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The Age
an hour ago
- Business
- The Age
Fight to the death: The world has to prepare for a Middle East energy storm
It has not yet targeted the vast oil terminal at Kharg Island, which accounts for 90 per cent of Iran's crude exports and essentially funds the clerico-military regime. Croft sees a clear and rising risk that Israel will cross this line, setting off a perilous chain reaction. You could read market insouciance as evidence that oil no longer matters as much as we used to think. The 'oil intensity' of global GDP has fallen by 60 per cent since the energy crisis of the 1970s. Right now, the world is awash with crude. Saudi Arabia and Gulf states have launched an undeclared price war against non-OPEC rivals – and OPEC cheaters – adding 400,000 barrels a day to supply each month at a time when the Trump-battered global economy is too weak to absorb it. Behind this is a larger and relentless headwind for petrostates: China is moving with breathtaking speed to electrify its economy and end its reliance on seaborne fossil imports. Electric vehicles already make half of all new cars sold in the world's largest car market. The trajectory is unstoppable and near vertical in historical time. It is spreading to trucks, and spreading across East Asia. Loading This is the deeper reason why Saudi Arabia has stopped trying to prop up crude prices, and switched to chasing market share. But you can still have violent oil price spikes even within a structural bear market. Iran's oil export revenues were $US53 billion ($82 billion) last year. Half goes directly to the military, funding nuclear enrichment, drone production and the missile forces of the Revolutionary Guard Corps. The cardinal problem for Netanyahu is that he does not have the bunker-busting bomb – the Massive Ordnance Penetrator – the only weapon able to blow up the Fordow nuclear complex, built deep underground near Qom and beyond the strike-power of the Israeli air force. It should be obvious by now that he will not stop until he has destroyed Iran's nuclear capability and crippled the regime beyond recovery. So unless he can knock out the Fordow site by other means, which will prove very difficult, the fallback strategy is to smash the Kharg Island facilities and squeeze the Iranian revenue stream until the pips squeak. Iran has been shipping 1.5 million barrels per day despite Western sanctions, mostly smuggled to China in 'dark fleet' tankers with the full complicity of Beijing. This is up from near zero in 2022. Saudi Arabia has enough spare capacity to offset the total loss of Iran's exports if need be. But an Israeli strike on Kharg Island would not end there. Iran's Revolutionary Guard has always threatened to shut the Strait of Hormuz, set off maximum energy havoc, and globalise the conflict, if their own oil export facilities are ever attacked. Iran lacks the means to close the narrow chokepoint entirely, and its ships would risk annihilation by the US Fifth Fleet if it tried. But it can still cause chaos by launching pinprick attacks on tankers as it did in 2019, rendering commercial ships almost insurable. 'They could mine the Strait,' said Croft. S&P Global Market Intelligence said the Iranian regime may lash out at energy infrastructure across the region as a final, desperate move once it depletes its missile stock and loses its main tool of leverage. It might try to mobilise the Iraqi Shiite militias, such as the Kataib Hezbollah and the Popular Mobilisation Forces, to paralyse the Basra oil terminals – threatening up to 3.4 million barrels per day of exports. Loading Iran does not want a parallel conflict with Sunni Arab states. It is already reeling from the loss of its strategic ally in Syria, and the decapitation of its Hezbollah proxies in Lebanon. It repaired ties with Saudi Arabia two years ago in a deal brokered by China. Nor does it want to irritate China. But there are limits to forbearance if the regime is pushed to the wall. 'We do not think the Iranian leadership will prioritise keeping crude supplies steady to China over trying to ensure their own survival,' Croft said. Oxford Economics said a full-blown oil crisis of this kind would push oil to $US130, and push both global and US inflation to 6 per cent. It is China that now depends most on oil and LNG from the Gulf. America imports almost no fossil fuels from the region, except for a little Arabian heavy crude to balance its refineries. That shields the US from immediate supply risk, but not from a price shock. Arbitrage through the futures market instantly links US and global oil prices. Petrol at the pump shoots up for Americans too in such a crisis. They drive twice as far as Britons or Germans on average, and their cars use 50 per cent more fuel per mile. Donald Trump may conclude that it is better to join the war and drop his bunker-buster on Fordow rather than risk a cost of living shock on his watch. But that would create a far-reaching and dangerous situation of a different kind.
