act of aggression" is found, something that has never been done.
Far from marching towards making a nuclear bomb, Iran has repeatedly offered to place additional restrictions on its nuclear program well in excess of its legal obligations, including opening the program entirely to joint US participation and limiting the number of centrifuges they operate. More recently they agreed to a Turkish-Brazilian brokered deal to export their enriched uranium for fabrication into reactor fuel abroad. In each case, the US deliberately undermined or ignored these offers.
The CIA is complicit in assassinations of Iranian scientists. There is no way Israel acts without the CIA knowing about it.
http://www.eia.gov/countries/regions-topics.cfm?fips=WOTC#hormuz
What a wicked little thing that is!
The time from the launch from the shores of the Persian gulf to any ship would be less than a minute, ensuring no defense and a sure kill.
I had forgot that Iran had those little ship killers. In the Persian gulf any ship including a US carrier could be easily sunk. shore bases batteries and those little shallow water subs that Iran has would be hard to detect and hard to defend against. Now I understand the color scheme of the Iranian mini subs making them hard for drones to see them in the water even though it is shallow.
I am even more impressed with Iran now, and I suspect that the US naval leaders are equally impressed and very cautious.
Why not send in Jessica Lynch? Surely she could take the Iranian army on like she did in Iraq?
You certainly practice your religion well.
I seem to remember something about "god" not liking murder, especially mass murder like you advocate.
- Jo
16 Lakewood Dr, Vancouver, BC, Canada