Iran Votes to Close Strait of Hormuz
What? Retaliation from Iran?
Shockingly, the Majlis (the Iranian parliament) has voted to close the Strait of Hormuz in retaliation of US attacks on three nuclear facilities in Iran overnight. So reports Politico: Iran reportedly moves to shut Strait of Hormuz after US attacks.
Iran’s parliament endorsed a measure to close the Strait of Hormuz, a critical global transit chokepoint, in response to overnight U.S. airstrikes on Iranian nuclear sites, Iranian state media reported Sunday.
Iran’s state-owned broadcaster Press TV reported that the legislature had reached a consensus to close the strait. The final decision rests with Iran’s Supreme National Security Council and Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, it said.
[…]
The strait connects the Persian Gulf to the open ocean and is one of the world’s most critical oil chokepoints. About 30 percent of global seaborne oil shipments pass through the narrow passage, a vulnerability that has become a growing concern amid spiraling regional tensions.
I guess the Chinese weren’t watching Fox News this morning. Via Reuters: US urges China to dissuade Iran from closing Strait of Hormuz.
U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Sunday called on China to encourage Iran to not shut down the Strait of Hormuz after Washington carried out strikes on Iranian nuclear sites.
Rubio’s comments on Fox News’ “Sunday Morning Futures with Maria Bartiromo” show came after Iran’s Press TV reported that the Iranian parliament approved a measure to close the Strait of Hormuz, through which around 20% of global oil and gas flows.
“I encourage the Chinese government in Beijing to call them about that, because they heavily depend on the Straits of Hormuz for their oil,” said Rubio, who also serves as national security adviser.
“If they do that, it will be another terrible mistake. It’s economic suicide for them if they do it. And we retain options to deal with that, but other countries should be looking at that as well. It would hurt other countries’ economies a lot worse than ours.”
Rubio said a move to close the strait would be a massive escalation that would merit a response from the U.S. and others.
It seems worth noting that these statements make the alleged “one-and-done-ness” of the bombings a little hollow. The US has attacked, Iran is going to try and counter in some way, and then the US will have to decide if it then reacts to those counters.
See also the following.
India has already organized oil purchases from outside the Gulf. China depends on Iranian oil sold at a discount to circumvent sanctions and moved by the shadow fleet.
And while Israel has hit the Iranian domestic oil network, they have left the international supply lines alone. But Kharg Island is an easy place to erase. Iran has been draining this since this all started but that is a one-time thing.
Of course, things would be in better shape if there was a pipeline from the Canadian oil sands production to the Gulf of America. Who killed that on “day one”?
“Peace like you’ve never seen. There’s going to be so much peace that people will say ‘Mr. President, stop! we can’t handle this much peace.'”
@DK:
Okay, you just made me laugh out loud.
Iran has made some foolish moves in the last couple of years, but I doubt it would be this dumb.
@JKB:
Setting aside for the moment that the pipeline would not have been completed by June 2025, it’s nice to see Trumpers finally admitting that Keystone XL would have benefitted China, not the US. Took you long enough.
Still don’t get how it’s America First to want wider swaths of the USA’s climate change ravaged landscape and environment destroyed to help China pump more fossil fuels into to the ozone, but baby steps.
@JKB:
Da, tovarish! From Russia, specifically.
Even more good news for the Motherland!
One thing that one can be sure of when it comes to MAGA is that it always, always benefits Russia.
So if (when?) this shit escalates and US sailors or airmen die, rest assured that they died helping make
AmericaRussia great again.Dear wife says we should top the gas before gas prices rise. She already did her car. We’re going to Shake Shack for dinner tonight. We’ll gas up my car, a 2005 Toyota Matrix with barely 60,000 miles on it, while we’re out.
At the rate I drive the Matrix, it probably won’t need gas again till Labor Day.
Matthew Syed, author of Rebel Ideas, Columnist for The Times & The Sunday Times, as well as a presenter on BBC Radio 4’s Sideways, on why nuclear deterrence won’t work with Iran should they get the Bomb. Podcast appearance that was published before the strike last night.
@DK:
The amusing thing is Transcanada could have gotten Keystone XL approved and built if they hadn’t tried to save a few million dollars on the route. Instead of following the original route, where all the paperwork was clean and tidy, they chose to try to route it across tribal lands where a leak would threaten the only water supply for the reservation, across the Missouri River where a leak would threaten a big reservoir with irrigation water that South Dakota Republicans valued, and across the Nebraska Sandhills, a unique bit of geography that Nebraska Republicans have always felt protective of. All three groups which were willing to go to court, and two of which could pass state-level laws.
@Andy: Agreed. This pretty much guarantees Iran’s pariah status, even though it has claim to victim status. We’ll certainly destroy what’s left of their navy.