Sydney Morning Herald
an hour ago
- Business
- Sydney Morning Herald
Fight to the death: The world has to prepare for a Middle East energy storm
It has not yet targeted the vast oil terminal at Kharg Island, which accounts for 90 per cent of Iran's crude exports and essentially funds the clerico-military regime. Croft sees a clear and rising risk that Israel will cross this line, setting off a perilous chain reaction. You could read market insouciance as evidence that oil no longer matters as much as we used to think. The 'oil intensity' of global GDP has fallen by 60 per cent since the energy crisis of the 1970s. Right now, the world is awash with crude. Saudi Arabia and Gulf states have launched an undeclared price war against non-OPEC rivals – and OPEC cheaters – adding 400,000 barrels a day to supply each month at a time when the Trump-battered global economy is too weak to absorb it. Behind this is a larger and relentless headwind for petrostates: China is moving with breathtaking speed to electrify its economy and end its reliance on seaborne fossil imports. Electric vehicles already make half of all new cars sold in the world's largest car market. The trajectory is unstoppable and near vertical in historical time. It is spreading to trucks, and spreading across East Asia. Loading This is the deeper reason why Saudi Arabia has stopped trying to prop up crude prices, and switched to chasing market share. But you can still have violent oil price spikes even within a structural bear market. Iran's oil export revenues were $US53 billion ($82 billion) last year. Half goes directly to the military, funding nuclear enrichment, drone production and the missile forces of the Revolutionary Guard Corps. The cardinal problem for Netanyahu is that he does not have the bunker-busting bomb – the Massive Ordnance Penetrator – the only weapon able to blow up the Fordow nuclear complex, built deep underground near Qom and beyond the strike-power of the Israeli air force. It should be obvious by now that he will not stop until he has destroyed Iran's nuclear capability and crippled the regime beyond recovery. So unless he can knock out the Fordow site by other means, which will prove very difficult, the fallback strategy is to smash the Kharg Island facilities and squeeze the Iranian revenue stream until the pips squeak. Iran has been shipping 1.5 million barrels per day despite Western sanctions, mostly smuggled to China in 'dark fleet' tankers with the full complicity of Beijing. This is up from near zero in 2022. Saudi Arabia has enough spare capacity to offset the total loss of Iran's exports if need be. But an Israeli strike on Kharg Island would not end there. Iran's Revolutionary Guard has always threatened to shut the Strait of Hormuz, set off maximum energy havoc, and globalise the conflict, if their own oil export facilities are ever attacked. Iran lacks the means to close the narrow chokepoint entirely, and its ships would risk annihilation by the US Fifth Fleet if it tried. But it can still cause chaos by launching pinprick attacks on tankers as it did in 2019, rendering commercial ships almost insurable. 'They could mine the Strait,' said Croft. S&P Global Market Intelligence said the Iranian regime may lash out at energy infrastructure across the region as a final, desperate move once it depletes its missile stock and loses its main tool of leverage. It might try to mobilise the Iraqi Shiite militias, such as the Kataib Hezbollah and the Popular Mobilisation Forces, to paralyse the Basra oil terminals – threatening up to 3.4 million barrels per day of exports. Loading Iran does not want a parallel conflict with Sunni Arab states. It is already reeling from the loss of its strategic ally in Syria, and the decapitation of its Hezbollah proxies in Lebanon. It repaired ties with Saudi Arabia two years ago in a deal brokered by China. Nor does it want to irritate China. But there are limits to forbearance if the regime is pushed to the wall. 'We do not think the Iranian leadership will prioritise keeping crude supplies steady to China over trying to ensure their own survival,' Croft said. Oxford Economics said a full-blown oil crisis of this kind would push oil to $US130, and push both global and US inflation to 6 per cent. It is China that now depends most on oil and LNG from the Gulf. America imports almost no fossil fuels from the region, except for a little Arabian heavy crude to balance its refineries. That shields the US from immediate supply risk, but not from a price shock. Arbitrage through the futures market instantly links US and global oil prices. Petrol at the pump shoots up for Americans too in such a crisis. They drive twice as far as Britons or Germans on average, and their cars use 50 per cent more fuel per mile. Donald Trump may conclude that it is better to join the war and drop his bunker-buster on Fordow rather than risk a cost of living shock on his watch. But that would create a far-reaching and dangerous situation of a different kind.
