Closing the Straits of Hormuz is easier than drinking a glass of water...

[Macamus Prime]

This is directed to those of you who seem to have gotten a 48 hour erection over this news.

 

[Craig234]

might want to remove the flag from pakistan

Add one to Kuwait. But we're protecting ourselves from the threat from Iran.

Looking at that map, you do get the feeling that war with Iran is an agenda to benefit people that's going to happen reagrdless and in spite of the American public.

Just gear up the propaganda machine to build public support, again.

 

[JTsyo]

With the shipping lanes so close to land, they wouldn't even need ships to attack ships in the strait. Conventional artillery can hit out to 15 miles or so, even more with extended range shells. Rockets and missiles would be over 50 miles.

Of course any action like that would be international suicide for them. Sounds like a empty threat.

 

[GroundedSailor]

All Iran has to do is strike first, and in a lightning attack sink a supertanker or two, and all the commercial traffic from there on in would divert elsewhere due to insurance costs as much as anything.

That would effectively "close" the Strait of Hormuz to oil tankers and there's nothing the 5th Fleet, mighty as it is, could do about it.

For those who need reminding:

If - at its narrowest point - the Strait has two miles of navigable width, it would take a lot more than sinking two supertankers to block it.

Don't need a lot more than 2 supertankers sinking and their oil burning on the surface to effectively block the straits long enough to cause panic in the oil markets.

.

 

[EagleKeeper]

Don't need a lot more than 2 supertankers sinking and their oil burning on the surface to effectively block the straits long enough to cause panic in the oil markets.

.

That will be the truth, and regretfully :whiste: in that case, Iran will not be able to benefit by such.

 

[cybrsage]

Yawn. When the Israelis talk trash, their forum fanbois cheer.... when the Iranians do the same thing, they hiss and boo...

That is because Israel does not threaten to disrupt the economies of all the major world powers.

I'll rate the Iranians' chances of doing anything stupid much lower than those of the Netanyahu govt...

When was the last time Netanyahu even threatened any of the major world powers with any kind of economic disruption? Is it never?

But you do hit a good point that the Iranian Supreme Council of Clerics (which controls the military) is not stupid. They know the effect of closing the straight is a war they will lose...and which will fully cut them off from the other Islamic nations. They like having all that temporal power and will not so quickly give it away.

To me, it appears they are sabre rattling...most likely to increase the cost of oil so they can make more money off each barrel.

 

[MotF Bane]

Iran is still making threats today. Guess they don't like being told what their place is. :awe:

 

[cybrsage]

I am sorta surprised by how hard it is to drink water in Iran. I did not know it was nearly impossible for Iranians to drink water. Odd bit of trivia...

 

[Darwin333]

LOL

Ill leave you with this:

As has been pointed out numerous times, they could simply sink a few large tankers in the straight or even their OWN ships in the straight to hinder navigation for supertankers for quite a while. Its much worse if they sink a fully loaded supertanker.

Lets take ULCC's (ultra large crude carriers) for example. They can transport 2,000,000 barrels of oil. To put that in context, the BP oil spill is estimated to have been between 4M-5M barrels of oil that leaked over the course of 4 months. A few torpedoes into a ULCC and you could easily see a much worse oil spill due to the fact that much more oil will be hitting the surface in a much faster time frame AND its in a rather confined body of water (versus the Gulf of Mexico).

There is no telling how long that would shut down the straight. Not only would you have to clean up the oil but you would have to salvage the tanker before you could resume regular navigation. Sure we would annihilate the Iranian Navy but at the same time our own economy, which ain't doing so swell as it is, starts tanking HARD. As I said, we aren't talking about how much gas would cost we are talking about if you could even find gas.

 

[sao123]

fuck iran... we built panama in a day.
We can do it again.

 

[tydas]

Geez, how'd we survive alomost 50 years of cold war against a country more hateful and better tech then Iran?

We've got a 600 billion dollar war machine that is no longer under our control...

 

[Macamus Prime]

There, there ladies. Big old Iran isn't going to touch your pretty little virgin vaginas anytime soon; http://www.cnn.com/2011/12/29/world/meast/iran-strait-hormuz-explainer/index.html?hpt=hp_c1

Shhhh,... it will all be OK.

 

[Darwin333]

I am sorta surprised by how hard it is to drink water in Iran. I did not know it was nearly impossible for Iranians to drink water. Odd bit of trivia...

Make no mistake, Iran has the ability to shut down the straight for a substantial amount of time before we could even react. It just isn't that difficult considering how small of an area it is and the location of that area.

