The new Iranian supreme leader, Ayatollah Mojtaba Jamenei —son of murdered Ali Jameneí— announced it clearly this Thursday, in his first speech to the nation: “Iran will keep the Strait of Hormuz closed,” through which it passes near the 20% of world crude oil trade.
Since the beginning of the war, the February 28the Persian country, although it has not admitted all the attacks, has hit at least 16 vessels in the regionwhile, of course, he has daily bombed Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia and Omanall key countries in the transit and production of oil in the Persian Gulf.
The threats and blows—also against oil stations of all these countries—have had an effect: circulation through the Strait of Hormuz has stopped almost completely and world crude oil prices have skyrocketed.
“The war in Near East is creating the largest oil supply disruption in history,” the company said this week. International Energy Agency (IEA).
But not all traffic through Hormuz has stopped. Iran has allowed the passage of ships from friendly countrieslike the Indiaand as satellite images of recent days show, has kept its own oil exports constant and stable, directed above all to a China that in the last years of hard economic sanctions westerners against Tehran It has become the major buyer of Persian oil.
Aerial image taken by the Planet Labs PBC satellite of the port where oil tankers dock on Kharg Island. / PLANET LABS PBC / AFP
The reason for maintaining Persian exports is that, evidently, Iran does not attack its own vessels but also a small island—Iranian territory—a few kilometers east of Bahrain. It is about the Kharg islandthrough which Iran exports close to 90% of all its crude oil.
The place, even during the time of imperial Iran, before the Islamic revolution of 1979was the most important oil export point in the country, whose coast in the Persian Gulf It is steep, rocky, difficult and does not allow the entry of large transatlantic cargo ships and oil tankers. Kharg’s oil infrastructure was almost completely destroyed during the war against Iraq in the 1980s, and rebuilt years later.
safe place
Now it is the great key point in the economy of the Islamic Republic. An attack against her would end the entire Iranian ability to export oil for months or even years, according to experts, and would put Tehran in enormous trouble.
But this has not happened. Neither Israel in USAwith its constant attacks on Tehran, has never touched the island of Kharg, whose functions not only remain intact, but hardly anything has changed there since the start of the war.
“Homeland or death! Any aggression against the territory of the Iranian islands will eliminate any form of limit on our attacks. We will abandon all containment, and make the Persian Gulf flow with the blood of the invaders. And the blood of American soldiers will be the personal responsibility of the president of the United States, Donald Trump“said this Thursday the president of the Iranian Parliament, Mohammed Bagher Ghalibaf. The man, along with the leader of the Persian National Security Council, Ali Larijaniis the one who directs the war within Tehran’s power circles, according to experts.
Kharg Island oil terminal, in an image taken in March 2017. / ABEDIN TAHERKENAH / EFE
The reasons why Washington and Tel Aviv have so far distanced themselves from Kharg are simple: with global oil prices rising unstoppably, a ban on the island would do nothing but further limit the quantities of crude oil available on the market. TO less offerhigher prices, and a greater and longer lasting impact of this war on the entire world economy.
“Iran is playing long term —writes in the ‘Financial Times’ the iranian expert Vali Nasr—. In war, geography is as important as technology. Iran controls the entire northern coast of the Persian Gulf, thereby managing to dominate the energy deposits on its southern coast and all maritime traffic. Iran thus finds itself in a privileged position to put pressure on the global economy from both sides of the Arabian Peninsula. Those who govern Iran today are veterans of the asymmetric wars in Iraq and Syria. “Now they apply the same strategy to combat the United States on the battlefield of the global economy.”
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