A Bigger Problem Than Iran

If Iran closing the Strait of Hormuz is “world extortion”, then what do you call the United States doing the same thing — but bigger, louder, and aimed at its own allies? Trump’s latest move isn’t just escalation. It’s a warning: fall in line, or get cut off.

Trump’s Hormuz blockade isn’t about Iran

It would appear Trump’s bold new strategy to grapple with Iran having closed the Strait of Hormuz … is to have the US Navy also close it.

Which, if he calls the Iranian approach “WORLD EXTORTION [sic]”, which invites the question of whether that’s why he earlier proffered a “joint venture” with Iran in this (“beautiful”) department. An ‘Extortion’ he wants in on, one way or another, clearly.

In any case, this ‘TWO can play at THAT GAME!’ gambit of his isn’t likely aimed at Iran (who’d of their own accord moved to close the Strait on the 9th of April, due to a perceived violation of the terms underpinning the ceasefire with the US by Israel), not least as the Iranians would almost certainly have anticipated significant curtailment of their exports via Hormuz from the outset (while also presumably being able to employ overland shipment via rail – most particularly of oil – to reach at least some of their trading partners through Central Asia).

Rather, I suspect it’s more oriented toward everyone else – and most especially, those US allies / ‘partners’, who’ve not only refused to come to Trump’s aid with naval vessels etc. as he’d previously demanded (see, inter alia, his enjoinments of the 16th of March, which also included China) … but who’ve instead either already had their flagged/owned shipping beginning to be allowed through the strait by the Iranians (e.g. Japan, the Philippines, Malaysia, Indonesia, Turkey, as well as at least one French owned vessel), or who’ve signaled they’re engaging with Tehran in order to enable such to happen (most notably, prominent US ally, South Korea – who’re also presently in a diplomatic fisticuffs with Israel on somewhat adjacent matters).

It’s these countries, and those whom their shipping supplies, whom Trump now seeks to cut off from any economic amelioration arrived at through non-enmity toward Iran. And with any already-underway ‘winning’ sans his express approval characterized as an affront needing punitive action.

That he would order his country’s navy to “seek and interdict every vessel in International Waters [sic] that has paid a toll to Iran”, vitiating their “safe passage on the high seas” – is not simply a declaration of disincentive moving forward.

Instead, this edict to hunt down and seize any ship which had already transited Hormuz feels retributive : for the crime of lending tangibility to Iran’s vision and thereby undermining Trump’s, these vessels are being ‘Made An Example Of’ (providing not only public portrayal of what happens should you try ‘winning’ without Trump – but countering implications of US impotence inside the Strait via performative allusions toward alleged naval plenipotence upon those “International Waters [sic]” found just about everywhere else).

Meanwhile, even if you’re not an ostensible US ‘partner’ – by making it an actual total closure of the Strait, rather than a partial one (that was seemingly already heading for a de-facto ‘normalisation’), Trump evidently intends to make it ‘Everybody’s Problem’.

The subtext all up?

Effectively – you either back Trump, or you get nothing. No disregarding Trump via going to Iran direct to pursue a ‘separate peace’. Choosing to move independent of the US line here cannot be allowed to result in benefit for anybody ostensibly part of its ‘network’, lest the US itself find itself functionally sidelined to some degree on this should it seriously catch on. Hence ‘winning’ without Trump means you get your ships involved treated like those of an enemy (specifically, Venezuela under Operation Southern Spear). And until Trump ‘wins’ – nobody does.

Becoming a bigger problem than Iran

The problems with such a strategy are obvious.

Just over three weeks ago, Trump’s team were sufficiently desperate to ease swelling oil-prices that they proclaimed a thirty-day suspension of sanctions upon exported Iranian oil. Because circumstances had become precarious enough on this front that the facilitation of Iranian oil into the market was deemed vital (it can hardly have been anything less than ‘seriously undesirable’ and much above the bottom of the barrel, given the optics on gift worth a reported ~US$ 14 billion dollars to one’s adversary).

One therefore gets a sense for how eye-watering a prospect, then, attempting the exact opposite would feel for both the markets and their erstwhile manipulator. Except this is rather more stringent than that – and, contingent upon how long it is enforced for, almost surely more severe.

Trump’s apparent plan to block “any and all Ships [sic] trying to enter, or leave, the Strait of Hormuz” doesn’t just stop a significant swathe of Iranian oil exports from reaching the global market – it also halts any exports from any of the other states going via the same vector.

Such as the three supertankers allowed through by the Iranians on Saturday, the cargos of which were two million barrels apiece of Saudi Arabian, UAEian, or Iraqi sourced crude oil.

The obvious and immediate consequence of such a complete choking of the flow of oil through Hormuz is an oil market situation characterised by dynamics (and broader effects) that America has already demonstrated itself much less resilient toward than Iran.

It is therefore dubious how long this blockade of Trump’s can be maintained.

There is also an additional risk to Trump’s apparent concept of ‘Intentionally Becoming A Bigger Problem Than Iran So As To Beat Iran’ –

Namely, that it does nothing whatsoever to dispel the notion that Trump et co. have indeed Become A Bigger Problem Than Iran.