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Notes -
Bloomberg: Goldman Says Gulf Oil Flows Two-Thirds of Prewar Level
A lot of ships are still making the crossing dark with transponders turned off but the trend is clear. Iran’s (supposed) leverage over the strait is basically nullified, oil is passing through despite Iranian proclamations. Independent analysts now agree with what the US government was saying weeks ago, that millions of barrels are passing through the strait under American auspices.
US CENTCOM agrees, putting out this statement that the US has escorted a few thousand ships through the Gulf, carrying through three-quarters of a billion barrels of oil over the past few months.
What changed?
Axios: "That sucker is open": U.S. gains the upper hand in the battle for Hormuz
The US has apparently de-mined the Straits of Hormuz, although, interestingly, there don’t seem to have been many mines in the first place!
It seems as though Iran’s capacities to threaten ship traffic the Strait were severely degraded by US military action, but that Iran was successfully able to convince news reporters and insurance companies that it could target ships.
For instance, Brady Sullivan at CNBC says
Meanwhile, Reuters: Pipelines and ports: Iran war spurs Gulf infrastructure investment
Not only has Iran lost control over the Straits, but Gulf states are building new pipelines to reroute oil around the Straits so that Iran can never threaten them again.
And how does it look inside Iran?
WSJ: Labor Protests and Panic Buying Signal Growing Pressure in Iran
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Some might remember Trump’s infamous comments on this subject some months ago:
The Shakes take: Iran will never toll the straits, Iran will never have nuclear weapons, Trump was right about everything, a lot of people who believed Iranian claims are looking very, increasingly, increasingly!, foolish.
Cool story bro. I hate that you keep putting me on the same side as [
the likes ofETA: self-edit, this was too antagonistic] @hanikrummihundursvin and @coffee_enjoyer (I don't buy the "We did this at the behest of our Zionist masters" narrative), but it looks to me like the situation is materially worse for the US than before the war started, and the fact that it's much worse for Iran does nothing for me. I will ask you again: what is the benefit to me, as an American taxpayer? In what way is America now richer and safer? "We won we won we won!" okay, cool, what did we win?We won a delay in the start of the next nuclear war.
Very debatable. I think this hinges on multiple assumptions
(1) Iran was going to build nukes under the Obama deal. This one feels pretty unknowable, given Trump quitting the deal in his first term made it much less likely to succeed.
(2) Iran having nukes will lead to nuclear war with a high probability. I would instead argue that this probability is small. Sure, more actors having nukes increases the risk, but so far we have a lot of vastly different countries getting nukes and not nuking anyone (with the US being the outlier).
(3) Trump's war delayed them acquiring nukes. I mean the war this year, not the destruction of enrichment facilities in 2025. I think the net effect of 2026 is probably shorter timelines. You killed the ayatollah who had issued a fatwa against nuclear weapons. Now his son is in charge instead. You have also demonstrated to the regime that you will drop billions of dollars of bombs on Iran whenever you feel like it. Sure, you killed a lot of military personnel and destroyed a lot of general purpose infrastructure, but I would not be surprised if nuclear weapons became a top priority for Iran now.
Sure it's debatable. And part if it requires information that none of us have (or if we do we can't say). I disagree on (2); Iran was rather likely to nuke Tel Aviv as soon as they could. For multiple reasons. One, because destroying the Little Satan is one of their basic goals. Two, because the Israelis would certainly attempt to destroy any nuclear capability even after they got it by any means available; there would be pressure to use it or lose it. (3) seems unreasonable; Iran's capabilities to build anything have been very degraded and they can't start rebuilding until the US is no longer breathing down their necks, priorities or no.
I agree. I’d put it this way - there were indeed senior Iranian politicians who agreed to the Obama deal sincerely, in the sense that they didn’t think they were tricking the enemy and didn’t intend for their country to develop nuclear weapons anyway.
However, the IRGC, which by this point fully ran the nuclear program, was largely governed by a hardliner faction, now fully in charge, who had every intention of fully continuing the program regardless.
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