To use a boxing analogy: if one assumes (every plan carries within it planning assumptions) that the opponent will quit after a bloody nose, but the opponent chooses to fight until you throw the knockout punch, your boxing match turns into a slug fest.
Originally Posted by a current story on CNN
As the
conflict with Iran intensifies, the world’s energy arteries are constricting to a point of “nonlinearity,” where every day the Strait of Hormuz remains closed doesn’t just double the economic pain — it multiplies it exponentially.
{snip} Yet inside the Pentagon and the West Wing, the math is becoming grim. Brent crude, the international oil benchmark, has surged past $100 a barrel. The lack of oil flowing through the global market has slowed production to a crawl and is rapidly approaching the tipping point where major producers shut it down altogether due to storage constraints.
Kuwait, Iraq, and the UAE are shutting off wells as storage tanks overflow. Once these wells go dark, they cannot simply be flipped back on, creating a looming supply crater that would create a cascading effect on the global economy.
“These kinds of market conditions, if they last or get worse, are going to force a reality where there’s going to have be a reconsideration of the scale and scope of this operation,” a former senior administration official told CNN. “There is an urgent need for a near-term solution, and the White House is aware of that fact.” The only immediate solution to this spiraling crisis, according to oil executives, market analysts and diplomats, is a US Navy escort operation – something Trump promised last week would be available to protect shipping assets in short order.
“This is a matter that is being studied very closely by the military and discussed constantly,” a senior administration official told CNN. “A lot of progress has been made in coming up with a plan that can do exactly what the president has suggested.”
The internal deliberations over the timing and conditions for a US naval operation have been a central focus inside the administration over the last week, according to multiple people briefed on the planning who spoke to CNN. Inside the administration, the intensive internal deliberations over the operation have focused on analyzing the risk of sending US naval assets into an active conflict zone.
I will ask, since I don't know, was this not a part of the plan of campaign?
If it wasn't, and given the experiences in the ME for the last 25 years by a lot of the people on the Joint Staff, why the heck not? Did they furlough or get rid off all of the people familiar with this region?
Thank you DOGE: how do you say that in Farsi?
{snip}
Iran has effectively bifurcated the strait between its traditional Navy and the more aggressive Revolutionary Guard. The latter has the capability the deploy a “gauntlet” of dispersed mine-laying craft, explosive-laden suicide boats and shore-based missile batteries. “The oil pressure is going to hit a head sooner than we can remove the capabilities we want to move,” one source noted. “The timelines don’t match up.”
Taking on the escort mission would require putting naval vessels in harm’s way purely for the purpose of shielding oil ships with no obvious strategic advantage for the war itself. The long-standing operational plan involves US destroyers positioning themselves to protect the tankers from Iranian threats, and Littoral Combat Ships (LCS) providing support.
However, intelligence suggests Iran is playing a psychological game. It is unlikely to strike ships entering the Gulf; instead, it is expected to target them on the way out, when they are fully laden. The “shock value” hierarchy is particularly chilling. Analysts believe Iran will prioritize Liquefied Natural Gas tankers first—vessels that could “explode like the Beirut bomb”—followed by oil tankers to maximize environmental and economic chaos. Ali Larijani, the head of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council, underscored Iran’s posture - and the risks that come with it - in a Monday social media post.
“It is unlikely that any security will be achieved in the Strait of Hormuz amid the fires of the war ignited by the United States and Israel in the region,” Larijani posted in X in response to a post highlighting French President Emmanuel Macron’s comments about planning for a defensive escort mission to restore shipping in the Strait of Hormuz.
“We have a temporary period of elevated energy prices, but it will not be long,” Energy Secretary Chris Wright said Sunday in an appearance on CBS Face the Nation. “In the worst case, this is weeks, this is not months. And it leads to a much better place.”
White House chief of staff Susie Wiles and Energy Secretary Chris Wright have spoken with oil executives about ways to curb energy prices and federal agencies have been tasked with finding near-term solutions to any price spikes.
In a pragmatic — if politically sensitive — move, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent has signaled a willingness to “un-sanction” hundreds of millions of barrels of Russian oil currently stranded at sea to inject immediate liquidity.
Gee, who saw that coming?
While the administration has dismissed plans to trade oil futures and is currently holding the SPR in check, the consensus among industry titans like the American Petroleum Institute is singular: The only way out is through. “The real focus has to be on clearing the strait,” an oil industry executive told CNN. Until the US Navy can guarantee that tankers won’t become floating pyres, the global economy remains held hostage by a 21-mile-wide strip of water.
In the short term, this would appear to be an own goal.