Iran: The State Of Play
The current state of the Iran War is pretty fascinating.
Think of this as a fight, where the bigger guy has put the little guy in a headlock and he’s just choking him out. There are no real punches being thrown anymore, and the violence has more or less stopped, but the life is just draining out of the little guy.
Iran can’t turn off its oil production without lots of damage to its well infrastructure. And it’s going to rapidly run out of places to put the oil that comes out of the ground. When they hit storage capacity, which they’ll hit in a matter of days, they’ll have no choice but to shut in those wells.
Or to sue for peace.
Big chunks of that regime see this and recognize there is no way forward without doing a deal with Trump. But they aren’t the people who matter. Vahidi and the IRGC are the ones who stand in the way of a deal.
We can sustain the blockade indefinitely. In fact, it’s a big win for us, because our export capacity is only going to increase to the point where we can actually replace all 1.5 million barrels a day of Iranian export oil. Iran can’t hold out indefinitely with no money coming in.
And without explosions on TV, the public isn’t going to even notice the war. Its political effect will fade. The effect of the Strait of Hormuz on global oil prices will also fade, because of increased production around the world replacing both Iran’s oil and that of the other Gulf states whose supply is partially interrupted by Iranian speedboats shooting at tankers here and there.
Iranian efforts to disrupt the blockade are chancy. Pretty much anything they do will bring down the wrath of their neighbors and chase off Russia and China, who really only value Iran as a proxy and a useful idiot against the US anyway. Their only hope is some sort of Tet Offensive which shakes things up and gets the American Left some traction.
I give this maybe a month before one of three things happen.
Scenario 1 – Iran comes to the table at Islamabad and signs a deal to turn over its nuclear dust, pledge open navigation in the Strait of Hormuz and disavow any further alliance with its foreign proxies, in exchange for a financial bailout of sorts. This is possibly the most likely outcome over the long haul but it’s the least likely within the next month.
Scenario 2 – the regime begins shooting missiles at its neighbors again and the bombing restarts, including Trump taking out bridges and power plants and potentially occupying Kharg Island and other key strategic targets. I expect this to happen soon, though it will likely be only a spasmodic episode before Trump returns to a “ceasefire.”
Scenario 3 – the regime cracks, and Iran devolves into a civil war between the IRGC and the Artesh, which is Iran’s regular military under nominal civilian control. The Artesh is poorly equipped compared to the IRGC but it’s a lot bigger and it hasn’t been hit by the bombing like the IRGC has. If this happens, and it’s not unlikely it will as Trump continues choking the life out of the regime, then the Iranian street finally becomes a factor.
An Iran in chaos isnt a good thing, but its a hell of a lot better than an Iran run by ayatollahs. Chaos in Iran is inevitable, and justified after 47 years of war against us.
The only thing which prevents one or more of these scenarios is Trump blinking and accepting a deal which doesn’t resolve our concerns. At this point there is no reason why he would do that. The worst of the political price has already been paid.