So the Iranian parliament has more say than the US Congress?
@JKB: I sometimes like to look up your sources. So, Matthew Syed, a table-tennis champion turned sports journalist turned self-help author turned self-help author for kids? That’s your big thinker?
And TRIGGERnometry, which describes itself via this blurb “TRIGGERnometry is a free-speech YouTube show and podcast. We believe in open, fact-based discussion of important and controversial issues.”
Got it.
I’ll just stick with examining goat entrails for signs from the gods, thank you.
@James Joyner:
Which acknowledges the fact that this mess is very far from being over. MAGAt celebrations to the contrary.
@James Joyner: Do they need a navy to close the Straight of Hormuz? It’s about 25 miles wide, so I would think some rockets would do the trick.
Even just the threat of rockets is going to raise insurance rates, and the cost of oil per barrel.
MIGA? Did some say miga? Eggscuse him!
@James Joyner:
I was thinking land-launched cruise missiles hitting empty tankers on the way in. A hundred pounds of high explosive just above the waterline there is a hole below the waterline when the tanker is full. They don’t have to hit very many before the insurance companies refuse to cover inbound empties. Depending on their intelligence, they could be selective. Tankers vouched for by China, for example, might be exempted.
But I seem to always over-estimate how good the pattern-matching targeting software is.
@Gustopher:
Given the depths and the traffic control requirements, at the narrowest point there’s an inbound lane two miles wide, a two mile wide buffer, and an outbound lane two miles wide. All adjacent. An almost right angle turn in the middle of that stretch. A big arc of the Iran mainland at least a couple of hundred miles long 50 or so miles away. Wikipedia says it’s rugged country, with hundreds of caves and tight valleys overlooking the Strait.
@Michael Reynolds:
No, the Iranian parliament doesn’t have any say in strategic or national security matters beyond registering an opinion. Those powers belong to the Supreme Leader in the Iranian constitution.
@Gustopher:
They could close it, at least for a while, if for no other reason than ship insurers would cease providing insurance for passage.
But there would be several problems for Iran:
– The majority of pain wouldn’t be felt by the US. Iran would be punishing the world and the global economy – a strange way to retaliate for a US action.
– Iran depends on passage through the strait as much or more than anyone. Other countries could and would close the strait for Iranian traffic. It would be economic suicide for Iran.
– They don’t own the strait, and the transit channels are mostly on the Omani side. So they’d essentially be attacking (or threatening to attack) Oman.
Meanwhile, the US would proceed to wipe out the Iranian Navy, just as an opener, and because Iran’s air defense is mostly gone at this point, would have the freedom to bomb anything in the country. All the countries hurt by the action would pressure Iran to stop.
What would be the end game that would be positive for Iran? There really isn’t one – it’s all downside.
@Michael Reynolds:
Absolutely not. This is a purely symbolic move.
And @Andy beat me to it.
Iran attempting to close Hormuz would bring on a full scale US counter.
Supported by most other parties.
Closing straits can be a non-trivial exercise.
The Straits of Dover are even narrower, and Germany had problems trying to shut them in WW1 and 2.
An attempt would doubtless bring on a hydrocarbons price spike.
But for that reason, apart from Russia, would lead most interested parties to be quietly supportive of a campaign to destroy Iranian capabilities in the Gulf.
Andy has made my points rather more coherently.
@Andy:
Not being Winston Churchill, my ability to calculate and succinctly explicate strategic options tends to drop off markedly after a bottle of claret.
*hic*
@Michael Reynolds: It’s advisory and non-binding. I expect it is as much sending signals about not just accepting the attack and moving on as anything else.
@Andy: All fair and in suspect you are correct.
But creating some turbulence in global oil prices are a way to create some trouble for the Trump administration, so making threats and posturing are not unexpected.
@Michael Reynolds:
It’s entirely performative, and everyone knows it.
The Iranian Parliament has about as much effective power over Iranian state policy as does my neighbour’s cat.
I’m afraid I’m really tempted to obscenity.
And I vote to stop clowns stealing my cheese.
@Rob1:
This is true, and known.
But the issue for Iran is, what is the response?
If Iran attempts to stop the Gulf hydrocarbons flow, there are numerous parties who might consider the obliteration of Iranian capability to do so a rational response.
Good grief, do I have to do an /s for sarcasm?
@Michael Reynolds:
s
No.
/s
Iran being so rational, where was the need to damage the nuclear assets? How was that rational?
@Michael Reynolds: You’re a Poe’s Law victim here. I got the snark, but sadly for your point, reality is that the Iranian parliament probably does have more “say” than Congress. Realpolitik is a beeyotch.