Hindustan Times
2 hours ago
- Business
- Hindustan Times
This ‘Bunker Buster' U.S. Bomb Could Cripple Iran's Nuclear Ambitions
The best shot at knocking out the most fortified part of Iran's nuclear program comes down to a giant U.S. bomb that has never been used in war. The GBU-57—also called the Massive Ordnance Penetrator—is a 30,000-pound behemoth encased in a high-density steel alloy designed to plummet through 200 feet of mountain rock before exploding. Military analysts said that large bunker buster has the best chance of getting through to such targets as the Fordow uranium-enrichment facility, which Iran buried under a mountain. Its existence has driven speculation that the U.S. could get involved in Israel's attack. 'This is really what it was designed for,' said Mark Cancian, who matched bombs to targets in the military and later worked at the Pentagon on procurement and budgeting, including for programs like the MOP. Before bunker busters, the military figured it could turn to nuclear weapons to blast through mountains, but those were seen as unpalatable for political reasons, said Cancian, now a senior adviser at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. Later, the U.S. worked on a new conventional alternative and spent about $400 million to develop and refine the MOP, he said. The U.S. now has around 20 of the giant explosives, he said, designed to be delivered by B-2 stealth bombers. 'It's a really specialized weapon for a very specialized set of targets that don't come up very often,' Cancian said. Israel on Friday launched a campaign of intelligence operations and hundreds of airstrikes aimed at setting back Iran's nuclear program and hobbling its regime. Israel notched direct hits on Iran's underground centrifuge halls at Natanz, some 140 miles south of Tehran, according to the International Atomic Energy Agency. But it has yet to attack Iran's other enrichment site, Fordow, in central Iran, near the holy city of Qom. The U.S., which hasn't joined Israel in the attacks, began building up its military assets in the region in recent days, including bringing in a second aircraft-carrier group. President Trump, who has pushed for a diplomatic solution all year, has turned more bellicose, suggesting Tuesday on social media that Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei could be killed and calling for unconditional surrender. If the U.S. were to get involved, it would make sense for it to take on hardened targets like Fordow and Natanz, said Mick Mulroy, former U.S. deputy assistant secretary of defense for the Middle East. Destroying them could take half a dozen MOPs apiece, he said. The United Nations atomic-energy chief has warned of safety concerns from attacking nuclear sites, but other nuclear experts say the radiation risks of an attack on Fordow are low. The International Atomic Energy Agency reported radiological and chemical contamination inside Natanz, which was bombed Friday, but normal radiation outside. 'If anything were to be dropped on Fordow, there is not a risk of radiation contamination from the attack outside of the site,' said Scott Roecker, vice president for nuclear materials security at the Nuclear Threat Initiative think tank. Israel has a plan for Fordow and the ability to carry it out on its own, a senior Israeli military official said without elaborating. It is also taking a broader view of its mission by attacking Iran's military leadership and nuclear scientists as well as components of the nuclear program itself. Ehud Eilam, a former researcher for Israel's Ministry of Defense, said Israel could send a large number of its own, smaller penetrator bombs to dig their way into Fordow, as Israel did when it killed the Hezbollah leader, Hassan Nasrallah, in a bunker under Beirut. It could also try a risky commando raid or more-covert means such as cyberattacks and targeted killings, he said. An MOP dropped by a B-2 bomber could be simpler and better. 'The approach with the highest confidence of success would be a U.S. strike,' said William Wechsler, who was deputy assistant defense secretary for special operations under President Barack Obama. Write to Benoit Faucon at Get 360° coverage—from daily headlines to 100 year archives.
