Iran to practice closing the Straits of Hormuz
In a link from Old Trooper we learn that an upcoming exercise will give Iran an idea of what capabilities they have to close the Straits of Hormuz to traffic in the Persian Gulf. Funny, but that’s the same kind of stuff that motivated Jimmy Carter to send US war vessels to the Gulf. In fact, that was the Carter Doctrine – the free flow of Gulf oil at market prices;
The legislator, Parviz Sarvari, told the student news agency ISNA: “Soon we will hold a military maneuver on how to close the Strait of Hormuz. If the world wants to make the region insecure, we will make the world insecure.”
Contacted by Reuters, a spokesman for the Iranian military declined to comment.
Iran’s energy minister told Al Jazeera television last month that Tehran could use oil as a political tool in the event of any future conflict over its nuclear program.
So here we are more than thirty years later still facing the same bullshit. Adirondack Patriot sent us a link that reports that the Navy is already paying $15/gallon for gas. I wonder what it will be after iran’s little harmless exercise.
Category: Terror War
Let’s practice mining their ports.
Meh. One VLS-capable 688 boat against their entire Navy.
I think we know who the smart money would go on.
[…] War Games!! December 13th, 2011 As Jonn noted below Iran is playing games in the straits. […]
Once we would have sank everything they put on the water, opened the Straits and called it a victory.
A sitting US president, desperately seeking to provide middle America (or Amerika, as I believe Barack Hussein Obama II spells it) with a basis to vote for him is a dangerous thing. On the other hand, a pissed off Republican in the White House is also dangerous if you’re Iran. So, I guess, they’re screwed either way.
The problem with, at a tactical level, a conventional response to an Iranian closure of the strait will have limited success. The ongoing assumption is that an Iranian closure would use asymmetric methods, mostly small boats and ports, to attack larger vessels. Today’s navy is still primarily designed to attack and defeat like forces, and has a limited capability to identify and attack small boats. The biggest US advantage to the exercise is to identify Iranian SOPs and TTPs and develop counters.
Recently I watched a show on how our navy deals with small boats and they seem to have a pretty good handle on it. Unfortunately our president is too stupid or whatever to realize how important the pipeline into Canada is so that countries like Iran doing shit like this isn’t that big a deal. Personally, it is just them trying to assert power they know they don’t really have. Currently don’t we have a carrier group in that area, plus what ever subs in the area just patrolling.
JPJ–usually we have TWO CVBG’s in the area, and IIRC a few fast boats and one of the converted Ohio’s within convenient distance.
IIRC, the Ohios do refits and stops at Diego Garcia. The fast boats typically pull into Bahrain and Jebel Ali.
See we probably have more of a Navy in the area than Iran has. Hell I would let them do their exercise and think it is a success. Then next week do an exercise on how we would respond. Of course our president doesn’t have the balls for that and it wouldn’t fit into his “smart diplomacy”.
I just read somewhere that the Navy has found no evidence of them actually conducting anything in the area. The fact is they need their oil to sell far more then we or anyone else. If they are unable to to do this, it will most likely bring down the regime, no invasion needed. They would likely attempt to deny us or anyone access to the gulf, with land based weapons(missles) or shallow crafts then confront our Navy.
I know this isn’t the right forum, but this illustrates the problem I have with the libertarian free-trade crowd (who believe that shipping all your manufacturing jobs overseas is actually good). You’re no longer secure (or, arguably, sovereign) if you can’t either produce essential goods yourself or get them easily and in a timely fashion from solid, reliable allies. Think things like oil, rare earths, communications equipment, etc. There’s more to the debate than unfettered liberty; if you’re not secure then you’re not going to keep your liberty for very long.
Sometimes I wish I didn’t think about these things.