More fun than now?
As thebesig reported,, we theoretically have a two-week cease-fire with the Iranians. I say theoretically because from what I read, the terms are not fully agreed, and it seems we either negotiated a cease-fire without the Israelis or they failed to participate as we thought they should, so their attacks on Hezbollah in Lebanon have the Iranians threatening to shut down the Straits of Hormuz again.
Such agreements should be looked at with a jaundiced eye, as both the US and Iran have a bad history of ignoring agreements. (Think we’re pure as the new driven snow? Ask some of the people we promised to stand by forever, like the Afghans and Vietnamese.) Realpolitik runs everyone’s actions in the real world. And there seem to be some gray areas where Iran says one thing and we say another. Mr. Trump supposedly said the Straits are fully open – but the Iranians have released statements mentioning things like “passage with prior arrangement with the Revolutionary Guard” or that a dozen ships a day could pass, a opposed to Mr. Trump’s “fully open” statement.
But hey, there is always the other side of Saudi Arabia. The east side, where Dubai is and which is which is bottlenecked by the Straits, is not the only way to get oil out. The Red Sea, on the west side of SA, may not have the shipping port capacity of the east side, but at least it’s open, right? Maybe not as much as we would like – because of the country to the Saudi’s south – Yemen.
Anyone here remember December?
As a result of today’s attacks and the near-miss yesterday on the Maersk Gibraltar, the Danish Maersk shipping company told us today that it is instructing all its ships scheduled to pass through the Bab al-Mandab to “pause their journey until further notice.”
“We are deeply concerned about the highly escalated security situation in the southern Red Sea and Gulf of Aden,” the company said in a statement to The War Zone. “The recent attacks on commercial vessels in the area are alarming and pose a significant threat to the safety and security of seafarers.” TWZ
Well, the Houthis in Yemen are getting a little froggy again.
Europe’s Red Sea naval task force tells us it is prepared for the resumption of Houthi attacks on shipping in the region. The Iranian proxy group has already launched several ballistic missile strikes against Israel since joining the ongoing war in the Middle East over the weekend. Now there is growing concern that the Houthis could effectively shut down the Bab el-Mandeb (BAM) strait, a narrow stretch of water between Yemen and Djibouti.
A new Houthi offensive would be a major cudgel for Iran, because it would open a new front in the war and draw in military resources at a time when they are heavily involved in Epic Fury. A potential activation of the Houthis is arguably Tehran’s biggest military card left to play, but just how much control Tehran retains over the Houthis is unclear. TWZ II
This is all still very much up in the air. Or, to quote the famous military philosopher “Who knows what those squirrelly little bastards will do?”
Category: Iran
I mentioned all that about Yemen the other day. Taking the Bab el-Mandeb out is a huge bottleneck because while they normally ship 3 MBD out of there the pipeline restricts it to about 6.5 MBD as opposed to 14 MBD from the North. So the normal is total about 17.5 MBD, from the area with 3 from South. While is 6.5 is a lot more than 3 it is no where near 17.5.
Venezuela has essentially doubled output since January from slightly less than 1MBD to about 2 MBD But the worldwide shortage is 10 MBD.
Tankers from the BAB can go around Yemen by going through the Suez and the sailing all the way around the horn of Africa. Jolly fun that is.
In any case the Houthis said that their attacks were independent of the War in Iran, no reason to think they would be covered by Iran’s cease fire, they opened that can of whoop ass all by themselves.
For a real giggle you should check out their 10 point peace plan. It includes Iran gaining full control of the SoH (at least half of which belong to Oman) and the US paying reparations for damages done. Don’t know for sure but those might be non-starters.
Bah! Turn the whole area into a glass parking lot. Problem solved
Reading the “agreement that Trump posted on social media did not fill me with a warm fuzzy feeling. I read it as the iranians maintain full control of the straits. Passage only by permission ahead of time. There was nothing about defunding their proxies or deleting all support for them.
To me this was a cease fire but only to a prelude to a resumption of the conflict. If that is the idea of a win here I think it falls way short. IMO they should have gone forward with the strikes because the iranians are not conceding a damn thing. Hell I didn’t even see one of the big goals which was the elimination of their nuke aspirations. Even if they do not get a nuke, they have more than enough refined uranium to create dirty bombs to provide for their proxies.
While toxic, highly refined uranium is not in of itself what most people call “radioactive”. It only emits harmless alpha waves. You could carry a five pound chunk around all day, every day without ill effect.
Being toxic it is a poisonous heavy metal like all heavy metals. But putting one in a bomb would make little sense due to it’s super high value for other uses when something much cheaper could be used, like mercury, lead, chromium, cadmium, and arsenic. Hexvalent Chromium dust would be especially bad for example as contact with skin and lungs will start it burning almost immediately and it is difficult to remove.
NaL is correct. I handled 60 uranium rods, about 50 lbs each, from a sub-critical reactor with only gloves and mask to protect me from the oxidation dust and its heavy metal toxicity. The radiation was no worry. Now the 2″ cylindric Am-241 that started the the reactor was another matter with time, distance and shielding being employed. Health Physics (radiation safety) was my career.
I had a “growth” removed from the top of my thick
skull when I was 6 months old. They used Radium
and it left a scar that is quite visible now that I am
old and bald. On the upside I credit the exposure to
radioactive materials for my superior intellegence
and good looks as well as a long healthy life.
Did it give you a big wiener though?
WOW Beans, am glad your body didn’t enlarge and terrify the country. We had 3 incidents where radiation did a lot of damage
1-1954, there were giant Ants causing mayhem
2-1955, there was a giant Tarantula causing mayhem
3-1957, there was a giant praying Mantis causing mayhem.
