The Hormuz Debacle

By Paul Iddon

The historical implications of Tehran's threat to blockade the Strait of Hormuz.

Satellite image of the Strait.

The gunboat diplomacy between the United States and Iran has had some troubling developments over the past few days. In a response to the possibility of more sanctions on Iran over its nuclear activities threats have been made by the regime to close the Strait of Hormuz, equating it to being easier than “drinking a glass of water.” Vice-President Rahimi has also spoken some tough rhetoric stating that those imposing sanctions “will only drop their plots when we put them back in their place.”

The US Navy has in turn stated that it is “ready to counter malevolent actions to ensure freedom of navigation.” Certainly not an unprecedented nor over zealous statement when one considers that shortly after its inception the United States Navy undertook a military operation against the Barbary states of North Africa in order to curtail the pirating and harassment of international merchant shipping.

One however doesn't need to go back to the 19th century to draw a useful historical analogy of which one could learn about the present situation. Two instances from the late 20th century immediately spring to mind, those being the 1996 Taiwan Strait Crisis and the Tanker War period of the Iran Iraq War. In both cases the United States directly intervened with its naval forces under the pretext of safeguarding international shipping lanes. Whilst the 1996 instance in the Taiwan Strait saw a rather tense stand off it did not escalate into a shooting war between the United States and the Peoples Republic of China. When Iran begun mining the Persian Gulf in the latter years of the Iran Iraq War the US Navy conducted several military engagements against Iranian forces. Under the auspices of the Earnest Will deployment which was launched to effectively deploy warships to steam through any blockade zone that would hinder transit of the waterway the US Navy engaged Iranian warships and in the case of the Sahand destroyed them.

Talk of closing off the Strait has been prominent since the speedboat incident in January 2008 which saw erratic manoeuvres by small fast moving Revolutionary Guard surface vessels near US warships in international waters. This one tense incident saw oil prices rise to a then record high of $100 per barrel. Since then, talk of the possibility and likely consequences of an attack on Iran have seldom excluded the repercussions such an attack would have on the world price of oil if the Iranians were to go through with their threat of closing the Strait. Overlooked by many who focus on the damaging effects such action will have on the western economies is the fact that 50% of China's oil passes through this narrow 34 mile waterway.

The Persian Gulf is certainly a rough neighbourhood these days, where national pride on both sides of its shore is frequently challenged. Iran for instance has felt marginalized in what it considers to be effectively its own backyard, and is aghast and disgusted with its neighbours challenging the historically significant name of the gulf.

My colleague Nader Uskowi recently pointed out there is a strong possibility that if these gulf states feel threatened, now at a time when discontent is at a high among their respective populaces towards their respective governments then there is a plausible possibility and scenario that under the auspices of the GCC - and backed heavily by Saudi Arabia - the UAE may attempt to seize the disputed islands of Abu Musa and and the Greater and the Lesser Tunbs in the Persian Gulf. While such a costly and dangerous endeavor sounds somewhat far fetched (which it would be) I would wager it isn't in the least bit implausible. The Argentine junta for example in 1982 seized the Falkland Islands in a bid to a reassert national pride in a midst of a crippling economic depression and widespread public discontent. Their subsequent defeat at the hands of a large British Task Force led on to the juntas rapid decline, deterioration and dissolution.

Similarly, the Iranian regimes tough rhetoric with regards to the Hormuz issue may simply be a public affairs stunt, an attempt to curb the discontentment that comes with crippling sanctions and the accompanying economic hardship. The aim of such a stunt would be to give the regime the aura of being the authentic 'face' of an Iran struggling to reassert national pride. The very pride they have consistently trampled upon, the pride of a nation they have made a pariah through their policies, and the pride of a nation they are willing to sacrifice over their shady nuclear programme which has seen them engage themselves in an obsessive overproduction of enriched uranium, an obsessive compulsion of which they are seemingly going to risk a war in which to fight for, in the Iranian peoples name, at their risk and costly expense.