12 hours ago
Iran risks enraging China by closing Strait of Hormuz
Closing the narrow Strait of Hormuz is a tempting option as Iran considers how to respond to the US attack on its nuclear facilities.
However, shutting the channel to maritime traffic would be a monumental undertaking – one quite possibly beyond Iran's military capabilities.
It would also be a mission fraught with hazards, risking enormous damage to Iran's tottering economy, potentially enraging its backer China – nearly half of whose total crude oil imports pass through the strait – and almost certainly inviting further, more extensive US military retaliation.
The Strait of Hormuz is among the world's most vital maritime choke points. Located between Iran and Oman, it connects the Persian Gulf with the Gulf of Oman and the Arabian Sea.
While Iran could launch some of its dwindling stockpile of ballistic missiles at energy infrastructure in the Gulf, such direct action carries substantial risks of retaliation.
Iran could instead rely on proxy groups to attempt limited disruption of shipping in the Persian Gulf — a 'plausible deniability' approach that could roil global energy markets without necessarily provoking an immediate US military response.
It could mine the strait or attach limpets to the hulls of tankers — a middling course of action it might calculate would deter escalation. Iran chose this option during the tanker war and was accused of doing so to six commercial ships in 2019.
Or, in desperation, it could wage a full-frontal, multi-pronged operation if it decides to draw the US into a large-scale war — an option that would entangle Donald Trump in the kind of 'forever conflict' he has long sought to avoid, but which would also imperil the survival of the Islamic regime.
A fifth of global oil production — around 20 million barrels per day — passes through the strait.
Blocking the narrow channel could gum up energy supply lines and send oil prices soaring — potentially doubling to $150 a barrel, according to some analysts, bringing misery to motorists across the world.
China, heavily dependent on oil shipments through the strait, would probably feel the impact most acutely as pressure mounts on its strategic petroleum reserves.
Beijing — despite its anti-US rhetoric and strong political and trade ties with Iran — is presumably using its leverage on Tehran not to take such a drastic step.
China buys some 90 per cent of all Iranian crude oil. It is by far the largest destination for oil coming through the Strait of Hormuz with an estimation of 5.4 million barrels per day. Iranian oil accounts for as much as 15 per cent of the crude shipped to China.
Closing the strait would also jeopardise Iran's own oil-dependent economy. Even under heavy sanctions, it still exports roughly 1.5 million barrels of crude a day.
Iran exported $67 billion of oil in the year to March, bringing in its highest level of oil revenue in the past decade, according to estimates by the Central Bank of Iran.
Some 20 million barrels of oil go through the Strait per day. A small amount of that goes to the US, accounting for about 7 per cent of total US crude oil.
Iran also shares the largest natural gas field in the world, the South Pars field, with Qatar. Europe's imports from Qatar are providing nearly 10 per cent of its LNG needs.
History suggests that when Iran believes the military imperative outweighs all other considerations, it is willing to gamble.
During its eight-year war with Iraq in the 1980s, Iran attempted to seal the strait in retaliation to enemy attacks on its shipping.
In a preview of the kind of action it may now be considering, Iran sought to close the strait by firing anti-ship cruise missiles at commercial vessels belonging to Iraq's trading partners.
It also laid mines across the waterway. During the so-called tanker war, Iran launched attacks on 168 merchant vessels, while Iraq — better armed thanks to weapons supplied by the US and France — struck 238 ships.
As security in the Gulf deteriorated in the 1980s, the Royal Navy dispatched the so-called Armilla Patrol to the region, despite having withdrawn its forces 'East of Suez' nine years earlier.
With British commercial interests under threat, and following a plea from Washington, Margaret Thatcher deployed the Navy to protect merchant ships sailing under the Red Ensign and reassure friendly Gulf states.
The Royal Navy is smaller today than it was then —it operates 14 destroyers and frigates now, compared with 64 in 1980. But it maintains a maritime presence in the Gulf under Operation Kipion, the successor to the Armilla Patrol, and has a naval support facility in Bahrain.
Britain could therefore be called upon to support a US-led mission to keep the Strait of Hormuz open.
Lessons from history
There are grim lessons to be learnt from the past, as well.
As the tanker war escalated, the US launched Operation Earnest Will in 1987 to protect Kuwaiti tankers from Iranian attack.
Although the mission ensured that 98 percent of commercial vessels passed through the Gulf safely, it was nonetheless fraught with mishap. Even before the operation formally began, an Iraq air force jet mistakenly fired two Exocet missiles at the USS Stark, killing 37 American sailors.
Three other US warships later struck Iranian mines.
In the most infamous incident of the operation, the USS Vincennes mistakenly shot down a Iranian passenger airliner, killing all 290 people on board, shortly after a battle with Iranian naval forces.
Whether or not Iran and the West are now doomed to repeat the tanker war remains to be seen — but history suggests such confrontations offer few rewards to either side.