I believe there were more of these incidents and the Govt. covered them up
I’m not going to comment on how old you must be to have had that procedure. 🙂
Called Radium plaques, the devices were a pain in the butt to dispose of properly due to the radium flaking off the substrate.
You handled solid uranium. There would be little solid uranium in a bomb detonation. There would be quite a lot of dust making breathing in that area a hazardous pastime. Same for the clean up. It would be worse than an asbestos remediation site.
“I read it as the iranians maintain full control of the straits. Passage only by permission ahead of time.”
Which would be fucked up if he even thought of agreeing to that seeing as:
1. The Strait isn’t theirs to begin with (and I’m sure Oman would have objections to that..) and
2.) The main TSS is in Omani Territorial Waters. At the end of it, westbound, ships break off and either proceed SW towards Jebel Ali and other major ports, or WNW/NW headed up to Iranian ports. The former being outside their territorial waters again.
This assertion of exclusive rights and the ability to charge tolls for passage is pure nonsense and they need that idea slapped right the fuck out of their heads. They’ve attempted to force vessels to slow down to be boarded looooooong before this war, so imagine the shit they’ll pull if allowed to board US flag carriers? Probably wholesale piracy — robbing crew of personal possessions and claiming “customs violations.”
Having failed to be a regional power they are now trying to bring back the era of the Great Interregnum. Maybe they will throw a chain across the Straights and demand some gold from every vessel.
Carve a new canal across UAE and Oman.
Use the dredge to fill in the Straights.
There has been talk over the years of building a pipeline there. This changed when China became such a large consumer of ME oil.
Two things wrong with that. One, only one channel could not handle anywhere near the hundreds of ships that would need passage daily. Even if they made 2 channels for 2 way traffic it would still be a huge bottleneck and restriction of traffic. Again incapable of the numbers of an unrestricted strait.
Second it would still be in range of short range drones and missiles from iran. Sink one ship and the channel is closed for an extended time.
Let’s stop wasting our time and annihilate the remaining Islamic Regime. Anything standing between now and that result is simply Kabuki theater.
It’s getting close… not that Iran is getting a clue:
Stand by… get yer beer and popcorn ready:
https://www.yahoo.com/news/articles/no-other-way-mideast-prepares-154436789.html
The term “closing the straights” is a misnomer. There is no gates or door across the waterway. Its a threat by I-ran damage ships transiting the straights and the insurance underwriters balking at the prospect of having to pay a claim. I’ve watched Sal Mercogliano’s What’s up with Shipping YT channel to get the full low down. If there is maybe a 1 in 100 chance of be hit, a military ship would like those odds any day. However, insurance companies like Lloyds like it better when the odds are zero for commercial ships. I get the payout for loss/damage to a ship, the crew, and cargo would hurt their bottom line. They aren’t interested in the politics because I know working a big insurance company like MetLife for years that they HATE more than anything is to payout on a policy.
This ceasefire/end of hostilities will take a couple of iterations to get done because of the volatility and number of the parties involved. You never tip over Coke machine on the first try. You have to rock it back-and-forth a few times before it finally falls over. The fact that one was agreed to is the first step. Lets let the politicians earn their salaries and get this deal done.
Respect to your You Tube channel and all but I think your guy is vastly underestimating the odds of being hit and they aren’t in a reasonable context. 1% is a huge number in context, so let’s just use that.
Only a an idiot or desperate person would get on a plane if there is a 1% chance that a plane would crash. While 1% doesn’t seem like much, it would mean that for the average 100,000 flights around the world every day, 1000 of them would crash, every single day. Suddenly getting on that plane doesn’t seem like a good idea?
None of the sailors signed up for that and aren’t interested in going out that way. The didn’t join the military or the merchant marines for a reason. The insurance company isn’t interested in losing $2,000,000,000 in oil plus a couple hundred million for the super tanker, certainly not at a 1% chance it will not make it through. They would lose five tankers a month with those kinds of odds, nobody could afford those kinds of losses. Even if they could, nobody could build ships fast enough to replace the losses. Not to mention the effect of spilling a couple of millions of barrels of oil once a week in the Gulf.
Do you understand when someone says “…maybe a 1 in 100 chance of be hit…” its a figure of speech not a statistical certainty? Nobody’s breaking out an analysis of the all cost factors on a TY channel for people who are NOT in commercial shipping business. The point is INSURANCE companies dictate which ships travel where and NOT GOVERNMENTS.
Again the odds are worse than that based upon what has gone through and gotten hit.
It’s actually governments that require the insurance. No nation will allow a port call unless the vessel is insured. This is very sensible. If anything vessels are underinsured. For example Dali, the owners of Grace Ocean, the vessel that struck the Key Bridge only had $350,000,000 in insurance. This was paid to policy limits because damages were at least $5,000,000,000. So far Dali has paid out of pocket $102M just for cleaning up the mess and we are just getting started. The company is privately owned and this will be in the courts until your grand kids are retired.
So no, insurance companies don’t “dictate” anything, they simply provide a service based upon what they believe the actual odds are. If it is too risky then they are out.
C’mon, you arrogant d*ckhead mullahs…
Hey, the French be getting some ballz now– refuse to pay a toll to go through the Strait of Hormuz:
https://www.yahoo.com/news/articles/france-rejects-transit-fee-passing-102331152.html
Do we really need two weeks to reload all the ammo we have used so far?
I would have expected a continuous logistic train delivering munitions to our troops in the region.
Yeah, what the hell is Military Sealift Command doing? This could have been time to shine…
Sigh.
I doubt Trump gives another extension, or pause, to the mullah fuckers. Our “allies” seem bound and determined to thwart any attempt to bring Iran to heel but they do have large imported muslim populations. And since they are unwilling to let the one paying the bills to use what they’re paying for, a more convoluted route has to be taken.