Originally Posted by
Ronald Reagan
If the US are not going to launch a ground invasion to remove the regime then the US and Israel should target and destroy all regime oil infrastructure. No Iranian oil should be able to leave port again. If the regime is stopping everyone else shipping oil they should certainly not be able to ship their own oil. Also a total air and sea blockade of Iran. Are Iranian ports and airports still open? How about destroying the runways all port facilities. Are the US and Israel actually in this to win or just wasting time?!
As entertaining as that may be, it would come perilously close to being a war crime. If its oil supplies for their own military, that would be a legitimate target. There is a disagreement between the US and pretty much every other group as to what constitutes fair game.
Under the Additional Protocol I to the Geneva Conventions, (1977) a lawful military objective is something that:
"makes an effective contribution to military action and whose destruction offers a definite military advantage". Weapons factories; Military bases; Fuel depots supplying the armed forces; Transport systems moving troops etc.
Classic interpretation: civilian economic infrastructure is
not normally targetable.
The US DOD (DOW?) interprets the rule rather more broadly....
The US DOD Law of War Manual allows attacks on object that: sustain the enemy's ability to fight economically; generate revenue that funds the war effort; being war-sustaining targets. US doctrine cites: Oil production and export facilities; commodity production funding military operations; financial assets used to pay armed forces. Under the US DOD logic, oil infrastructure funding a state's military budget can be lawful targets.
So, as the US has a particular way of looking at international law, within its ranks, it is possible to wipe out Iran's oil program. The problem is not permissive action, it is the consequences of such action, and that would be a massive response in the oil markets that would cause impressive spikes at the ballot box (gas pumps). The environmental damage would be impressive, there is not much historical evidence that Iran would not respond wherever, and however it could so it would be open season for all infrastructure in the US, and it's allies, and those allies are likely to rapidly reduce, the gulf states may not be so keep on being on the front line of the environmental, and economic disaster that would ensue.
Hormuz can bottle up 20% of the global oil supply, and circumventing that adds new bottle necks, and comes with really interesting force and facility protection issues. Take out 20% of the oil supply, and the cost to the global economy would be popcorn ready stuff.
So cash is king. The ICRC and ENMOD would come into play with a destruction of Iran's oil production systems, and Saddam would be replaced from the list of most impressive environmental vandals in history, but it is the implosion of the US economy which is still fairly dependent on oil and cheap oil at that, which would be the cause of any pause. Iran targeting one or two VLCCs and the occasional CNG/LNG boat is just as self destructive, not a great way of winning friends and influencing allies.