Denial

IN THE NEWS
Robert at Lawyers, Guns, and Money posted this excellent analysis of the likely Iranian strategy, were there a war between the United States and Iran. Certainly, the Iranian government is likely to fall back on the strategy that was effective in the 1980s: sea denial.

The Iranians seem to be gaming a guerilla at sea approach, focusing on small boat attacks against US warships and neutral shipping. It's pretty unlikely that these could do much damage to a US Navy warship, but they could make life uncomfortable for some of the big tankers. It's unlikely that Iranian attacks could sink one of the supertankers, but they might threaten enough damage to close off, at least temporarily, oil transit by sea in the Gulf.

This is exactly what the Iranians did during the Reagan Administration: keep a credible threat to the supertankers moving through the Persian Gulf. The US Navy might wipe the Iranian navy from the map, and as long as a few light craft survive, the fragile flow of oil through the Gulf would still be at risk.

There's more to high oil prices than this threat, but it weighs heavily on the commodities market. Oil prices stay high, as long as uncertainty is the defining feature of Middle Eastern politics. The Iranian government's demonstrated ability to seize the political and military initiative from the West is generating a great deal of discomfort and uncertainty about Persian Gulf oil supplies. (Of course, the Iraqi insurgency plays its part, too.) Last time, the Iranians were foolish enough to force a confrontation with the US Navy. This time, they might have learned their lesson, keeping a "fleet in being" as yet another trump card to play in their confrontational diplomacy with the West.

Comments

[Brad]

Photos, video, etc., about the last time the Iranians forced a confrontation with the U.S. Navy can be found at http://www.navybook.com/nohigherhonor/timeline.shtml.