The media is obsessing over price volatility in the oil markets. Meanwhile, Iran fans the flames of panic. “The lever of blocking the Strait of Hormuz must definitely continue to be used,” said a statement the Iranian press attributed to newly appointed Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei.
As prices creep up at the gas pumps, both Democrats and Republicans sense blood in the water and criticize President Donald Trump’s management. Cue political hacks within both the CIA and the Pentagon who leak to the press their laments about how Trump supposedly ignored their warnings. Ego and domestic politics trump national security.
The panic, however, is unwarranted.
Navel-gazing analysts second-guess every American move but take Iranian threats at face value. This misunderstands what the Strait of Hormuz means to the Iranian economy. Hormuz is not simply a lever Iran’s leader can pull to coerce the world, but also a lifeline for Iran’s own economy.
For more than four decades, the Islamic Republic has done little to upgrade its refinery and pipeline network. Because the United States and the United Kingdom laid Iran’s basic energy infrastructure, it was difficult for Tehran’s partners in Russia and China to provide the necessary parts. Sanctions hampered the regime further, as did regime corruption. As a result, the Islamic Republic today does not have enough refinery capability to meet its domestic gasoline and diesel needs. It ships oil abroad through the Strait of Hormuz and then re-imports the refined fuel.
In practice, this means that there is now a ticking clock over Iran’s military. U.S. and Israeli bombardment have already taken out the Iranian navy. The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, however, can lay mines with dhows and frigates. These and the speedboats that the Guard’s navy rely on often operate from smaller ports and so-called “invisible jetties.” Each of these has its own gasoline or diesel storage, much like a marina in the United States might. These will begin to run dry, even absent inevitable U.S. targeting.
Clearing other islands wholly populated by the Guard — Abu Musa, Greater and Lesser Tonb, Sirri, Hengam, and Farsi — would help restore freedom of navigation throughout the Persian Gulf. Securing Kharg was wise. In 1991, for example, the sharpest rise in oil prices occurred neither with the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait nor the initial U.S. response, but rather after retreating Iraqi forces set 700 oil wells ablaze.
With launch rates of Iranian missiles decreasing as the U.S. destroys launchers and storage depots, and as Iranian soldiers go AWOL, knowing that to launch will be a death sentence, this makes drones the greatest threat to shipping.
Iran’s drone fleet is no joke; it first began utilizing crude drones in 1985 to conduct surveillance over Iraqi trenches. But Iran has used its top-tier drones to target Israel, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates. Those drones left are relatively older and are often operated by line-of-sight rather than GPS. Any U.S. Marines on islands offshore Iran will need to operate with care, but if the brightly uniformed Swiss Guards in Vatican City can successfully operate anti-drone countermeasures, so can the U.S.
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Closure of the Strait of Hormuz represents psychological warfare rather than a long-term, economically consequential Iranian move.
Panicking, however, manages to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory by prioritizing Iranian propaganda over energy realities.
Michael Rubin is a contributor to the Washington Examiner’s Beltway Confidential. He is the director of analysis at the Middle East Forum and a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute.