According to lore, this is about the time that Iran shuts down the Strait of Hormuz and the world's economy falls off a cliff as the price of oil rises astronomically. Except, hold on a moment, we don’t need imported middle eastern oil anymore, the Saudis have Yanbu and absolutely nobody in power in DC gives a damn what happens to Europe’s oil costs. I mean, they don’t care so why should we?
Professionally, I’ll be curious if the Iranians use mines, coastal missile batteries, their ships and submarines or all of that to shut down traffic through the strait. At some point I may even take the trouble to see what 5th Fleet consists of right now.
I wonder how the man in Doha plans to deal with the situation he finds himself in.
4 comments:
The mullahs in Tehran have got to do something....otherwise they will appear impotent to the Iranian people. The question of course is what will that be and how effective it might be. They may NOT close Hormuz. They may instruct the terrorists they have been infiltrating across the southern border to act.
Accurate but our lack of understanding of other cultures continues to confuse us.
They are like Russia dealing with an unstable nuclear armed nation (maybe two in their case).
Look at what happened last time Israel hit them. They hit back just hard enough to prove to Israel that the Iron Dome wasn't that good, and they COULD get blasted back into the Stone Age. Then they stopped, both sides grumbled and that was it.
How could Iran blast Israel into the stone age? Power grid and water desalination plants for one. No power, no water and Israel is going to have massive loss of life (3 days without water, your dead).
BUT and the Big BUT is the "Sampson Option" where Israel uses their nukes in a "If WE are going Down" scenario.
Complex situation yet America wants to grab the tail of two dogs fighting in the streets.
We may yet see those "sleeper cells" awaken. That will be bad. Persians don't look like Arabs. They often look quite European American. Blue eyes and blond isn't uncommon.
Americans truly know very little about war because of America's exceptionalism. This isn't a bad thing but it sets them apart from everywhere else in the world. We fight because we have to and then we tend to go all in and we don't stop until the other side surrenders or we get tired. You see, there is never any kind of hint of expectation that America can lose.
Most of recorded history though is about war for show and tell and nothing gets resolved because there will always be a need to shore up some frontier and send all the warlike guys off to do that and stay out of everybody else's way back at home. That was the essential nature of war up until the United States. In those little wars between 10 to 50 times more men engaged died of disease than of combat.
I was really surprised that Praying Mantis ended with Iran retreating and licking its wounds and that was IT. Business in the Gulf went on as usual as if nothing had happened. Same thing during the Iran Air idiocy. In the Middle East they fight battles all the time but they don't ever go all the way. Some might say it is because they lack the means, others say they may lack the will or maybe there is no up side to removing a political pawn permanently from the board because you may need an excuse to divert the people in 20 years and the old enemy is. the best enemy for that.
I admit I don't know how the nuclear armed calculus plays out. It hasn't really been tried yet.
Previous to nukes, even mass fire bombing like Dresden was horrific but not nation ending.
Our "exceptionalism" was because we had two oceans between us and threats. We didn't get bombed daily and lose our factories.
Modern weapons and nukes change that situation. GIVEN the low tech truck mounted drone attacks that Ukraine and now Isreal (used on Iran), what is really secure even at that low tech situation?
Previous to off shoring America could feed, clothe, shelter, make medicines and all that.
Now depending on what data you accept some 80% of our medicines, bandages and surgical supplies come from China or Asia (mostly Vietnam). A little more research shows that the Vietnam supplies are mostly repackaged Chinese medicines and even the Swiss are some 70% dependent upon China for the base materials for their medicine production.
SNIP China dominates the supply chain of rare earth elements, having 37 percent of proven reserves, producing 63 percent of global output, and housing about 85 percent of the processing capacity. As of 2019, China still produced roughly 85 percent of the world’s rare earth oxides and approximately 90 percent of rare earth metals, alloys, and permanent magnets. China accounts for over 95 percent of the world's production of rare earths. Many of the rare earths are also critical to the military and aerospace industries.
Not a healthy place to be as we are using our rare earth dependent Wunder weapons at an amazing pace.
Remember the photos of shipping yards full of F-150's done EXCEPT for the chips needed a few years ago?
That Germany had lots of aircraft built but crippled from lack of ball bearings after we targeted their ball bearing plants in WW2?
Not a happy situation to ponder.
Grabbing the tail of a dog in a dog fight gets you bit.
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