Preserving Flow of Oil Is Key to Victory in Iran

We have learned a couple of hard lessons from the opening days of the American-Israeli attack on Iran’s religious dictatorship.The threat of closing the Strait of Hormuz sends oil and natural gas prices skyrocketing for every country in the world. Allies such as Japan are going to become dramatically less supportive if the cost becomes an enormous pain for their own economy.The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps is bigger, better trained, and more loyal than America might have thought. In the opening two weeks, there are no signs the Revolutionary Guards have been intimidated — or are likely to overthrow their own government. In fact, the anger the guard would face from the Iranian people if it fell apart may be a big factor holding it together.The ruthlessness of the religious dictatorship in killing tens of thousands of protestors — and the effectiveness of its secret police in the Ministry of Intelligence and the Revolutionary Guard — has made it virtually impossible to identify or easily coalesce internal opposition. When opposition leaders showed up, they were imprisoned or killed. This has made it harder to grow a replacement system quickly.Iran’s religious dictatorship clearly believes it can outlast President Trump and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu — and that anger from the rest of the world will force the allies to seek a truce with the religious dictatorship still in charge. The dictatorship believes that time is on its side. A son of Iran’s slain Supreme Leader, Mojtaba Khamenei, who has been named as the Islamic Republic’s next ruler, March 9, 2026. Iran state TV via APTherefore, its plan is to endure the bombing until the world coerces America and Israel to accept a truce. This would be a disaster. The religious dictatorship dedicated to chanting “Death to America” would still be in charge.Given these realities, there is a single strategic imperative for an American victory in the war with the Iranian theocracy.As the absolute sine qua non of victory, the American Navy and other forces must assert absolute control of the Strait of Hormuz. The strait — not Tehran — is the center of gravity in this conflict.If tankers are routinely passing through the straits — and Iran’s economic threat has been reduced to virtually zero — then the price of oil will collapse. Most nations will relax, the American public will find gasoline prices dropping, and the attacks can be prosecuted with minimum diplomatic and political fallout.However, if the Iranians sustain a proven ability to sink or damage oil tankers — and global oil prices skyrocket to unsustainable levels — the pressure on America and Israel to end the attacks will increase every day. Furthermore, in this setting, support among the American people will crumble if they face ever-increasing gasoline prices.The Iranians have been planning for this exact war since President Reagan destroyed half the Iranian Navy in two days — and then successfully flagged Kuwaiti tankers (in large part to block the Soviets who had offered to do so).A map of the Strait of Hormuz, a vital waterway for seaborne oil shipments. CIA via Wikimedia CommonsThe Iranian dictatorship knows its surface warships will be annihilated. They are relying on submersible drones, hundreds of drones hidden in caves along the Iranian coast, and a small number of miniature submarines (the Persian Gulf is too shallow for most nuclear submarines). Finally, just as they did in 1987 and 1988, the Iranians will crowd the waterway with mines.America will have to develop a comprehensive strategy to safeguard oil tankers across the entire length of the Persian Gulf. Simply put, our ability to safely move oil and natural gas out of the Persian Gulf will define how long and how successfully we can fight the dictatorship. If safe shipping becomes normal, we will be in good shape, and the world will tolerate and support a much longer campaign.This extra time will enable us to finish destroying the fighting capability of the Revolutionary Guard and the Security forces. As they are steadily weakened, and it is clear the dictatorship’s oil strategy will have failed, there will be time to pull together an interim government. This interim government can then run the country until a legitimate process enables the 90 million Iranians to elect their own leadership to run the country in safety and freedom.First, though, clear the Strait and bring out the oil and gas.

Preserving Flow of Oil Is Key to Victory in Iran

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