Of course we would retaliate but by the time we did the damage would be done. We are talking about easily over a million barrels of oil in the water in a very short period of time. And that is just from a single supertanker, if they somehow are able to catch two or more in the straight there is no telling how long it would be unnavigable.

 

[Londo_Jowo]

Make no mistake, Iran has the ability to shut down the straight for a substantial amount of time before we could even react. It just isn't that difficult considering how small of an area it is and the location of that area.

Of course we would retaliate but by the time we did the damage would be done. We are talking about easily over a million barrels of oil in the water in a very short period of time. And that is just from a single supertanker, if they somehow are able to catch two or more in the straight there is no telling how long it would be unnavigable.

I find it hard to believe that the US doesn't have one if not two battle groups in the region right now that could shut down Iran.

 

[Darwin333]

Add one to Kuwait. But we're protecting ourselves from the threat from Iran.

Looking at that map, you do get the feeling that war with Iran is an agenda to benefit people that's going to happen reagrdless and in spite of the American public.

Just gear up the propaganda machine to build public support, again.

Just think, if we had an aggressive campaign to increase our domestic oil production we could in relative short order get off of ME oil and we wouldn't need all of those .mil assets in the area anymore.

You don't think we are there because we like them or something do you?

 

[PottedMeat]

i wonder why there isnt a pipeline running from kuwait along the saudi coast through oman to the arabian sea. seems like the smart thing to do after 1979.

 

[MotF Bane]

Make no mistake, Iran has the ability to shut down the straight for a substantial amount of time before we could even react. It just isn't that difficult considering how small of an area it is and the location of that area.

Of course we would retaliate but by the time we did the damage would be done. We are talking about easily over a million barrels of oil in the water in a very short period of time. And that is just from a single supertanker, if they somehow are able to catch two or more in the straight there is no telling how long it would be unnavigable.

Uh, the Fifth is already over there.

 

[Darwin333]

I find it hard to believe that the US doesn't have one if not two battle groups in the region right now that could shut down Iran.

Of course they do, and they will be there in short order after the first supertanker or two is sunk. Which of course would be a tad bit too late.

I don't know how modern or even old mines work but I would assume they could deploy even a few before we got there forcing us to scan the entire area before we could even begin the cleanup.

There are all kinds of scenarios in which Iran could substantially screw up navigation in just a few hours.

 

[Darwin333]

Uh, the Fifth is already over there.

So they will be able to stop the torpedo or artillery shells in between point of impact and point of fire?

Like I said, they could do substantial damage in the matter of hours if they wanted. They would be shooting themselves in the foot in more than one way but just because the Fifth is already over there doesn't mean they can stop it before it happens. They will of course be able to react after it happens.

 

[Londo_Jowo]

How do you know that there aren't US Navy ships already in the Persian Gulf and patrolling the Straits of Homuz. As far as I know there are US Naval facilities in Bahrain.

 

[Nebor]

So they will be able to stop the torpedo or artillery shells in between point of impact and point of fire?

Yes.

 

[JTsyo]

How do you know that there aren't US Navy ships already in the Persian Gulf and patrolling the Straits of Homuz. As far as I know there are US Naval facilities in Bahrain.

US Navy does patrol the Strait of Homuz but that doesn't mean they would be to able to prevent an attack, only to respond.

 

[Londo_Jowo]

US Navy does patrol the Strait of Homuz but that doesn't mean they would be to able to prevent an attack, only to respond.

If the Navy is escorting the tankers they have the ability to neutralize incoming weapons as well as firing on the point of attack.

 

[Doppel]

So they will be able to stop the torpedo or artillery shells in between point of impact and point of fire?

Like I said, they could do substantial damage in the matter of hours if they wanted. They would be shooting themselves in the foot in more than one way but just because the Fifth is already over there doesn't mean they can stop it before it happens. They will of course be able to react after it happens.

This is exactly why Iran will do nothing. Just because they could doesn't mean they will. Please point out a sovereign nation in history that has ever knowingly committed suicide in such a manner? And this would be knowing and beyond question and Iran knows it. They aren't totally stupid no matter what they pretend.

 

[Patranus]

This is exactly why Iran will do nothing. Just because they could doesn't mean they will. Please point out a sovereign nation in history that has ever knowingly committed suicide in such a manner? And this would be knowing and beyond question and Iran knows it. They aren't totally stupid no matter what they pretend.

Well they know that Obama would simply give them a stern talking to and sit on his hands.