What keeps the U.S. Navy’s top officer awake at night? “The Strait of Hormuz,” Adm. Jonathan Greenert confessed during a speech on Tuesday morning. Greenert meant that he’s worried Iran will close one of the planet’s most strategically important waterways, through which about 20 percent of the world’s oil flows. The Iranians have spent weeks threatening to do just that.
Greenert is certainly right to worry, especially as the U.S.S. John C. Stennis‘ battle group just passed through the strait. But in a sense, he should hope Iran tries to close the Strait of Hormuz. There are few mistakes Iran could make that would be worse for it in the long run.
Why? Because Iran would suddenly be responsible for sending world energy prices skyrocketing — perhaps to $200 a barrel — after a disruption of Gulf oil shipping. Washington usually has a hard sell when convincing other countries that Iran’s regional bellicosity and lack of transparency on its nuclear program merits a tough response. But when Iran hits the entire world in the wallet, the argument gets substantially easier.
Especially when making that argument in Beijing. The Chinese, in need of Mideast oil to propel their economy, often try to temper hostilities between the U.S. and Iran, lest regional instability stops the flow of crude. Usually that expresses itself in terms of restraining Washington. But if Iran is unilaterally responsible for the oil flow stopping, just watch Beijing move out of Washington’s way for harsher sanctions. Who knows: maybe China would even get on board with an American push to forcibly reopen the strait if Iran keeps it closed. (Although, as Gen. Martin Dempsey, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff has observed, Iran probably lacks the naval capability to block sea traffic through the strait for extended periods.) The last time the oil flow through the strait was disrupted, during the Iran-Iraq war of the 1980s, the Chinese armed Iran against aggressor Iraq.
If anything, Iran’s closure of the strait would probably play like its old enemy Saddam Hussein’s 1990 decision to invade Kuwait. Before the invasion, world governments might not have liked Saddam, but most of them didn’t consider him an implacable threat to regional stability (and, hence, their economic interests). Afterward, the world viewed him as a rogue who needed to be confronted.
And one of Iran’s biggest strategic assets is a perception that the U.S. bullies it. That narrative is already taking a beating, thanks to Greenert’s Navy and the Coast Guard, which have now saved two Iranian vessels in five days, even as Iran issues its threats. The more Iran acts as an aggressor — and in particular, in a manner that harms the interests of those outside Washington, Jerusalem, or the Arab Gulf states — the more it squanders its advantage.
None of this to say any military confrontation with Iran is desirable; it would probably be a bloody disaster, especially if the U.S. turned it into a full-fledged war with more expansive goals than re-opening the waterway. The point is that Iran has more to lose than to gain by closing the strait. Shutting it would be another sign of Iran’s tendency to shoot itself in the foot — just like with the crazy-if-true story about its elite Qods Force trying to assassinate a Saudi diplomat.
But outright confrontation may not even be the most lasting damage Iran sustains. China is one of Iran’s biggest trade benefactors. Now that Washington loosened Russia from Iran’s orbit, Iran doesn’t have any big, powerful friends left. Screwing with oil prices means screwing with China — which might make Beijing rethink its entire relationship with Iran after any crisis in the strait, from its economic ties to its diplomatic blocking and tackling over the Iranian nuclear program. Maybe it should be Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, not Adm. Greenert, who should have some restless nights thinking about the strait.
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