Former Nixon Chief of Staff H.R. Haldeman isn’t the first person to say you can’t put toothpaste back in the tube but he’s probably the first one to use the term during a political crisis. He was right however. You can’t do it any more than you can stuff sh*t back into a goose. Nor, once lost virginity can’t be restored no matter how much some try to re-establish it. With Iran finally making good on the threat to close the Strait of Hormuz the Rubicon has been crossed. Now that it’s been done once, the likelihood of it happening again is significant.
It’s not just a fifth of the world’s oil supply that’s being bottled up. It’s springtime which means planting season and the fertilizer and/or ingredients to make much of what the world needs are also blocked from transiting the Strait of Hormuz. As is a bunch of other goods. It’s easy for Trump and Petey Boy to talk tough to shippers (and Lloyd’s of London and other insurers) about ‘manning up’ and sailing on through. We’ve seen a couple of huge vessels that tried engulfed in flames. Iran has been laying mines and despite Trump saying they are ‘100 percent militarily beaten’ they clearly have the ability to continue fighting, and sometimes with devastating effect.
That leave us with an awful choice. Quickly arrange a strong cease fire and peace or use our Navy to clear a path through the danger zone and escort at least some of the bigger ships through. As The Daily Beast tells us our allies are taking a pass on teaming up with the U.S. Navy. At least until a strong cease fire that can be trusted is implemented. Trump is again being humiliated on the world stage because he’s asking, demanding even and they are firmly saying ‘You’re on your own with this one.’ Maybe even with a snide ‘Get Bibi to help out’ tossed in. This is more of an opinion piece so I won’t dig into the linked article but I do say it’s worth a minute or two to read.
What I want to focus on is the true, long-term consequence of Trump’s dumbassed war with Iran. I can remember the possibility being a concern for most of my life. (I’m a senior citizen) Still, it HAD been just a threat. Now that it’s happened, and that the country that did it has learned to live with significant sanctions for decades what can we and the rest of the world do about it? Iran has gotten fairly good at getting oil out and Russia has helped. Even with Putin gone they’ll continue to do so. Same with India, and being the biggest recipient of Iranian oil China won’t do much beyond token acts to punish Iran.
The ONLY way to keep Iran from doing it again is to use military force to not just conquer the country but successfully engage in a combination of hunting down every last member of the ruling regime (not just the leaders but the rank and file AND Iran’s Revolutionary Guard) and nation building on a scale not seen since post WWII. Trump might have deluded himself into believing he can charm, or bully other countries to help but his vision is pure fantasy. What he HAS done however is open the door to a world where Iran can get a lot more agency on the world stage by threatening to close the Strait. Again. Now that they’ve done it and won’t really pay a price they can’t afford for having done so they know they can do it again. Worse, every other country is having to adjust to this new reality.
So, as I said Iran’s power/influence on the world stage has just jumped up to a level they once only dreamed of. All because Trump went off on a tangent and ordered a half-baked, half-assed military action. A war. He can call it whatever he wants but it’s a freaking war! If history teaches us anything it’s that wars of choice more often than not fail for the attackers. Even if one day they ‘win’ the cost of doing so will haunt the ones who launched and waged it, and worse their people for generations to come. Pyrrhic Victory isn’t victory.
Even if Iran could be proven to carry out a major terrorist attack here in the U.S. like Bin Laden did (from Afghanistan) and Trump invoked NATO’s Article Five he wouldn’t be able to build the kind of force that would be needed to take over and then rebuild Iran to his liking. Nor can we do it on our own. I keep saying Iran is a different and far tougher tactical problem than Iraq because it is. It’s far larger. It has lots of mountainous terrain. It’s also got a long border with Russia and Trump would be afraid to anger his master Pootie by engaging in fighting against a large bloc of Iranian troops there.
What I can’t stop thinking about is that while he’s in his job because he’s part Trump Toady General Caine, Chair of the Joint Chiefs repeatedly warned Trump Iran might close the Straight. So did the other Chiefs we are told, and others too. Remember how I said Iran has for decades made the threat but never acted on it? Over time most have come to consider the threat mere bluster or saber rattling. “Uh Oh” would quickly be followed by “But they won’t actually DO it because it was assumed the consequences would be too severe.” However Iran has had decades to prepare for weathering sanctions that are sure to result. Money makes the world go round as the song from Cabaret tells us. Iran is betting major economic powers are about to convert Trump’s America First into ‘America – you’re on your own when this is resolved’ and our rapidly diminishing role in the world will never again be what it was “BT” – Before Trump.
Iran on the other hand has long been a diplomatic pariah to most of the world. So they get more criticism heaped on them. Does anyone think their leadership cares? I’ve already explained how economically they won’t be hurt either. Hell, Trump has already eased sanctions for Russia to ship oil to China! The thing is, the shocks are already being felt. The price at the gas pump is up over seventy cents a gallon and for diesel (you know, what truckers and farmers use) even more. Remember how such costs ripple through ours and other country’s economies.
It’s only going to get worse. Even if a cease fire were to be implemented this week it would be at least a month, and probably a minimum of two (or even three) months before normal shipping back and forth through the Strait resumes. First everyone is going to wait and see if the ceasefire holds. How long might everyone wait to see whether Iran or Trump does something stupid and the shooting starts again? Then there’s the issue of clearing mines. You think of the Straight of Hormuz being narrow because it is. Well under twenty file miles at its narrowest point. However, for the huge cargo ships it’s narrower, and the channel through which oil supertankers can transit is only a few miles wide. Fully laden tanker’s hulls are only a few meters above the seabed for miles of their journey.
