Can Iran Really Shut Down Hormuz?

There is an interesting piece in Foreign Policy, in which Eugene Ghloz takes on conventional wisdom about Iran’s ability to disrupt oil shipping through the Straits of Hormuz. How hard would be for Iran to shut down the straits?. The answer turns out to be: very hard. Iran would have to disable many of the 20 tankers that traverse the strait each day — and then sustain the effort. Iran cannot rely on the psychological effects of a few hits. Historically, after a short panic, commercial shippers adapt rather than give up lucrative trips, even against much more effective blockades than Iran could muster today. Shippers didn’t stop trying during World War I. Nor did the oil trade in the Gulf seize up during the 1980s Tanker War, when both Iraq and Iran targeted oil exports.

Instead, tankers tend to move around dangers. The strait is deep enough that even laden supertankers can pass safely through a 20-mile width of good water, not just the 4-mile-wide official channel. Tankers already take other routes when it is convenient; during a conflict, they would surely scatter, as they did in the 1980s. Although the strait is narrow compared with the open ocean, it is still broad enough to complicate Iran’s effort to identify targets for suicide and missile attacks. The area is too large to cover with a field of modern mines dense enough to disable a substantial number of tankers, especially given Iran’s limited stockpile.

Gholz also questions the ability of anti-ship missiles or small craft warfare to disable craft:

Over five years of the Iran-Iraq War, 150 large oil tankers were hit with antiship cruise missiles, but only about a quarter were disabled.

But surely ship insurers would want higher premiums if silkworm missiles are being lobbed at their tankers. And surely any type of military conflict in Hormuz – even if it does not end up taking out a large number of tankers – would be enough excuse for traders to bid up oil prices. The real question, which Gholz is right to point out, is the question of how long Iran could sustain such a military effort in the face of the inevitable U.S. response. My own sense is that an attack on shipping in Hormuz would produce an immediate and severe spike in oil prices, but one that would subside fairly quickly.

-WW

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