Mint
3 hours ago
- Business
- Mint
This ‘bunker buster' US bomb could cripple Iran's nuclear ambitions
The best shot at knocking out the most fortified part of Iran's nuclear program comes down to a giant U.S. bomb that has never been used in war. The GBU-57—also called the Massive Ordnance Penetrator—is a 30,000-pound behemoth encased in a high-density steel alloy designed to plummet through 200 feet of mountain rock before exploding. Military analysts said that large bunker buster has the best chance of getting through to such targets as the Fordow uranium-enrichment facility, which Iran buried under a mountain. Its existence has driven speculation that the U.S. could get involved in Israel's attack. 'This is really what it was designed for," said Mark Cancian, who matched bombs to targets in the military and later worked at the Pentagon on procurement and budgeting, including for programs like the MOP. Before bunker busters, the military figured it could turn to nuclear weapons to blast through mountains, but those were seen as unpalatable for political reasons, said Cancian, now a senior adviser at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. Later, the U.S. worked on a new conventional alternative and spent about $400 million to develop and refine the MOP, he said. The U.S. now has around 20 of the giant explosives, he said, designed to be delivered by B-2 stealth bombers. 'It's a really specialized weapon for a very specialized set of targets that don't come up very often," Cancian said. Israel on Friday launched a campaign of intelligence operations and hundreds of airstrikes aimed at setting back Iran's nuclear program and hobbling its regime. Israel notched direct hits on Iran's underground centrifuge halls at Natanz, some 140 miles south of Tehran, according to the International Atomic Energy Agency. But it has yet to attack Iran's other enrichment site, Fordow, in central Iran, near the holy city of Qom. The U.S., which hasn't joined Israel in the attacks, began building up its military assets in the region in recent days, including bringing in a second aircraft-carrier group. President Trump, who has pushed for a diplomatic solution all year, has turned more bellicose, suggesting Tuesday on social media that Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei could be killed and calling for unconditional surrender. If the U.S. were to get involved, it would make sense for it to take on hardened targets like Fordow and Natanz, said Mick Mulroy, former U.S. deputy assistant secretary of defense for the Middle East. Destroying them could take half a dozen MOPs apiece, he said. The United Nations atomic-energy chief has warned of safety concerns from attacking nuclear sites, but other nuclear experts say the radiation risks of an attack on Fordow are low. The International Atomic Energy Agency reported radiological and chemical contamination inside Natanz, which was bombed Friday, but normal radiation outside. 'If anything were to be dropped on Fordow, there is not a risk of radiation contamination from the attack outside of the site," said Scott Roecker, vice president for nuclear materials security at the Nuclear Threat Initiative think tank. Israel has a plan for Fordow and the ability to carry it out on its own, a senior Israeli military official said without elaborating. It is also taking a broader view of its mission by attacking Iran's military leadership and nuclear scientists as well as components of the nuclear program itself. Ehud Eilam, a former researcher for Israel's Ministry of Defense, said Israel could send a large number of its own, smaller penetrator bombs to dig their way into Fordow, as Israel did when it killed the Hezbollah leader, Hassan Nasrallah, in a bunker under Beirut. It could also try a risky commando raid or more-covert means such as cyberattacks and targeted killings, he said. An MOP dropped by a B-2 bomber could be simpler and better. 'The approach with the highest confidence of success would be a U.S. strike," said William Wechsler, who was deputy assistant defense secretary for special operations under President Barack Obama. Write to Benoit Faucon at
Yahoo
4 hours ago
- Politics
- Yahoo
It Really Looks Like the U.S. Is Headed for War With Iran
Sign up for the Slatest to get the most insightful analysis, criticism, and advice out there, delivered to your inbox daily. By the time you read this, the United States might be at war with Iran. If not, check back in a few hours or a couple of days, as President Donald Trump is giving every indication that he'll join the fighting soon. True, Trump has gone back and forth on the issue of escalation vs. diplomacy in this war and in others, but his words and actions in the last 24 hours suggest that he's opted for escalation. As recently as Monday, he was still holding out the possibility of a diplomatic solution to the conflict. On Tuesday, he gave Iran a very different demand—'unconditional surrender.' That was President Franklin D. Roosevelt's goal against Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan in World War II: It meant the enemy's total defeat, abject disarmament, and what we now call 'regime change.' Trump