As a UFC aficionado, President Donald Trump might know what a twister is. It works by cranking the victim’s head one way while controlling his hips in the other. Apparently, the pressure that this places on the spine is agonizing, leading to a rapid tap out or life-altering injuries to the back and neck.
In the Middle East, the President finds himself in a geopolitical twister. On the one hand, Iran’s Memorandum of Understanding terms are too unpalatable for President Trump to swallow – crystalizing as they would an unambiguous defeat, with all the strategic and political consequences that that would entail. On the other, the US Air Force has been unable to suppress or interdict Iran’s missiles and drones.
Every pumping station, junction and steel tube in a regional bypass network would be within range of Iranian missiles and drones
Thus, for as long as the US attempts to impose better terms by air attack, Iran can inflict damage on US bases and allies in the region – and more importantly, exact tremendous global economic costs by shutting or controlling passage through the Strait of Hormuz.
Even as political opinion formers in the US and broader West have started to accept this painful reality, a consoling narrative is emerging. The story goes that the so-called Hormuz weapon is a “wasting asset.” The very fact Iran has used it means that affected countries will take measures to mitigate its effectiveness in future. Mostly, these measures will take the form of “bypass pipelines.” Indeed, Bloomberg’s energy and commodities columnist Javier Blas has reported that such steps are already underway. The UAE, Saudi Arabia and Iraq, Blas reveals, are all at various stages of constructing such pipelines. By 2030, he argues, the Strait will no longer function as the world’s most important oil chokepoint, with millions of barrels flowing through alternative routes. Iran will have been de-fanged.
This narrative might be comforting, but it is wrong. First, it should be self-evident that all geopolitical and military assets are “wasting.” In security competition, neither side stands still. A sword unsheathed demands a shield be raised. For instance, the US willingness to use its hold over global financial flows has led to China developing CIPS as an alternative to SWIFT, and UnionPay as an alternative to Visa and MasterCard. Likewise, Russia has MIR – and even Serbia has its DinaCard. Japan began developing alternatives to China’s rare earths as soon as Beijing deployed them as leverage over Tokyo. Ukrainian advantages in drones were countered by Russian adaptions, including electronic warfare countermeasures and FPV drones guided by fiberoptic cables, which were themselves countered by Ukrainian analogues. In this sense, yes, Hormuz is a “wasting asset,” but this is more a tautology than a revelation.
The second flaw in the argument, however, is more fundamental. It mistakes means for ends. Iran’s leverage in the present conflict does not derive from its ability to block the passage of tankers through a narrow waterway, but from its ability to interrupt the export of oil from the Persian Gulf in toto.
Shutting the Strait was merely the instrument it chose to achieve that interruption. Another might have been direct strikes on production facilities, export terminals or loading infrastructure – strikes it has conclusively proved it is able to conduct effectively. In that sense, rather ironically, we should perhaps be grateful that the Hormuz weapon is available to Iran: the Strait can be rapidly reopened; smashed refineries and export terminals cannot. The Strait of Hormuz has therefore been a convenient means to an end for Iran (and one that holds more devastating acts against the global energy market in reserve as an escalation threat), not the end in itself.
It should be clear that pipelines do not alter this cruel logic. Every pumping station, junction and steel tube in a regional bypass network would be within range of Iranian missiles and drones. They are static, visible targets whose vulnerability has been starkly demonstrated by the sabotage of the Nord Stream pipelines (which, being underwater, were more difficult targets than any Saudi or Emirati pipeline is likely to be). If an Iranian missile is accurate enough to disable the heavily protected AN/TPY-2 radars used by America’s THAAD air defense systems, they are accurate enough to cripple any oil pipeline system in the region.
Moreover, the assumption that pipelines can be easily built and operated runs the risk of understating Iran’s likely position after the present conflict. If Tehran emerges with enhanced regional influence and prestige, it would be able to deter or complicate the construction of new pipeline projects. Neighbors and outside powers have form in this regard. The US and its European allies successfully blocked the construction of Russia’s South Stream pipeline and delayed the opening of Nord Stream 2 even after it was built. Washington has repeatedly shaped, and at times curtailed, Canadian pipeline proposals, most recently the Energy East project, in order to maintain its dominance over its northern neighbor’s oil production.
The deeper strategic reality is therefore darker and more potentially unstable than the pipeline optimism suggests. Suppressing or interdicting Iran’s missile and drone forces remain the only reliable methods of prizing its grip from the region’s oil exports. Absent such capacity (and there is no sign whatsoever that the US has it), Iran will continue to have the ability to curtail flows of oil and gas from the Gulf in future.
This dynamic is not unique to Iran. In an era when precision standoff weapons have become widely available and relatively inexpensive, and until effective counters are developed, any actor that sits astride a critical resource flow can disrupt it, provided it is sufficiently resolved to absorb the consequences. In Iran’s case, this resolve appears to stem less from ideological fanaticism (another comforting but probably misplaced narrative) than from the fact Washington’s stated aim is regime change. When the alternative to resistance is the collapse of the governing order – potentially accompanied by one-way trips to the Hague or execution by JASSM for its leadership – resolve is bound to harden.
The practical lessons for Western policymakers flow directly from these realities, no matter how uncomfortable they might be. And they are lessons we would be well advised to apply beyond Iran, before we find ourselves twisted into yet more life-altering geopolitical injuries.
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