Blockades

With the US-Iran “dual blockade” now strangling the vital energy artery that is the Strait of Hormuz, many of us are hopelessly resigned to sky-high fuel prices.

That we are expecting so only testifies to the fact that we’re now keenly aware of the global span of security issues, that an unfolding yet distant regional conflict can cause us immense harm.

But while knowing our world is now so interconnected, it also shows the necessity that we and our leaders must now have the skills and knowledge to safely maneuver an emerging complicated multi-polar world where powers vie for control of regions and spheres of influence.

Frankly speaking, however, what some of our political leaders have recently shown with their half-intelligible responses to the Gulf crisis provides us no comfort.

Take for instance the interesting question raised by some senators last week about the need for American waivers in procuring sanctioned Russian or Iranian oil.

While it isn’t wrong to get oil from sources other than the Middle East during an energy emergency, it is important we know why in the first place the Americans issued those temporary, one-month waivers on sanctioned Russian and Iranian oil.

Basically, amid the worldwide anger over gas prices, the Americans intended to check rising global oil prices by allowing the open trade of de-sanctioned Russian and Iranian oil.

Not much has been said about the waiver on Russian oil. But the waiver on Iranian oil proved more difficult for the Americans, who thought that dropping the sanctions would free Iran to sell oil to other countries, instead of mostly to China, Iran’s biggest customer.

But as it turned out, allowing Iran to freely sell its oil helped finance its war against the US, with Iran even profiting handsomely by selling its oil above international benchmark prices.

Anyway, the waiver and sanctioned oil issues are far too involved that both need astute diplomatic footwork from the executive branch and informed comments from our other leaders.

In the meantime, all eyes are closely on the impact of US navy ships interdicting Iran-linked commercial vessels, with many experts predicting that whoever between the US and Iran blinks first will win the standoff.

With a ceasefire still in place despite the collapse of initial talks, the US-Iran war has morphed into a battle of two competing blockades, with the global economy caught in the middle.

Though not the move of a “stable genius,” as one geopolitical expert put it, experts say Trump targeting Gulf shipping linked to Iran is not only meant to cripple Iranian revenues but is seen as pressuring China into pushing Iran back to the negotiating table.

It isn’t clear, however, how the unfolding US blockade would be effectively managed. Physical complications as well as thorny legal issues are involved, like for instance what happens when US naval forces confiscate Iranian oil already bought by China or India?

What is clear so far, however, is that China buys about 80 percent of Iran’s oil exports — up to 1.5-million barrels a day. China, therefore, has the geopolitical motive, even the means, to keep Iranian oil flowing and the Strait opened, triggering a possible collision with the US.

A tension made clear when Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Wei told a United Arab Emirates diplomat that “blocking the Strait of Hormuz is not in the common interest of the international community.” That’s diplomatic speak for “We’re not cooperating with this.”