Following a strike, would Iran close the Straits of Hormuz?

Helene Davidson

Have you guys lost your collective minds?

Mike

Who says the US doesn't agree with it? Discount public statements, they are only for the public.

Jeremy

Helene Davidson:

"Have you guys lost your collective minds?"

I thought we had individual minds.

pump and dump

Price of oil flagging James? Goldmine Sacks' investments in ramped price in danger of being sunk? Quick get one's media mouthpieces to talk about tankers being sunk in a jolly jape bombing Iran. What a sick world.

Seaman since '71. 10 yrs as Master.

"... that oil tankers are actually not that vulnerable to mines and that tankers’ large bow waves would make it impossible for most small boats to get close enough to launch an attack".

Utter and unmitigated crap.
Too many "experts" nowadays.

Chris

Are you entering the 2009 'Ask a silly question' contest, Helene?

TGF UKIP

The oil thing splits more than two ways.

Not only does Iran need to export its own crude and gas to sustain its economy but due to the continued incompetence of the Islamic regime it also needs to import a significant proportion of refined product for its own domestic use.

If the Israelis also hit refined product storage at Iran's Gulf ports as well as nuclear facilies, Iran's appetite for blockading the Gulf would be severely curtailed.

Behrouz

America must bomb the Iranian regime's nuclear sites severely.they also must bomb the regime military bases, the regime's authority headquarters and many more.
however i don't think Barak Obama has guts to do that.therefore Israel must prepare itself to attack those targets very quickly.

Fred

Silkworm missiles?

mitch

And how long has Iran had to plan closing this strip of water eh? about forever!!!. missiles both guided and not,Artillery pieces,mines both dumb and smart and speedboats full of explosives and kids.
sheesh!! even I could do it, just threaten to do it and the insurance companies will stop them.

BrianSJ

The FP article is nonsense, and the Speccie should know enough to give it a good ignoring. Somewhat more sensible piece by CERMAM at
http://tinyurl.com/lqzgy9
though this doesn't go into the Chinese presence at Bander Abbas.
Agree with pump and dump. This is a puff for the vampire squid to ramp the price.

Peter Melia

Typically, a large tanker is divided across into 3 cargo tanks, 25%/50%25%.
There are normally 5 sets of tanks along the ship, so any one wing tank is 5% cargo space. If a hit is scored on a transverse bulkhead, then 10% cargo is lost.
Northbound, the ships are in ballast and the tanks are inerted, that is, empty of oil, the air space filled with Nitrogen. A mine contact at a wing tank would certainly cause damage but the risk of catastrophic explosion and fire is not high. A list would occur by virtue of sea water entering the damaged tank, this could be countered by ballasting the opposite, undamaged tank, or deballasting the midships ballast tank on the same side as the damage.
Southbound, the ships are laden and the tanks full of oil. The void space above the oil is filled with Nitrogen. Risk of fire is higher, compared with ballast, but not much. Listing would be less than in ballast.
From the press point of view, a more exciting prospect is an aerial attack, resulting in numerous pepper-pot holes in the decks. To be effective for journalists, this has to happen in a loaded ship, when we can expect numerous jets of flame from the punctures. These flames can be extinguished by crews.
Small fast boats can easily handle the bow waves of large tankers, which are "user-friendly" being large "bosomy" type waves rather than exciting Hollywood catastrophes.
The freeboard of large tankers, laden or ballasted, is relatively low, making them good targets for boarding, pirate type attacks.
The tanker industry has gained a considerable experience during the previous Gulf wars, when all of these attacks have been experienced.

TGF UKIP

James, perhaps you could remind us - just how many carrier groups does the US have either in the gulf or within 96 hours sailing time?

All right it may not be George W it might be communist pacifist Obama, but even he knows that if he bottles it, he can kiss 2012 goodbye.

Hysteria

we just witnessed (again) the power of teh interweb.

Speculative nonsense from the journos, with fact based responses from people who actually know what they are talking about.

Now - how do we turn this against the political classes I wonder.......?

go figure

Right on, pump and dump.
So much for reforming the financial system - dream on.

