- Trump blockades Iran…
- Blockades take time — and don’t always work…
- For decades, one type of investment was reserved for the ultra-wealthy. Then Trump signed Executive Order 14330 – and opened it to everyone. Now you can get into this boom for less than $20. See what changed >>
Dear reader,
We must open the Hormuz Strait to maritime traffic… by closing the Hormuz Strait to maritime traffic.
This, in essence, the president announced yesterday.
Pakistani-based peace negotiations between the United States and Iran proved juiceless this weekend.
The American negotiation group — captained by Vice President Vance — issued six demands of Iran.
Under these iron conditions Iran must:
- Cease all uranium enrichment…
- Dismantle all nuclear enrichment facilities…
- Surrender existing supplies of highly enriched uranium…
- Assent to a broader peace, security and de-escalation framework that includes regional allies…
- Cease funding for terrorist proxies Hamas, Hezbollah, and the Houthis…
- Open fully the Strait of Hormuz, charging no tolls for passage.
That is, Iran must agree to American surrender terms.
Iran Tells U.S. to Get Bent
The Iranian contingent entertained the American insistences.
Yet they merely folded their arms in unyielding defiance… and shook their heads horizontally, along the east-west axis.
Thundered the unbudging Iranian authorities:
- The American enemy, which is vile, wicked and dishonest, attempted to achieve on the negotiating table what it could not achieve through war. Iran has decided to reject these terms and continue the sacred defense of its fatherland by any means necessary, military or diplomatic.
And so President Trump has elected to wall off the Hormuz Strait. The walling-off commenced this morning at 10 ET.
If the entire world cannot transit the Hormuz Strait — argues the president — neither can Iran.
Thus the president intends to kink Iran’s desperately required oil revenues.
Reports indicate that Iran has been exporting an average 1.85 million oil barrels each day.
That is, Iran exported some 100,000 additional oil barrels each day than it had prior to the conflict.
And the president is out to get his hands around Iran’s neck… and choke them off.
Meantime, the president intends to shutter the toll booth Iran has established in the waterway.
Iranian revenue collection may be taking in perhaps $21.5 million each day since its early March establishment.
Well, Maybe Not ALL Ships
Thus the president declared yesterday that:
- Effective immediately, the United States Navy, the Finest in the World, will begin the process of BLOCKADING any and all Ships trying to enter, or leave, the Strait of Hormuz…
- “At some point, we will reach an ‘ALL BEING ALLOWED TO GO IN, ALL BEING ALLOWED TO GO OUT’ basis, but Iran has not allowed that to happen”…
- I have also instructed our Navy to seek and interdict every vessel in International Waters that has paid a toll to Iran. No one who pays an illegal toll will have safe passage on the high seas.
Yet last evening, United States Central Command issued a point of clarification.
It claimed its forces will merely get between seaborne traffic entering or exiting Iranian ports. All other traffic it will not molest.
The China Factor
Yet here I register an observation.
China is Iran’s largest oil purchaser. Vessels hauling Iranian oil to China exit Iran’s ports. Other vessels enter Iran’s ports to take on China-destined oil.
Is the United States prepared to place a barricade in front of these vessels — and turn them 180 degrees around?
The answer, evidently, is yes.
“We’re putting on a complete blockade,” the president announced yesterday. He added that:
“We’re not going to let Iran make money on selling oil to people that they like and not people that they don’t like, or whatever.”
Yet Chinese authorities have recently declared that China’s access to shipping lanes “must be guaranteed.”
A blockade constitutes denial of access to shipping lanes.
How will China respond? I do not know.
Meantime, reports have materialized. They indicate that China is preparing to dispatch to Iran advanced missile and air defense systems.
“If China does that,” threatened President Trump, “China is gonna have big problems.”
What problems? Once again, I do not know.
Yet I hazard that many problems the United States may hand China would assume the shape of a boomerang.
Thus China’s problems may well become American problems.
“Soon You’ll Be Nostalgic for $4-$5 Gas”
Regardless, the president’s blockade has frightened the horses. Last evening, for example, United States stock market forces were in swift retreat.
And United States oil prices leapt some 10%, to $105 per barrel.
Thus market jubilation over last week’s “ceasefire” has melted into mist, dead.
“Soon you’ll be nostalgic for $4-$5 gas,” the speaker of Iran’s parliament razzed the Americans yesterday.
Will he be proven correct? Of course, I offer no answer.
Yet naval blockades of the sort the president is imposing are lengthy undertakings.
They do not yield immediate fruit. And they may yield, ultimately, limited fruit.
Thus reports the Center for International Maritime Security:
- Throughout history, maritime nations have used naval blockades to wreck the economies of their adversaries and bend them to their will. However, the impact of blockade in history has been overstated.
- Throughout history, blockade has been a part of military success, but it has never been the primary key to victory… blockades have not been successful as standalone campaigns.
Is the president prepared to outlast the defiant Iranians? Or will the blockade send Iran to its knees, vanquished, and requesting mercy?
The answer is on the knees of the inscrutable gods.
You Have the Watches — But We Have the Time
Yet as declares Ms. Sarah Bianchi, chief strategist of international political affairs and public policy at Evercore ISI:
“These developments underscore that the U.S. and Iran are headed for a prolonged period of elevated tensions.”
The United States does not excel at prolonged conflict.
Americans are a restless, fitful people. We are eternally on the jump, forever hunting the next opportunity, perpetually peeking over the next hill.
We simply lack the requisite patience.
“You Americans have the watches,” sneered Afghanistan’s Taliban. “But we have the time.”
And Afghanistan’s Taliban did have the time. The Americans — with their fine watches — did not.
In the present conflict… I fear similar conditions may ultimately obtain.
I fear the Iranians may have the time.
Brian Maher
for Freedom Financial News
