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Notes -
Iran has allegedly mined the strait of Hormuz
I've seen a lot of discussion online about whether or not Iran would mine the strait, and it looks like it's happening.
I'm curious as to what is driving this. My understanding is that the Iranian military is structured so that military units can operate with a lot of autonomy if the chain of command breaks down. Is this a small, but official action, or is it the action of units who are operating with what they have in the absence of official orders?
What are the global economic impacts of mining the strait? I tangentially work in insurance, and talking to the Actual Insurance Guys, it seems like this is probably just as bad as regular missile attacks, if not worse. Do commercial ships have any way to protect themselves against mines, other than "don't be where the mines are"?
I've also been seeing vague rumblings in the news that non-Israeli Mideast nations may materially contribute to the conflict. Does this move the needle?
It seems to me that this represents a pretty significant escalation. While sea mines are not land mines, they are both indiscriminate area denial weapons that have significant risks of civilian casualties that can last long after the end of the conflict that caused their emplacement. They're hard to find and create significant anxiety for anyone who has to traverse the area.
Is this a good strategic move by Iran? I'm not an expert on global geopolitics, but my gut tells me it harms them more than helps them. Fighting a defensive war against the Great Satan put the Iranian government in a very sympathetic position with their neighbors, but shutting down one of the most important economic transit corridors in the world with weapons that most governments find distasteful at best seems like a signal to the region that Iran will drag everyone into the flames along with them. Theoretically, this might pressure those countries to abandon the US, but that's a high stakes choice.
The impossibility of negotiations with the US and Israel. It doesn't really matter if Iranians have coherent command or not, even a midwitted officer can independently realize the payoff matrix here. Israelis will keep killing their leadership because the official Israeli objective is regime collapse or at least degrading Iran to the condition where it can be gradually collapsed with "mowing the lawn" tactics. American negotiators (Kushner, Witkoff) are now known to be a) incompetent and b) represent Israel first, so any possible ceasefire agreements will be immediately exploited to kill Iranians with more freedom of action, like the US has done to Popular Mobilization Forces in Iraq after a recent ceasefire agreement.
They don't have moves that improve their situation left, sans imposing costs on the global and regional economy and hoping to provoke a strategically unsound concession via international pressure on the US&Israel, to genuinely win time and reestablish deterrence. It's a pretty absurd bet, especially seeing as neither Israel nor the US are directly harmed by the closure of Hormuz Strait and consider giving Iranians room to develop nukes (or even maintain a ballistic missile program) unacceptable. It's also arguably backfiring with GCC countries (though this is largely irrelevant as they have little offensive capability beyond hosting American forces and allowing the use of their airspace, which they've been doing anyway).
The US could be substantially harmed by the closure of the Hormuz Strait if we decide that it's a good idea to short crude oil futures and then the market moves against us.
Well you could just not try shorting oil futures in the first place, that's a pretty zany strategy. In fact, American oil/LNG companies stand to gain BIGLY from all this. Russia is banned, Iran is being destroyed, Qatar is already 20% down for the next 3-5 years, the Strait is closed. Your commodity exports are going to the moon.
The US actually temporarily lifted sanctions on Russian and Iranian oil that is currently at sea. I think they see the global price of oil as the political limitation on their ability to wage the war at all and so they're taking steps to keep oil prices down even if it means giving money to the regime they're fighting.
Well yes, that's prudent to smooth out the shock, but in the longer term the US is entrenching its position as a fossil fuel producer and exporter.
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