Iran: A Blockade? That’s An Act of War!

No kidding. Man, you can’t put anything past those mullahcrats! Imagine how embarrassed they’ll feel when all of their neighbors explain that firing missiles and drones at their energy production facilities and hotels are also acta belli. 

The US will impose a blockade on all Iranian ports, effectively cutting off all income to the Iranian regime and the IRGC, starting in less than an hour. The IRGC junta responded from its fainting couch that it considers a blockade “an act of war,” and threatened escalation:

The spokesman for the National Security Commission in Iran’s Parliament said President Trump’s threat to impose a naval blockade could be nothing more than “bluster,” adding that Iran would consider such a move “an act of war” to which it would respond.

To retaliate against a blockade on all vessels entering and exiting Iran’s ports, Tehran might reveal other cards it holds and hasn’t “played yet,” Ebrahim Rezai said on social media. The only way to improve the current situation would be for the U.S. to “respect Iranians” and not to demand at the negotiating table what it couldn’t accomplish during the war, Rezai added.

What escalation can Iran produce? The regime spent six weeks attempting to use their missiles and drones to create enough damage to pressure the US and Israel to end the war. The IRGC only succeeded in making Donald Trump’s point about the necessity of limiting Iran’s aerospace programs as well as ending the Iranian nuclear-weapon development push. Regime remnants then tried closing the Strait of Hormuz to attack the global economy, but that turned out to be a lot more resilient than their Sockpuppet Ayatollah figured. 

The only other deterrent the IRGC has is to keep threatening the traffic through the Strait of Hormuz and hope the economic pressure still builds. Their mouthpieces warned Trump that he would shortly become nostalgic for $5 a gallon gasoline, but the global energy system is already adjusting around Iran. Producers in the region are investing in alternative routes for oil and LNG exports, mainly through pipelines passing to the Mediterranean. In the long term, Iran is making the Strait of Hormuz much less relevant to the global economy.

In the short term, the US Navy is about to make it completely irrelevant to the Iranian economy:

It said it will enforce a blockade in the Gulf of Oman and Arabian Sea east of the Strait of Hormuz and it will apply to all vessel traffic regardless of flag, the U.S. Central Command said in an advanced note to seafarers seen by Reuters on Monday.

“Any vessel entering or departing the blockaded area without authorization is subject to interception, diversion, and capture,” the note said.

“The blockade will not impede neutral transit passage through the Strait of Hormuz to or from non-Iranian destinations.”

The term “blockaded area” in this instance applies to recognized Iranian territorial waters. Primarily, this means the oil that the IRGC has been selling since the start of the war through Kharg Island will end up in the hands of the US Navy. Traffic passing through international waters in the strait, or the territorial waters of other countries, will be allowed to pass normally, under the protection of the US Navy. 

That’s a smart move, and Duane will have more on this later. Essentially, it’s the low-cost alternative to seizing or destroying Kharg Island. The presence of US Navy missile destroyers will provide an umbrella for other shipping to pass through while the US chokes all IRGC income at the same time. It also prevents the shipment of weapons and precursors to the IRGC from China, which has become a concern during this interregnum in active fighting. 

Reuters reports that a couple of tankers passed through this weekend while the US set up the blockade and protection screens:

On Sunday, two Pakistan-flagged tankers, Shalamar and Khairpur, entered the Gulf to load cargoes from the United Arab Emirates and Kuwait; a third ship, the Liberia-flagged very large crude carrier (VLCC) Mombasa B, also transited the strait ⁠earlier on Sunday and was ballasting in the Gulf.

Another VLCC, the Malta-flagged Agios Fanourios I, which tried to pass through the strait on Sunday to load Iraqi crude destined for Vietnam, turned back and was anchored near the Gulf of Oman.

On Saturday, three fully loaded supertankers passed through the Strait of Hormuz in what appeared to be the first vessels to ⁠exit the Gulf since the U.S.-Iran ceasefire deal.

Three down … 187 to go. That’s how many fully loaded tankers are ready to pass through the strait when the passage opens up safely, with 172 million barrels of crude in total. If that much oil gets out safely to the open sea, oil prices will start to drop, not to mention prices for fertilizer products that are also held up by Iran’s threats to shipping. 

About the only escalation option the IRGC has is to renew its missile and drone attacks on neighboring Gulf states. Trump has an escalation for that as well: Bridge and Power Plant Day. Let’s see how long it takes for Iran to provoke it. 

Editor’s Note: For decades, former presidents have been all talk and no action. Now, Donald Trump is eliminating the threat from Iran once and for all.

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