Arash

Behrouz.. if GWB didn't have the "guts" to bomb Iran C&C centers+nuclear sites then I doubt Obama will either.. Infact it is well known that Bush had a prime opportunity to nip the Iranian nuke program in the bud and invoke significant damage to Rev Guards training camps, but passed, not to mention veto'ing Israeli access to vital bunker buster weaponry and intelligence necessary for an attack on concealed nuke sites and c&c centers. Aint a great deal Israel can accomplish (short of a nuclear attack of its own) without US help. Now, back to your MKO rally.. :)

Lady Amelia

The laden tanker Limburg was bombed off Yemen by being rammed by a small boat carrying explosives in October 2002. She was towed to Dubai where I saw her. She had a large hole in her side, had lost 90 000 barrels of oil which had then ignited and her lifeboats on the starboard side, whole plating, superstructure and some structural members had to be replaced. see wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bombing_of_the_Limburg

Did anyone, anyone at Foreign Policy deign to check facts and history?

ps Peter Melia your assumptions are all based on a bomb hitting one tank only not a going across two tanks.

pps tankers outside agreed shipping lanes are uninsured and subject to legal action. using "20 miles instead of the official channel" would not be clever. that channel is there for a reason. go look at a chart. (that's a map of the sea, for the experts in FP)

Austin Barry

Arash

"...not to mention veto'ing Israeli access to vital bunker buster weaponry.."

Perhaps, but an Israeli Intelligence connected website (Debka) reported yesterday that, per USAF Lt. Gen. Mark Shackelford, the US Air Force has requested expedited delivery of 10 to 12 Massive Ordnance Penetrator (MOP) bunker buster bombs. This trebles a request made to Congress last year by US Central Command which oversees Iran. Apparently, the Pentagon wants accelerated delivery with the order being filled asap and by July 2010 at latest.

Interesting times ahead, I fear.

Olaf

"tankers’ large bow waves would make it impossible for most small boats to get close enough to launch an attack"

They seem to manage fine in Somalia

JONNY

Oh what a lovely war.
Let's start a new one now.
And hell what happens next.

Who knows we might kill thousands of Iranians and keep our oil to boot.

andy c

So that' s all right then isn't it?

No damage to a strategic relationship and they can't close the Straits either.

Let's bomb 'em immediately.

You re a Warmonger and a moron.

James J

The REAL Special Relationship for the USA is its relationship with Israel.It would not matter what Israel done the US would not sever it.

Helene Davidson

After the glorious success of our Iraq invasion and the ongoing triumphs in Afghanistan, completing the triage with a strike on Iran would line up perfectly to create a great plain of instability from Syria to Pakistan. Just what we need to add to the global mix.

Yes, I did mean collective minds. The same ones that colluded, and deluded, in the above. Sorry if you found the question silly, but not as conclusively stupid as some of the foreign policy choices we have made.

Seaman since '71. 10 yrs as Master. Ex-pat.

At their cost, successive UK governments have allowed the demise of what used to be the British Merchant Navy. We have foreign-owned vessels under the Red ensign for tax reasons, but that does not make them "British". We are no longer a maritime nation, now relying on others, over whom we have little or no jurisdiction, for maritime transportation of our imports/exports.

More recently, old-fashioned values such as national pride and patriotism have been discouraged by this government in their relentless pursuit of something called multi-culture or "diversity".

The political elites have proved themselves to be corrupt and incompetent.
The military industrial complex, about which Eisenhower warned long ago, is more dominant now, than ever.

My government does immoral deals with rogue states in an attempt to maintain energy supplies from overseas, while selling off ownership of domestic utilities and ignoring any programme for the provision of future domestic energy generating complexes.

I could go on.

I personally think that an attack on the Iranian nuclear facilities is arguable, but that would not make it right. Politicians, no doubt, would be able to reconcile such contradictions.

As a British Master Mariner, can anyone provide me with a coherent argument why I should bother to endanger myself to be part of the corruption, transporting oil from one dodgy nation state to another ?

I doubt such a dubiously named publication as Foreign Policy could persuade me otherwise.

Ali Mostofi

The threat of a non-violent general strike will topple the regime much sooner than an air strike.

Verity

Closing the Straits of Hormuz might not be a bad idea if we wish to avoid further seepage of Iranian tailoring into the West.

What they imposed on our sailors in our Royal Navy was little short of a war crime, with the exception of Cap'n Faye or whatever her title was, who was much improved by the burqa. Whatever happened to her, by the way? Did she go on to command another ship on HMService?

Archie

Verity: no idea what happened to the lumpen fat blonde, but I did read that the Captain of the Cornwall had been quietly "re-assigned". Bloody good thing, too!