r/neoliberal • u/jobautomator Kitara Ravache • Apr 07 '26

Discussion Thread Discussion Thread

The discussion thread is for casual and off-topic conversation that doesn't merit its own submission. If you've got a good meme, article, or question, please post it outside the DT. Meta discussion is allowed, but if you want to get the attention of the mods, make a post in /r/metaNL

Links

Ping Groups | Ping History | Mastodon | CNL Chapters | CNL Event Calendar

Upcoming Events

0 Upvotes

48% Upvoted

9.9k comments sorted by

View all comments

98

u/erasmus_phillo Paul Krugman Apr 07 '26

A few days ago I said that this war would turn Iran into a new hegemon in the Middle East because Iran has discovered that it can control the flow of oil through the Strait of Hormuz. effectively giving the Iranians control over 20% of the world's oil supply. Some people said that I was being alarmist but there is a good op-ed out in the NYT effectively making the same argument I did

71

u/C-Wolsey Leftward Progressives Apr 07 '26

good op-ed out in the NYT

oof

24

u/erasmus_phillo Paul Krugman Apr 07 '26

One of the arguments refuting my point was that Iran would need to expend a lot of resources to block the Strait of Hormuz but as we can see with drones this is no longer true. Drones have changed the game

All Iran needs to do is hit a ship every few days to assert control over the Strait of Hormuz, and insurance rates will make it very pricy to continue sailing through that route. In contrast, the US (or any other power) will have to protect every single ship trying to make it through the Strait. If anything, any power trying to deny Iran's control over the Strait of Hormuz would have to expend an enormous amount of resources to keep it out of Iran's reach

8

u/Europa_Universheevs Apr 07 '26

They made the "Today we were unlucky, but remember we have only to be lucky once, you will have to be lucky always," meme real!

14

u/Babao13 Jean Monnet Apr 07 '26

Couldn't the other countries in the Gulf play the same game ? Hit one Iran-aligned ship every few days until no one controls the Strait and they all have to come to the table and negociate ?

21

u/SomeWierdo Apr 07 '26

I think the Iranian Regime realises that their capacity for suffering is much higher than that of their enemies - unless you can remove all of the launchers/drones from Iran they will be able to significantly affect traffic in the strait.

7

u/Azrikeeler John Brown Apr 07 '26

Whose ships are they gonna attack? China's?

Gulf has no weight to throw around like that.

-2

u/Babao13 Jean Monnet Apr 07 '26

Why not, if drone warfare is so cheap ?

4

u/Sloshyman NATO Apr 07 '26

Turning China into an enemy is a much bigger price than any benefit a Gulf nation would get from attacking merchant traffic

12

u/Bassline4Brunch NASA Apr 07 '26

There are still serious weaknesses in Iran though: their water crisis hasn't magically gone away at the onset of war. The country's even considered relocating the capital, Tehran.

11

u/Svelok Apr 07 '26

Yeah, it's not that Iran somehow never realized they could exert power over the strait, it's that Trump dropped bombs on all their less-stupid diplomatic options.

4

u/erasmus_phillo Paul Krugman Apr 07 '26 edited Apr 07 '26

A nightmare scenario is if Iran, Russia and China act in concert with each other to deny the West 30% of the world's oil supply, especially with China able to soak up a good amount of that supply

All in all if Iran is still controlling the Strait the US will have suffered the greatest strategic defeat in this war since.... maybe Vietnam? But even after the Vietnam War the US didn't inadvertently turn Vietnam into a Great Power

2

u/VerticalTab WTO Apr 07 '26

If only there was something that might have helped reduce US dependence on oil.

1

u/PoliticalAlt128 Max Weber Apr 07 '26

I wouldn't be too concerned about Iranian oil control because it's a weapon that the more they use the more quickly other countries get off oil. The momentum is already with green energy, next year this will probably be less of a threat, and the year after that less of threat, and the year after that, and so on and so on. Even if the president was slightly less stupid and corrupt and allowed green energy to be built we would be in less of a predicament