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Posted on 12/24/2023 9:42:07 PM PST by SeekAndFind
I have an idea. What if the Mediterranean nations face up to Iran’s behavior?
blah blah...just like Turkey was gonna attack Israel...just like Hezbollah was gonna attack...Iran isnt doing squat. Mean while, IDF is pounding Gaza into dust....
I could see them blocking the Eastern Mediterranean from Libya, but Gibraltar looks like a stretch.
That is one hell of a lot of naval firepower, not to mention 2600 marines, in theater! All that and we can’t even keep the Bab el-Mandeb open. The Strait of Hormuz can be shut down just as easily and apparently we’d be just as stymied.
I think shutting down access to the Mediterannean by blocking the Straits of Gibraltar is beyond Iran’s capability.
Via the Suez Canal would be possible for them. Sinking fully ballasted ships across the canal’s channel would do it. It wasn’t but a few years ago tha single ship drove itself into one of the canal’s banks and stopped all traffic for a few weeks.
It was only for a week back in 2021. But it tied up traffic all the while until it was resolved.
Just about every automobile assembly plant in Europe was shut because of lack of parts.
Just in time looks cheap until there is a supply chain disruption.
Has our navy devolved so badly we need a large amount of US Coast Guard cutters in the entrance to the Persian Gulf? The USCG has had to dock several cutters because of lack of manpower as it is.
The Iranian dictators have a death wish. Interfere with the world’s essential commercial trade lines and you get yourselves sent straight to the hellfire of Jahannam (Muslim Hell)
The way to shut down ocean trade, any ocean trade, is to drop a few mines in the water. Once a ship has been hit Western insurance firms will withdraw coverage. No ship can sail anywhere without coverage. A nation who wants the cargo must offer indemnification to the ship to get the cargo or the ship’s owners won’t sail there. When I was program manager on a navy anti-mine program the unclassified intel report I saw said that Iran had 30,000 mines in warehouses. Mostly those were planned for delivery via fishing boats. It doesn’t take many mines to shut down a sea lane because of the insurance issue.
During the Iran/Iraq war the US reflagged all tankers as US and provided escort ships. But times have changed. Iran isn’t at war and has more latitude in terms of capability and technology. An effective mine can be built and deployed for a few thousand dollars. But finding and neutralizing a mine can cost upwards of $100,000 each. That’s not including the ship you launch from, the crew cost or fuel.
Mine sweeping, a process where a “sled” tries to convince a mine it is a ship and therefore a worthy target, no longer works the way it once did. Your cell phone has the smarts to determine whether the inputs from a couple of cheap sensors is really a ship or not. A slightly more sophisticated mine can determine the type of ship it really is. With a bit more effort a mine could be deployed that would determine the name of the ship it senses.
Good idea, Jeff. The commerce of Western Civilization re-routed/interupted/shut down by Islam.
More posturing. The world doesn’t really care about Gazan’s or HamAss or they would have stepped up with real action sooner. HamAss is canon fodder designed to make Israel and by extension the US waste more $ and weapons and act as a distraction.
Some have scoffed at this latest threat. But Iran has the capability to pull it off. It currently has a substantial Hezbollah presence in Algeria and it is fully under the sphere of influence of Iran. It could be used as a launch point for anti-shipping drones as the Straits of Gibraltar are within range of those systems from Algeria.
Not mentioned - because of the longer route, shipping containers will not turn around as quickly, thus raising the cost of shipping containers - now at $10,000 each.
That in turn will raise the cost of the goods shipped in them, So everyone is effected sooner or later, especially at the grocery stores as prices are forced to rise.
The ‘not-our-problem’ posters will pay higher prices along with the rest of us.
“The Strait of Hormuz can be shut down just as easily”
That might be the reason we haven’t attacked Iran yet. With the Red Sea and the Persian Gulf both shut down oil prices would soar to $150+ a barrel.
That’s seems t be the case. Every time there is an explosion in Gaza, all the buildings surrounding the area are shaking in dust.
All it will take is a ship to hit a mine, and Lloyd’s of London jacks the rates.
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