My point is that it takes even less to block a huge portion of the world’s oil supply and other goods than most people realize. So for a period of months the world is going to get a taste of what Iran can do. It gets even worse. Iran isn’t the only country that could cripple a large ship or two and effectively block off the Straight, at least for oil tankers and the big cargo ships! If you’ve read this far I’ve already ruined your day but think about how many small boats are in those waters, from fishing vessels to smallish (say less than a hundred feet in length) cargo ships. Now that Iran has responded to Trump’s war by closing the Strait I can guarantee you terrorist groups are already working on plans of their own. A small cargo ship could have a set of fake shipping containers on deck, hiding long speedboats packed with explosives.
Imagine the “containers” popping open and those suicide vessels sliding off the back on special tracks exposed at the last second. Especially at night or in low visibility conditions. With only a few miles to transit and at high speed they could cripple one of our carriers. Not sink it but render it dead in the water and thus largely useless. Or hit a large cargo ship or worse a supertanker. I’ll guarantee you such things have been considered by terrorist groups in the past. Groups unconnected to Iran, or perhaps even Muslim extremist groups. Now those plans are getting another look. And updated.
That is the abyss that’s been opened up. Iran’s long threatening to close the Strait of Hormuz is now the world’s new reality to contend with. All because Trump (and Petey Boy) wanted to do some more chest thumping and cosplay “warrior”, ignoring pleas from Generals who actually know sh*t that this would happen. I referred to it earlier but learning that Caine and others had issued MULTIPLE warnings of Iran taking this step suggests they had critical and more importantly credible Intel that Iran would finally do what they’d only threatened to do in the past.
None of this needed to happen. But Trump is Trump and even now he’s got supporters who can’t bring themselves to admit how dangerous he truly is. He’s too f**king stupid to know there are things he does NOT know, and even if he has at least heard of some things he assumes because he’s Trump he’s the world’s foremost expert. His only true expertise is via a toxic blend of vanity, incompetence and willful ignorance making godawful messes and blaming others for them. That’s bad enough when we’re talking about the economy or health stuff like COVID but it’s downright dangerous at times too. This is one of those times.
Without meaning to Trump has given Iran more power on the world stage.
Friends, I know everyone begs you for money. I promise, among all those asking for spare change, we are the smallest and the hardest working. We’re a group of old, disabled people, except for one writer in his mid-50s. The rest of us are in our sixties and seventies, and this is a labor of love. All we’re asking for is the chance to keep telling the truth about Trump and help ensure democracy survives. If you can help, please do. Thank you. Ursula
And while he’s losing his stupid war, those pesky Epstein Files are still lurking in the shadows, emerging bit by bit and will eventually emerge completely; they’re too explosive to be bottled up forever. All this damage being done in a moronic attempt to make people forget Epstein is yet more proof that everything Trump touches dies.
My Brother, the thing being blocked is the *Strait* of Hormuz. Not the straight.
Grrr. I was in a hurry and rather than do a proper proof read. Copied and pasted the text of the article into Word and ran a spell check which of course didn’t pick up the nuance. So much for AI! Techies with their boil the ocean mentality don’t want to do “boring” stuff like make AI work for things like doing more than spell checking, such as looking at overall content and context and suggesting the change. I’m even more pissed that I was tied up for so long and only just got back to PZ stuff a little while ago and saw you calling out (thanks for doing so btw, I truly mean that) my boneheaded mistake. Unlike a certain flaming orange human shaped rectum living in our WH I’m willing to admit when I’ve made mistakes. Including and especially stupid one. Then fix them. If only Trumpty-Dumpty would do the same with this stupid and dangerous war.
In fairness to AI but “spell check” *programs* (which have existed far longer than any actual “AI”) are designed ONLY to catch spelling ERRORS. All of them have been designed to use a specific dictionary and, if a word (or spelling) exists within that source, the program won’t detect an error. Even properly spelled words (typically with names but some uncommon words) may be detected as wrong, even when the sentence otherwise doesn’t make sense. Example:, “I want too bread the buck but aisle weight till the movie combs out.” That sentence makes ZERO sense–especially as the intended example was “I want to read the book but I’ll wait till the movie comes out”–but there weren’t any spelling errors for the system (in this case the spell check program that is built into my browser) to catch.
IMHO a SMART move by the Iranians would be to announce that ships carrying out fertilizer, and ONLY those carrying out fertilizer, could transit the Strait unmolested.
Then they couldn’t be accused of instigating hunger.
I do not expect them to do this, however. (And if they did I WOULD expect a dumb countermove from the US.)
“I keep saying Iran is a different and far tougher tactical problem than Iraq because it is. It’s far larger. It has lots of mountainous terrain. It’s also got a long border with Russia and Trump would be afraid to anger his master Pootie by engaging in fighting against a large bloc of Iranian troops there.”
Denis? Minor geography quibble here but, since the Soviet Union broke up in 1990-92, Iran and Russia haven’t had any kind of shared border.
Drumpf might have concerns about upsetting Putin with an actual land invasion of Iran but a border won’t be a reason.