AT the end of last week, there seemed to be some hope that the ongoing war in the Middle East might begin cooling off. Iran announced that it would allow some shipping to pass through the Strait of Hormuz, and even though Israel attacked the Iranian side of the massive South Pars gas field (which Iran shares with Qatar) and continued to hit targets in Iran with long-range strikes, it seemed to be shifting more of its effort into preparing to invade Lebanon. United States President Trump, evidently stung by the profound and bitter unpopularity of the war among the US population as well as the massive economic hit the country is taking, began to waffle, even suggesting that the US was discussing “winding down” its campaign against Iran. As a consequence of these various developments, the pace of fuel price increases and the deterioration of other indicators such as the peso-dollar exchange rate slowed down a bit here.
However, the respite was apparently short-lived. Israel hit Natanz in Iran, one of the sites of Iran’s nuclear program; or at least it was until recently. In response, Iran hit the southern Israeli towns of Arad and Dimona, the latter being the site of most of Israel’s secret nuclear arsenal. Neither strike seemed to do any real damage to each country’s respective nuclear facilities, but the Iranian counterattack was one of the most damaging landed on Israeli territory yet, killing some number of people and injuring 100 or more, most of them civilians.
As if to drive home the point that it has a lot more in the armory in terms of firepower, Iran even launched two ballistic missiles at the joint US-UK air base on Diego Garcia in the middle of the Indian Ocean, some 2,200 nautical miles (about 4,000 kilometers) away. According to UK sources, which provide slightly more credible information than the nonsense coming out of Washington, one of the missiles malfunctioned and fell short, while the other was knocked down harmlessly by air defenses. The tone of all the reports about the attack treated it as a wake-up call; nobody was certain, until now, that Iran had missiles with that kind of range.
The attack on Diego Garcia with just two missiles also suggests that it was merely a test as far as Iran was concerned. First, to see if this type of missile actually works, which it apparently does; and second, to observe what kind of defenses were available. The next attack, if that is what Iran has in mind, is going to involve more than just two missiles.
In the midst of all of this, Trump, in one of his hysterical drug-fueled rants on his Truth Social network late Saturday night (midday Sunday here), threatened to “obliterate” Iran’s power plants if Iran did not fully open the Strait of Hormuz within 48 hours, a deadline that will be expiring sometime this morning (Tuesday) if Trump was at all serious about it. In response, Iran vowed to attack energy and water infrastructure in the Gulf countries; its statement specified “US-owned assets,” but that’s not a distinction it has observed so far, and it is probably not going to bother to start doing so now.
As the cherry on top of this cake of pain, a US Marine Expeditionary Force is en route to the Persian Gulf, and should arrive within a couple of days. This is worrisome, because a Marine expeditionary force is never deployed without the intention of carrying out an amphibious and airborne assault or landing. Trump already blabbed about seizing Kharg Island, Iran’s main oil export terminal, and has already had it bombed to knock down some of its defenses, so that’s where the Marines are going, because this motormouth is incapable of any sort of guile or subtlety. That means the Iranians have plenty of time to prepare, and the most expedient way for them to do that in this instance is to wire the entire place to blow up the second a US boot steps on the beach.
The absolute best-case scenario, which is so obviously impossible it probably shouldn’t even be considered as a thought experiment, is for hostilities to cease immediately, under conditions that would ensure that they could not resume in the imaginable future. Even under these implausible circumstances, the damage that has been done to the oil and gas infrastructure in the Gulf region will take a long time to repair. As just one illustrative example, the CEO of Qatar Energy back on March 19 said that Qatar’s exports of liquified natural gas (LNG) — Qatar is the world’s biggest LNG exporter — would be reduced by at least 17 percent for the next five years. Oil refineries in several countries have been hit, too, and that’s a more broad-based problem, because everything from liquid petroleum gas, to vehicle and jet fuel, to naphtha for chemical and plastics manufacturing, to bitumen for road and construction uses will be affected. Tighter supplies and higher prices for everything will persist for between one and five years.
And that is under the not-going-to-happen best-case scenario; the actual situation is going to be worse, and it could be a lot worse. As I have said before, I do not think that has sunk in yet with our government here or the public. While I think the government’s upbeat rhetoric rings a bit hollow (which is why I keep posting the Baghdad Bob meme in response to it), it is doing its best to react to the immediate problem, and to be sensitive to the burden on consumers. However, there is a definite stopgap feel to the measures taken by the government so far, and that shouldn’t be the perspective, because things are going to stagnate badly if the policy orientation is to keep on waiting, irrationally, for “an end to the crisis” to happen at any moment. Our leadership would do better to resign itself to the Philippines being in this for the long haul, and to plan accordingly.
ben.kritz@manilatimes.net
Bluesky: @benkritz.bsky.social
Website: www.badmannersgunclub.com
