EDITORIAL: Close the Strait of Hormuz

The Washington Times ^ | December 13, 2011 | Editorial

[jazusamo]

Iran has more to lose than America in current standoff

Iran is threatening to close the Strait of Hormuz. Go ahead, make our day. On Monday, Parviz Sarvari, a member of the Iranian parliament's national security committee, said, “Soon we will hold a military maneuver on how to close the Strait of Hormuz. If the world wants to make the region insecure, we will make the world insecure.” Closing the strategically important strait has long been viewed as one of Iran’s trump cards in the give-and-take with the United States and the West.

The impact of a strait crisis is overrated. About 17 percent of the world’s imported oil, or a third of oil transported by sea, goes through the strait. This is significantly less than the percentages from decades past when the Persian Gulf region was the global center of oil exports. Whether the temporary halt of that much oil would have a serious impact is questionable. Past regional crises have not lived up to their billing. There were warnings before Operation Desert Storm that the war would create an oil shock of incalculable consequences. Speculators drove prices up before the conflict in 1990, but in 1991, oil prices declined, even with Kuwait’s oil fields in flames. Similar warnings were heard regarding the disruptions that attended Operation Iraqi Freedom, but there were no gas lines, no chronic oil shortages.

Iran would suffer more than the United States from closing the strait. Iran’s economy is highly dependent on oil exports; closing the strait would cut off most of that trade.

[americanophile]

Heck, he wouldn’t even take out our own downed drone. If Zero had even one ball, the Iranians wouldn’t be playing this game.

[FARS]

That’s not the point. The sunken ships could render the narrow waterway un-navigable. Darn if you do and damned if you don’t

[FARS]

much better action