Iran ignores Trump’s warnings on Hormuz as oil tankers head for Houthi trap
(Originally published March 13 in “What in the World“) Iran just needed a smaller boat.
After the U.S. struck those 16 Iranian mine-laying ships earlier this week, U.S. officials say Iran has nonetheless begun laying mines in the Strait of Hormuz. It just used smaller boats to do the job. In doing so, Tehran apparently spurned Trump’s warning that:
“If Iran does anything that stops the flow of Oil within the Strait of Hormuz, they will be hit by the United States of America TWENTY TIMES HARDER than they have been hit thus far. Additionally, we will take out easily destroyable targets that will make it virtually impossible for Iran to ever be built back, as a Nation, again — Death, Fire, and Fury will reign [sic] upon them.”
In his first public address as Iran’s new supreme leader, Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei vowed to keep the Strait of Hormuz closed. But oil shipping had virtually ceased long before the latest mines were laid. Trump mistakenly thought it was because the shipowners didn’t want to risk the voyage because they wouldn’t be insured against acts of war. So he dreamed up a $20 billion reinsurance scheme under which the U.S. International Development Finance Corporation will cover them and even provide tankers with U.S. Naval escorts, urging them to “show some guts.”
No takers: some warned the escorts would only make them easier to target and turns out tanker owners—and tanker crews—aren’t very keen to be sunk. Iran has already attacked at least 16 since the war’s outbreak with missiles, drones, and attack boats.
So, Trump has moved to temper spiking oil prices by lifting sanctions on Russian oil shipments already at sea, allowing nations to buy Russian oil stranded in tankers. U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent acknowledged that the measure would likely provide some financial benefit to Iran’s ally in the war against Ukraine, Russia. Iran had been supplying Moscow with missiles and drones, with Russia building its own factory to produce Iran-designed Shahed attack drones. Russia has in turn provided Iran with intelligence on U.S. targets in the Middle East.
In less than a fortnight, Trump has managed to use up several years’ worth of munitions production for his war to drive up oil prices, the Financial Times reported, citing three unnamed sources—long-range Tomahawk missiles in particular. That is likely to prompt the Pentagon to soon ask Congress for $50 billion in extra cash to replace them with new weapons that ostensibly would take years to make.
Israel, meanwhile, continued its bombardment Thursday of Beirut and Tehran. And Iran’s regional proxies, the so-called “Axis of Resistance” have been stepping up attacks, will militant groups in Iraq accelerating drone and missile attacks on U.S. targets there, and Hezbollah on Wednesday launching a coordinated strike against Israel with Iran’s Revolutionary Guards. Yemen’s Houthi rebels, who had been harassing shipping in the Red Sea during Israel’s invasion of Gaza, have yet to join the attacks, but their leader said last week they had their “fingers on the trigger.” Some speculate the Houthis are in disarray following joint U.S-Israeli airstrikes a year ago, “Operation Rough Rider,” but those attacks only suspended Houthi attacks on Red Sea shipping for about a month.
The other alternative is that the Houthis have been keeping their powder dry. That could be a problem now that, with the Strait of Hormuz closed, oil supertankers have been flocking instead to the Saudi port of Yanbu on the Red Sea, which means they have to pass the perilous, Houthi-guarded Bab al-Mandab Strait. At just 20km in width, the Bab al-Mandab makes the 33km-wide Hormuz look like a Walmart parking lot on Christmas.