Iran has most to risk if it declares war on the world
Talk of Iranian submarines planting mines along the Strait of Hormuz would be devastating for developed economies – but also for Khamenei’s regime.
Even if its nuclear programme has been crippled for now, Iran still has a formidable weapon at the ready: geography. Yesterday (Sunday), hours after the attack on its nuclear sites, Iran was disrupting GPS signals on the Strait of Hormuz. The strait is an energy chokepoint, as narrow as the eye of a needle: barely 24 miles wide, it is the route through which 25 per cent of the world’s oil and 30 per cent of its liquefied natural gas travels. There has already been talk of Iranian submarines planting mines along the way. A crude way of turning what started as a war between Israel and Iran, which mutated into the US and Israel versus Tehran, into Iran versus the world.
The move, though passed by Iran’s rubber-stamp parliament, is still subject to approval by the top leadership. Its effects would be potentially devastating for developed economies everywhere with oil prices storming beyond $100 a barrel, pushing up household bills, fuel prices and food prices.
What could the embattled Iranian regime hope to achieve by doing that? The supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, may not much care as he hides in his bunker. At 86, with his political authority seeping away, he may believe that posing as a global disruptor is at least historically consistent for someone who rose to power in the 1979 toppling of the pro-western Shah. If he can’t blow up the region (and the verdict is still out on how much damage was done to Iran’s nuclear plants in the US raid), then he can at least give the Great Satan a bloody nose.
Strangely, though, the blocking of Hormuz might turn out to be even more suicidal for the regime than accelerating its nuclear programme. Iran depends on the income it gets from selling oil to its ally and customer China and the well-disposed (if officially neutral) India. If the strait closed, that revenue would stop and the pressure for regime change within Iran would only grow. Saudi Arabia, Iran’s arch rival, would fortify its position as a regional and broadly western-aligned leader. The only rational political argument for Iran closing the strait is to nudge China into playing a more active role as a mediator with the US – and that doesn’t look like happening. The manner of the US attack – a one-off strike rather than a precursor for a wider war – has the approval of Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Israel. In that sense it resembles Trump’s order during his first term to assassinate the Iranian Quds force commander Qasem Soleimani: an act of controlled state violence meant to close a chapter rather than signal a new phase in a forever war.
The White House will have calculated that any possible Iranian response – attacking US bases in the region or a mass drone attack by Iran’s Houthi allies on Saudi oil facilities – will merely deepen the isolation of the Tehran regime.
Iran, once a proud member of the Crinks club of autocrats (China, Russia, North Korea), now finds itself shunned. Apart from the Houthis in Yemen, who said they were preparing to attack US vessels in the Red Sea, Iran’s proxy armies are exhausted and certainly not up for a fight against America.
It could be that North Korea lends a hand in rebuilding Iran’s nuclear programme, but Russia’s offer to control the enrichment of uranium is almost certainly off the table. It only ever made sense if President Putin could present Moscow as a diplomatic equal of Washington. Trump’s bombing has wrong-footed the Kremlin and may force it to rethink its whole alignment with Iran.
Has the weekend attack made the world safer? Many political decision-makers will be conducting a thought experiment over the next few days. An angry Iran is threatening to close down global trade. How much worse would that be if it were a nuclear-armed power making that same threat? Iran may now withdraw from the nuclear proliferation treaty. Again, will that lead to a more dangerous or a safer world? So far, at least, most of Iran’s neighbours may be sleeping better at night.
The Times
