Trump’s latest threat is suicide for the US economy
Now, Trump is threatening to double down on his Iran disaster.
“President Donald J. Trump threatened Friday to destroy Iran’s major oil terminal on Kharg Island if Tehran continued to obstruct shipping through the Strait of Hormuz.”
Trump fancies himself as a deal-maker. Any deal-maker who can bankrupt a casino is a fool. This latest threat is foolish on stilts.
Ca. 90% Iran’s oil ships out of Kharg. If that terminal is destroyed, it will effectively cut off all oil income to Iran. Trump apparently thinks either (a) Iran will cave at the threat or (b) he can in will carry out the threat and only Iran will pay the price. Trump has forgotten the Samson Option.
“Iran, having been deprived of its livelihood at Kharg, will take down the oil facilities of Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, and the UAE. It has the drones and missiles to do so. Oil is, to say the least, flammable. So it can be done. As we saw in Kuwait after the Gulf War, when Iraqi troops set oil rig fires in Kuwait, they are almost impossible to put out in a short time. It takes years. The rigs and terminals would have to be rebuilt. If all Gulf oil is taken off the market for several years, the price of petroleum would go to $200, maybe $300 a barrel and the world economy would be thrown into a long-term recession. It would be a “shock without precedent.”
Let’s hope he’s bluffing.
Iran’s Samson Option
Iran’s choices
1) Negotiate or not negotiate. If you are an Iranian negotiator, you are likely to get killed ASAP. If you don’t negotiate, you’ll likely live at least for a while. Iran learned this lesson watching what happened to Hamas.
2) Capitulate or not capitulate. If you capitulate, your best outcomes are to be condemned to death or life and torture in prison. If you don’t capitulate, you might live to fight on for a while and maybe even wear out your opponent. Iran learned this lesson from watching Hamas, too.
Where’s the incentive to negotiate or capitulate?
Limiting the war’s end to unacceptable choices leads precisely to “no choice but” maximum carnage and destruction. This seems to be what the US and Israel real goal.
But offering impossible choices might also lead to exhaustion and retreat of the more powerful side, something that has been the history of US quagmires since WWII. And it seems more and more likely, given the looming global economic catastrophe.
Isn’t there an old saying about never fighting an army with its back to a river?
I am sure waiting for more economic punishment because trump wants to be the macho-man of the world.
The United States should let Israel fight its own battles without US manpower. Give them all the weaponry they need and back away from anything else. This is not a U.S. war. We are paying an economic penalty for joining the attacks.
As far as Trump blowing
himself-upoil fields up? That is a pretty stupid strategy. “Thank you sir please punish us some more.”