Kharg Island/Strait of Hormuz Criterion for the U.S. etc

(edited with Grok) There is a certain moral correctness to conducting a war to eliminate nuclear weapons development by a state that might well use them to incinerate select Middle Eastern and European targets. That criterion evaporates when the battle morphs into one to secure oil sales for the world.

The Strait of Hormuz is the primary gateway through which super-tankers carrying oil from Iranian Shi’a and Sunni nations pass to worldwide destinations. Iran is able to act as a gatekeeper and target ships that don’t pay it protection money for passing. The United States is even allowing Iran to sell its oil that is piped to Persian Gulf shipping facilities in order to keep the price of oil from moving higher. That action is rare in the annals of war. Usually nations strive to halt an opponent’s cash income and fuel supply if possible, rather than enable it. That act demonstrates the dependence the United States and the world still have on a product that is changing the temperature of the atmosphere and oceans through greenhouse gases caused by burning fossil fuels—especially in cars. Automobiles are the largest source of greenhouse gases in the United States.

A right-thinking environmentalist President would make peace with Russia unilaterally and expedite American development of electric cars that don’t require fossil fuels. Reducing demand is another way to keep the price of oil down. A right-thinking environmentalist might choose to carpet-bomb Kharg Island’s Iranian oil facilities that fill super-tankers bound for the world. Kharg Island, a small coral outcrop about 25 km off Iran’s coast, handles roughly 90% of Iran’s crude oil exports—around 1.5 to 1.7 million barrels per day in normal times, with storage capacity nearing 30-31 million barrels. Its deep-water jetties and massive tank farms make it the indispensable hub for loading very large crude carriers (VLCCs). Secondary strikes could hit the smaller terminals on Lavan Island (handling lighter, higher-quality Lavan Blend crude, with about 200,000 b/d capacity and 5.5 million barrels storage) and Sirri Island (exporting the medium-gravity Sirri Blend from offshore fields). Qeshm Island, near the Strait of Hormuz, also hosts some oil infrastructure along with naval and missile facilities, though its export role is smaller. That would save American lives from an invasion and provide B-52 crews with an opportunity to “win one for the Gipper,” as President Reagan might have said.

Economic factors can conflict with military goals. Destroying Iran’s Persian Gulf oil production and shipping facilities—especially the massive hub on Kharg Island—is possibly the correct way to go militarily. Iran, as a semi-desert nation, is probably better off developing solar power than relying on oil to improve the standard of living of ordinary people. Persian Gulf ally nations (Saudi Arabia, the UAE, and Iraq) already have or urgently need expanded pipelines to the Red Sea to bypass the Strait permanently and keep global oil flowing without Iranian gatekeeping. Saudi Arabia’s existing 1,200-km East-West Pipeline (Petroline) to Yanbu on the Red Sea, built in the 1980s, is currently being ramped to its full 7 million b/d capacity in a matter of days or weeks—proving that major diversions are feasible almost immediately in a crisis. Iraq’s long-proposed Basra-Aqaba pipeline (~1,700 km to Jordan’s Red Sea port) has been stalled for years due to politics and security issues, but could be fast-tracked in 18–36 months under wartime urgency with build-operate-transfer financing along pre-surveyed routes (though similar projects have historically taken 3–4 years). Longer-term proposals to route oil westward through the Arabian Peninsula to Israeli Mediterranean or Red Sea ports would likely take 3+ years due to multi-nation coordination but would eliminate choke points forever.

The present global situation has several political tensions engaging in causal relationships, creating unintended consequences and spin-offs from primary conflicts in the Ukraine and Iranian wars. Tunnel-visioned politicians pursuing narrow goals can fail to see the opportunity costs and digressions from starting points. A conflict with Iran, backed by China, Russia, and others in great depth, might require a couple of million soldiers to entirely pacify. A guerrilla war of simply launching rockets at tankers could continue for decades from the Persian Gulf shore and the Strait of Hormuz. Iran’s much-touted Goreh-Jask pipeline to the Gulf of Oman (intended as a Hormuz bypass) remains severely underutilized in practice—often operating far below even its modest effective capacity of around 300,000 barrels per day—making it a poor substitute for the Gulf terminals that handle the vast majority of its exports. It might be practical to look beyond the conflict and develop alternative energy production facilities in the U.S.A. while increasing domestic oil production to help feed the global oil addiction until the methadone of solar and other alternative power can wean the world off oil—before winters become cooler summers.