I wonder if humans always adjusted as quickly as we do now.
I feel like we very quickly get desensitised to, well, everything these days. From people wearing masks during Covid, to the ongoing war on the European continent, and now the regularity with which countries across the Gulf hear air raid sirens and aerial defences firing overhead.
The human tragedy is almost impossible to put into words. As I start writing this, initial reports are coming in of more advanced missile attacks on Dubai International Airport. When commentating on war, I think it’s important to remember the real impacts on real people’s lives.
A lot has happened since my last note, but at the same time, very little has changed to now. I suspect we’re about to see the next phase of this war begin, hence the update.
As ever, if you find this useful, please do forward onto others. Likewise, if you’d rather not get these anymore, then reply “green giraffes” and you’ll be taken off the list.
STRAIT OF HORMUZ
As I’m sure you’ll all have seen, basically nothing is moving through the Strait of Hormuz just now. I say basically nothing because some Iran-friendly ships are still being let through, including some without their transponders on (and so won’t show up on those funky online trackers).
But this is normally the second busiest waterway in the entire world, with 40-60 tankers moving through every single day. That includes 20% of both the world’s daily oil and liquified natural gas supply.
So why is nothing moving through it? Well, because the Iranian’s keep threatening to set fire to anything that tries. And then actually doing it too (see: https://youtu.be/xjVNGGwxYno?si=QszI-Knt68KYcRwP - not hyperlinked to get past your spam filters). They’ve also started laying underwater mines.
Naturally, this has made the Strait basically uninsurable and so no one is daring to move through it. This has had a terrible impact on oil and gas prices around the world, with Germany limiting petrol stations to only being able to raise their rates once a day, Thailand encouraging people to work from home and Bangladesh closing universities early to save electricity.
And it’s not just energy - a third of the world’s fertiliser also passes through the Strait, and whilst the impact of that isn’t as immediate, it will feed through into rising food costs and in the not so distant future, a wider a cost-of-living crisis on par with that seen in 2022 after the start of the Ukraine war.
This is bad, and Trump has just about figured that out now. The cynic in me wants to say that he only cares now because this will eventually feed through to rising petrol prices in the US, which has been a big metric that Trump has used to measure the success of his Presidency.
US voters really care about how much it costs to fill up their cars, given how much you need to drive everywhere in the US, and so, Trump is now trying to do whatever he can to bring oil prices down. There’s some pipelines and a limited release from the International Energy Agency that will help, but this doesn’t cover the shortfall and so oil prices remain elevated. The only feasible way of making up that shortfall is to reopen the Strait.
Anyone who has considered military action against Iran since the Revolution, including countless US military planners, have known that closing the Strait was one of the most powerful and most likely responses by the Iranian regime. The fact that the US didn’t have a plan for this is pretty shocking, and reinforces my thesis that Trump had no plan when starting this war.
So, Trump wants to reopen the Strait. That’s not very easy.
For starters, it’s not that wide - it’s about 33km across at its narrowest point, slightly wider than the English Channel. It’s also not that deep, so there’s only two shipping lanes that tankers can take, each of which are only 3km wide. That gives Iran a really concentrated area to focus their activity on, made even easier by the size of the sitting ducks oil tankers, which only move at 20-30kmph through the Strait.
Iran has a host of weapon systems it can deploy against any vessels breaching their blockage. They’ve already started dropping mines in that area. They can fire on ships from the shore, using artillery, rockets, and short-range missiles. From that close, it gives vessels very little time to react and defend yourself.
They could continue to use drones from other parts of Iran and even send small, fast ships to get close to the tankers and set off a bomb that blows a hole in the side of a tanker and sinks it.
Remember how I said the Strait isn’t very deep? If a few tankers go down, it won’t take long for it to be really hard to get anything through there without hitting a wreckage. And that’s if they even want to - it’s already really bloody hard to get insurance through the Strait just now, and if tankers start sinking, the insurance picture is only going to get worse. No insurance, no shipping.
And over the longer term, it’s impossible to say all mines have been removed, and so insurance premiums might never return to where they once were.
So what can Trump do?
Well in theory, you could send a great big American warship (or a few) alongside any tanker to escort it through. But given how many tankers there normally are, how vulnerable any convoy would be to Iranian attack and how difficult that would be to defend against, it sounds to me like a very expensive suicide mission. Again, the cynic in me wants to say that he only wants allies to send their ships through to guinea pig how safe it is.
Understandably, pretty much every country has said no because:
a) not our war, you started it on your own, so deal with it
b) that’s not what NATO is for - you can’t claim defence when you dropped the first bomb
c) it’s really bloody hard
So what else could the US do? Enter:
KHARG ISLAND
In 1988, Trump did an interview with Polly Toynbee at the Guardian (see: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/jan/12/polly-toynbee-1988-interview-donald-trump?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other).
In a remarkably prescient line of questioning, they got onto his desire to be President someday, and how he’d “do a number on Kharg… go in and take it.”
This feels like an important time to note that the US taking Kharg Island wouldn’t necessarily make their troubles in the Strait any easier. It’s about 400 miles away and would probably cause oil prices to spike further.
Having said that, it’s not entirely bonkers if you’re intent on pursuing this war.
Kharg Island is Iran’s oil export hub. Taking it gives the US a massive point of leverage against the regime as without it, their oil economy pretty much collapses, which could - and that’s a huge could - tip the regime over the edge, which I suspect is Trump’s ultimate goal here.
On the flip (and more likely imo) side, it’s a fraction of importance to the global economy versus the Strait, and removes basically any minor incentive for the Iranians to keep the Strait open.
It would also require the commitment of ground troops to do so - unless you just bomb it to oblivion (some of which has started) but then you lose the leverage. Troop movements are already in train, with 2,500 US Marines currently being repositioned from Japan to the Middle East. It’s very difficult to see how the US public would support this, and at risk of quoting a cliche, seriously risks this becoming another Vietnam War for the US.
That in turn might lead to further protests across the US, and further attempts to suppress them. What happens from there is anyone’s guess. One speculative and extreme scenario could see protests descend into widespread chaos and the suspension of the mid-terms later this year, given both the war and civil unrest. Sounds bonkers, but see: https://youtube.com/shorts/ndsiTEmQRrg?si=UhJbc2ILwFZR58pV
CUBA
And very briefly, keep an eye on Cuba.
Trump said on Monday “I do believe I’ll have the honour of taking Cuba.”
He tells us what he’s thinking and that is the clearest indication I’ve seen so far that Cuba is the next country on Trump’s bingo card.
He also said “We’re going to do Iran before doing Cuba,” but the positioning suggests otherwise.
There’s been a US-imposed oil blockade on Cuba since January, which has caused widespread blackouts, delayed medical procedures and rising food insecurity.
The Cuban President has openly began discussions about reopening the Cuban economy to outside investment, which may satisfy Trump (and his financial interests across South Florida and the Caribbean…). Therefore, we might see a major deal à la Venezuela very soon.
Keep an eye out - this would be bad for Cuba but it would also be bad for Russia (whereas Iran has been brilliant for Vlad). Expect ripples.
RH