Episodic Control of Hormuz
(9AM Eastern Time...)
I thought a lull would settle in on this war weeks ago. Then the IRGC demonstrated that they would continue attacking so the US had to massively retaliate, of course.
The United States and Israel had inflicted extraordinary military damage on Iran. Iran's nuclear capability had been severely degraded. The Iranian economy was about to hemorrhage inflation. Yet the IRGC had managed to turn the Strait of Hormuz into the central strategic fact of the war.
Whoever controls Hormuz is winning the war. For most of the summer, that was the IRGC. They possessed the missiles, drones, mines and small boats to choke-off traffic. Some ships were allowed through. Others were warned away. Chinese-related traffic received preferential treatment.
Several more tankers were struck near the Strait, including vessels operating around Omani waters. Unlike earlier attacks, the IRGC stopped taking credit for them. The attacks remain officially unattributed, though Saudi Arabia has blamed Iran for at least some of them.
Earlier in the war, claiming attacks served a purpose. The IRGC wanted everyone to know it could hit commercial shipping. By late August everybody already knew. An unexplained projectile striking a tanker near Hormuz now produces exactly the same commercial effect as an announced IRGC attack.
Its deterrence is already established. A lull does not make Iranian missiles disappear. Shipping companies know they are there. The United States knows they are there. Saudi Arabia and the UAE certainly know. Continued attacks produce diminishing returns.
Every tanker the IRGC hits gives Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Qatar, China, India, Japan and everyone else another reason to figure out how to avoid Hormuz. Pipelines are being expanded. More oil is moving toward ports outside the Strait. Ship-to-ship transfers are taking place outside the Gulf. Buyers are purchasing more oil from the Americas and Africa. Even LNG cargoes are being transferred outside Hormuz.
The IRGC controls the chokepoint by making people afraid to use it. Unfortunately for the IRGC, that also makes people take their business elsewhere. This contradiction is built into their stupid strategy. Iranian control remains enormously valuable only while everybody needs Hormuz. The more successfully Iran weaponizes the Strait, the more money everyone spends to not need it.
This will take time. Months for some adjustments. Years for major new infrastructure. Hormuz is nowhere close to irrelevant today.
Last Tuesday, according to two U.S. officials, the United States Navy escorted as many as 40 commercial vessels carrying approximately 18 million barrels of oil through the Strait. The precise number remains difficult to confirm. Independent surveillance and commercial shipping services recorded far fewer vessels. Some ships may have been operating without their identification system, basically the transponder that broadcasts its identity, position, speed and course.
Whatever the exact number, something substantial happened. U.S. forces established a temporary protected route through Hormuz and moved a large accumulation of commercial shipping through it.
Iran tried to stop them. According to American officials, Iranian drones and anti-ship missiles attacked the operation. U.S. forces intercepted them while the commercial vessels continued through the Strait.
The ships apparently were outbound vessels that had been bottled up inside the Gulf, many if not most since the war began in March. There is no evidence that the United States has established normal two-way commercial traffic. There has been no second 40-vessel convoy. Ordinary traffic through Hormuz remains remarkably low, usually fewer than a dozen commercial vessels per day.
So the United States has not reopened the Strait. But it can temporarily take control of Hormuz. That is a huge statement. It would be too expensive to do that 24/7 but for any given passage the US Navy can protect it. So who control Hormuz now? Depends on your time frame.
Up to now it has been the IRGC. Now the US Navy takes control when it wants to just as the IRGC fire a missile at a tanker when it wants to. Both of those facts are true. Both are, in fact, examples of episodic control.
Meanwhile, the United States has started attacking Iranian oil shipping directly. After renewed Iranian missile and maritime activity, American forces struck Iranian crude carriers along with mine-laying equipment, radar, air-defense systems and other parts of the machinery Iran uses to control Hormuz.
Interestingly, the response is becoming asymmetric in our favor. The IRGC has another problem. Iranian oil exports have collapsed. Inflation is extraordinary. Foreign currency is scarce. Imports are becoming more difficult. The government increasingly talks openly about economic hardship while the IRGC continues spending resources maintaining its control of Hormuz.
The Guards might be able to outwait Western political patience. But they also have to outwait the Iranian economy.
The Red Sea front has received less attention because Hormuz is now the center of the war. But the Houthis watched what Iran accomplished. The IRGC publicly called upon them to act. Epic Fury stimulated all this.
The Houthis possess their own strategic geography at Bab el-Mandeb. They have attacked shipping repeatedly and recently expanded their operations against Saudi Arabia itself. Today they launched a large attack against Saudi cities and energy infrastructure, striking around Abha, Khamis Mushait, Jazan and Najran and injuring over 70 people as of this post.
Everybody adapts.
The success of asymmetric maritime coercion in Hormuz stimulated similar Houthi pressure around the Red Sea. That, in turn, stimulates Saudi Arabia and its neighbors to develop still more alternative routes and military responses.
Whoever controls Hormuz is winning the war. For the first time, that is becoming an object of real contention. Seems like a draw to me today.
Unless everybody figures out how to go somewhere else. Then Iran can have its worthless Strait. Though I expect this to be settled before then. Perhaps with greater contribution by regional players.
Late Note: The US directly attacked three Iranian crude carriers later today after the IRGC fired ballistic missiles at two US Navy warships. Two tankers were permanently disabled and a third was destroyed. More and more America is targeting Iran's commercial fleet. That makes continued IRGC aggression expensive in a way it was not earlier in the war. I cannot fathom what the IRGC thinks is happening here but they are clearly worse off today than when negotiations originally started.
Later note 9/9: Its a real time shooting war again for now. Very active situation. Iran says it attacked 10 commercial vessels around Hormuz in retaliation for the latest American strikes on Iranian oil tankers. Several merchant ships were damaged or set afire. One tanker carrying Iraqi fuel oil was hit by a drone in Iraqi territorial waters, expanding the geography of the tanker war again. Iraq has not been mentioned in the story thus far.
Hormuz remains choked. Only 6 commodity vessels crossed Tuesday. Who's winning now? Technically today goes to Iran because the US cannot prevent these attacks, or at least has not been able to prevent them so far.
Meanwhile, the Houthis have escalated sharply against Saudi Arabia. This is an especially interesting development because Saudi Arabia is attempting to route more energy exports toward the Red Sea as an alternative to Hormuz. The Houthis are now threatening that alternative too. The Saudis won't be happy about their export situation and will continue to seek alternatives.
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