Is anyone paying attention to this??????????? “Iran will close the Strait of Hormuz, a waterway vital for global oil shipments, if the country is prevented from using it, a senior military official said on Monday in what appears to be a response to the U.S. plan to end waivers on Iranian oil exports.” This is in response to Trump’s idiotic attempts to cut off Iranian oil revenue. Twenty percent of the world’s oil passes through the Straits of Hormuz, including a lot of the light sweet Saudi crude that the US needs to make gasoline. If that happens, even if it doesn’t hold, the price of gasoline in the United States will double in a week. And it probably won’t go back down quickly, if at all. Trust me. I’ve seen this picture before. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/arti...lose-strait-of-hormuz-if-it-can-t-use-it-fars
You beat me to it, probably in less than an hour without any losses on our side except the cost of some missiles. I bet our pilots and sailors would have a blast and a big party that night.
Well I don't know that Iran is ONLY planning for a military engagement with JUST the United States but taking your theory on it's face what strategic or tactical advantage would that give the Iran navy over our forces?
How are they going to do it, you think the rest of the world's governments and militaries will allow it? Those are declared international waterways, they would be committing an act of war against all other nations. Any taking of a ship would be an act of piracy another act of war. Is Iran prepared to go to war with the world?
Oh come on I bet the Brits Germans French Italian Spanish Belgium Japanese Fins Danes Poles Chez and on and on and on would insist on a few pot shots too!
You're asking what tactical or strategic advantage being able to prepare for a single war provides? Uh, sure. If you look at all of our geopolitical rivals they're able to spend money very efficiently in preparing for a single kind of war, against us. Diesel submarines, mines, anti-ship missiles, air defense systems, etc. Compared to carrier groups, nuclear submarines, stealth bombers, hypersonic missiles, and a massive SATINT infrastructure, the sort of investments our rivals make are much more efficient. The Russians, for example, spending a fraction of what we spend would at the very least be capable of overrunning our eastern European allies before we could respond, and could probably keep us out of the Baltic for months. I'm not claiming that the Iranians will beat us in a naval conflict over the Gulf. They very obviously won't, but I think that you might be underestimating their ability to keep it closed for a significant period of time, and the kind of costs that would entail.
The Saudis and UAE would help us in significant ways. Some Europeans might even provide token support (but probably not.) The Saudis would also have their hands full in three directions. The Iranians would push into the Shia-majority oil-rich regions of north-eastern Saudi Arabia. Iraq and Syria would almost certainly side with Iran in the conflict, giving the KSA and Jordan a real problem to their north. We risk alienating the Europeans, the East Asians, and most importantly, the Turks. This is extremely foolish, and someone in Trump's orbit needs to rein Bolton in.
All this chest beating reminds me of when Wolfowitz insisted that the war he and Ahmed Chalabi wanted us to start in IRaq would pay for itself, and that everyone would be home by Xmas........... Has it ever occurred to any of you that we didn’t do it in 1973 or 1979. There was a reason for that.
This isn’t an uncommon threat by Iran, it shows the pressure the president is putting on is working! Great news! It’s time this murderous regime fall!!
The Turks have already told Pompeo to pound sand. This is the first time in my living memory that a traditional ally of the United States openly defied the President of the United States in this manner. This is actually alarming. From Putin trolling Trump on live TV at Helsinki, to Xi and Putin both disinviting Trump, to KIm Jung Un making a complete fool out of him, the Office the the President and the United States in general will have a lot of work to do regaining the trust of our allies.
I don't know why Americans believe that the fall of the Iranian regime is necessarily good for us. One of the great political threats to the clerical establishment is Ahmadinejad. Remember him? Not exactly a friend of ours.
Well I beg to differ in that we are able to prepare for a very small not very powerful force where we have every tactical and strategic advantage which would so overwhelm this advantage you claim to only preparing for war with a torpedo boats is somehow going to give them. I don't think we would have any difficulty dealing with that with overwhelming force and in short order. They have nothing bigger than a frigate and they only have 3 of those if they can even keep them in the water. So why would Iran go to war with the rest of the world, what do they have to gain?
It's not about frigates, man, it's about mines and missiles. We can clear it out, yes, but it will take time. Meanwhile real problems are going to be erupting all over the Middle East, and even the entire world.
What do you call the Iranians threatening to shut down the straits and how should such threats be met?
The fact that so many people who were calling Hillary and Obama warmongers are now behind ****ing Bolton is beyond bizarre. Trump, with Bolton in his ear, risks making an epic blunder.
I think our missiles are better than theirs and our ability to track their vessels and we knock out their command and control including their radar sites necessary to maintain an effective missile offensive and jam the rest. I don't see what Iran has to gain out it but to insure that we need to present and solid resolve they will NOT be allowed to commit this act of war and against all international law without the most severe consequences.
Threats should be met with threats. Meanwhile, the United States, if it lets the waivers expire, is making a massive mistake. You must understand that a few months ago I was lauding Trump's decision to withdraw of Syria, a decision he cowardly backed down from. To simultaneously risk war with Iran and risk losing Turkey as an ally might easily be counted as among the worst American foreign policy blunders ever.
Oh I'm sure they haven't thought of that. Of course they have. They've learned from the Russians. We can't hit all of their missile platforms at once, and we can do it at all until it's safe for our planes to enter their airspace. Our military is going to be looking at a slider that has "fast and costly" on one side and "slow and safely" on another, and their going to be closer to the latter. I'm not saying that we should be allowing Iran to close the Strait. I'm saying that if they attempt to close the Strait, we've blundered.