also posted on social media: 'We now have complete and total control of the skies over Iran.' We? He'd said on Monday that he might get involved in the war but hadn't done so yet. It seems that now he is involved, at least in his mind—and possibly in his orders—if not quite yet on or over the battlefield. What has changed in 24 hours is that Israel seems to be on the upswing, pounding target after target, while Iran's efforts at striking back are less than stunning and its prospects for regime survival, much less victory, are dimming. Trump likes winners and wants to join their team. Or, as Charlie Stevenson, who teaches American foreign policy at Johns Hopkins University's School of Advanced International Studies put it in his Policy Matters Substack on Tuesday, 'I think he has FOMO [fear of missing out] and wants to be able to brag that he ended the Iran nuclear threat.' Will he end the threat? Iran has two main uranium enrichment sites, Natanz and Fordo. Both are buried underground. Natanz is a bit more accessible; an Israeli barrage of bombs, on the first day of the war, reportedly did damage to the plant. However, Fordo is buried inside a mountain, almost 300 feet beneath the surface. The only 'bunker-busting' bomb that could destroy the site is the 30,000-pound Massive Ordnance Penetrator, which only the U.S. has; and the only plane heavy enough to carry the MOP across any distance is the B-2 bomber, which only the U.S. has. (Yes, the mountain could also be demolished by a nuclear weapon, which the U.S. and Israel possess; but I doubt even Trump or Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu would go that far.) What about regime change? Early on in the war, Netanyahu reportedly told Trump he wanted to kill Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, but Trump vetoed the idea. Could he now be reconsidering? In World War II, 'unconditional surrender' meant, among other things, killing or at least removing Hitler and Hirohito. Trump said on Tuesday that he knows where 'the so-called Supreme Leader' is hiding, adding that he didn't want him killed—'for now.' Regime change does seem to be on the agenda, given the types of targets Israel is hitting—not just nuclear infrastructure, but Iranian media, economic infrastructure, and top commanders. (Some call this expansion of targets 'mission creep,' but actually it seems this has been Netanyahu's mission since the campaign got underway.) But then what? Who succeeds the ayatollah? If some Western-leaning, secular opposition figures are waiting in the wings, they haven't been identified. It's another question whether some Western intelligence agency is funding such figures, but it's hard to imagine them rising to the fore and commanding the loyalty or even the interest of Iran's masses without having carved out a public image well ahead of time. It's also worth distinguishing regime change mounted by a native Iranian movement from regime change launched by a foreign power, especially powers like Israel and the United States, which a fair number of Iranians still regard as the devil. The current regime is deeply unpopular among many Iranians, especially young people in the cities, many of whom are pro-Western or at least desire to join the Western world. But even among those people, there is distrust of foreign meddlers, intensified by the 'Mossadegh complex'—memories of Mohammad Mossadegh, a popular Iranian prime minister, overthrown in 1953 by the CIA and British oil companies, which then installed Mohammad Reza Pahlavi (aka 'the Shah of Iran'), who ruled as a tyrant until the Islamist revolution in 1979. Does Israel or the United States have a plan for a post-ayatollah Iran? Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps lost its commander, but the corps itself survives, and it controls much of the country's economy and social structure. Would they sign the 'unconditional surrender' papers? If so, to whom would they surrender? Iran is almost four times the size of Iraq, with a population of 92 million. Does Trump or Netanyahu imagine that the Iranian people will greet the foreign victors—especially American and Israeli victors—as their liberators? Some might, but it's worth recalling that Iraqis didn't roll over, despite the widespread hatred of Saddam Hussein. Iranians aren't likely to do so either. More likely, the aftermath of a coup, assassination, military decimation, or whatever method brings down the Iranian regime is likely to resemble post-Saddam Iraq—chaos, instability, and civil war, possibly infecting the entire region. 'Israel is good at winning battles but not at winning wars,' Stevenson, the Johns Hopkins foreign policy professor, observed in his Substack piece. The same has often been true of the United States. Winning battles is a function of military might. Winning wars—even absolute wars ended through unconditional surrender—requires political, strategic, and diplomatic acumen. The Allies didn't leave Germany and Japan to stew in their squalor; they had a plan not just for defeating the old regimes but helping to build new ones. Does Trump, Netanyahu, or anybody else have a plan for Iran? What, to them, does winning the war mean?
