Strait Jackin
Back in high school I wrote a paper in which I made a claim that the US ought to put more effort into builing our bond with Saudi Arabia and less effort into bonding with Israel. One of the primary reasons I offered was that playing big brother to Israel was a major ass whipping and they are perfectly capable of taking care of themselves, so why do we need to catch the flack everytime they take a zippo and an aerosol can to an ant hill?
In retrospect, I can see the utility of staying close to Israel, even if only to be better able to pull back on their reigns when they start getting too far off track. Still, it sucks when Iran announces that, because they view Israel as eesentially a US colony, they will treat an attack by Israel as an attack by the US.
The secret threat in the message is that Iran would try to close the Strait of Hormuz in the event that Israel did something… rash. The Strait, which connects the Persian Gulf with the Indian Ocean, is a whopping 21 miles wide at its narrowest and, oh yeah, something around 20% of the world’s oil supply passes through it. Iraq, Kuwait, Iran, Saudi Arabia, the UAE (even Bahrain and Qatar) all shiping most or all of their oil out through the Strait.
Above the water is Iran, below the UAE to the left and Oman to the right.
From the picture, you can probably figure out the problem. In an age where almost every geographic choke point has been rendered meaningless by technology, we have the Strait of Hormuz.
Objectively, Iran’s military is really no more than mediocre. Excluding the land forces, it’s really quite poor. The air force is not terribly well equipped and lacking in talented pilots and the navy is a collection of jumped up speed boats with only a few frigate sized war vessels of debatable quality themselves. Oh, and three Kilo submarines. Ah.
The rub: to close the Strait, Iran doesn’t have to physically prevent tankers from going through it. Much like the genius of mining a harbor (which, by the way, Iran could do to the Strait), you don’t actually have to DO it to be effective as the threat alone will bring ship traffic to a halt.
You’re the owner of an oil tanker. It’s worth probably no less than $50 million and significantly more than that if it’s one of the really big suckers. You know all it takes is one missle from an armed speed boat that sneaks by your naval escort, from a jet that manages to come in under the radar, from land even… or a torpedo from one of those damned submarines. Sure, the subs are one shot weapons sure to be blasted out of the water after the attack, but you probably aren’t anxious to make your boat be the bait. In addition, your crew is more than likely not going to be willing to man the ship on such a voyage.
So, I saw a prediction for $300 oil if the Strait were closed, and $8 gallon gas (I guess that would mean, what, $15 gallon gas in Europe? Just add about $4 to what it is now). I think they overstate the gas price a little… maybe only $7.50.
How do you feel about bombing Iran now?
I really think that if Israel and Iran would go sit in their corners and think about what they’ve done that the price of oil would be ready to come down some. There are clear signs of demand destruction (both short term and long term), which should help the supply/demand fundamentals, but this other sideline crap is stirring things up too much. That’s fine with Iran, of course, as they think higher prices are better anyway.
In closing, please don’t bomb Iran, but if you do, please legalize whale hunting so we can harvest their blubber for oil again.
I’m going to open up a new Starbucks… oops,
Rene Lacoste
