Iran could prevent even "a single drop of oil" passing through the Strait of Hormuz if its security is threatened, a naval chief said on Saturday, as tensions simmer over Tehran's nuclear program.
We have reacted by moving assets to the Gulf to deal with various levels of threat.
Besides, would Iran really be foolish enough to react to our restrictions on their oil exports by doing something that completely cuts off their oil exports and mobilizes even skittish Europeans to fight Iran to keep their oil imports coming?
Military analysts have cast doubt on Iran's willingness to block the slender waterway, given the massive U.S.-led retaliation it would likely incur.
This is excellent reasoning with only one problem--it could become wrong at any moment.
That reasoning, after all, kept Iran from trying to close the strait despite years of Iraqi efforts to shut off Iranian oil exports during the Iran-Iraq War (which I prefer to call the First Gulf War) through an air campaign that targeted Iranian tankers and Kharg Island.
The Iranians even followed that reasoning as American efforts to "tilt" to Iraq to keep them from losing the war made it look like we were co-belligerents with Iraq.
The Iranians followed that reasoning right up until 1987 and 1988 when the didn't follow that reasoning, and challenged the American-led naval flotilla guarding the Persian Gulf:
Iran did in fact attack the United States Navy during the Tanker War during the Iran-Iraq War, and suffered losses in clashes with our forces during 1987 and 1988. For years, the Iranians endured Arab and American efforts to support Iraq in the war that Saddam launched in September 1980, knowing that the Persian Gulf was the source of income and supplies for Iraq. Yet Iran endured rather than striking out, knowing that they needed the Gulf, too, and perhaps understanding that the alternative to Iraq using the Gulf was not Iran only having use of the Gulf. But the pressure of war led the mullahs to abandon their caution and sail into battle that they lost.
As I noted in the post, the Iranians seem to believe that the chance of war this year is pretty high, so they'd best prepare for it. Striking us first if they believe we will strike anyway will seem quite reasonable to them.
