Im not sure people realise how easily this could spiral into ww3.
Currently the hormuz is on complete hold. 20% of the world's oil comes out of this straight. Where does it primarily go? Asia; India, Pakistan, South Korea, China, Japan. India depends on 60% of its Oil from hormuz, China 40%, Japan 75%. If the straight of hormuz remains stagnant Japans economy would collapse within 9 months. The Iranians have closed the straight of hormuz. The entire global economy will suffer greatly. Ok so oil goes out of hormuz.
What comes back in? Food!!! OK so people dont appreciate the GCC- gulf cooperation Council, this includes The UAE, Oman, Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar. This is the foundation of the u.s petrol dollar, the idea of the petrol dollar is this. u.s dollar is worth nothing, its only valuable if people want it, "if you want oil from us you have to pay us in u.s dollars" that is the basis of the value of the u.s dollar. So if the GCC collapses the u.s economy will also collapse.
If you close the straight of hormuz there is no food going to the GCC, they will starve. 80% of GCC food comes through Hormuz. 80%!!! Hormuz is key. It is the neck of the global economy and iran is strangling it.
Iran has lots of mountains, meaning military installations are hard to hit and hard to find. They can hide missiles and drones. Irans drones cost 20k, they have 80 thousand of them. To shoot them down it will cost millions and the u.s may only have 4 thousand missiles that can shoot them down, atleast in the middle east. Anyone who can see the war of attrition here can see that iran will win. What's irans targets? Military targets, oil and energy, and finally water. The GCC has little access to water, so the only way it can produce water is through water plants. They take salt water and turn it into fresh water. 60% of water in the GCC comes from water plants. Its not even the summer yet. Is it hard to blow these plants up with a drone? No. If they are defended then yes, but as I said iran has 20× more drones that are 50× cheaper than the missiles shooting them down. The GCC is a flat desert and is exposed to attack. Iran is a mountain fortress. Iran can destroy the GCC which will destroy the u.s economy. Oh ye? The u.s took Venezuela. But what about everyone else?
The question is how far does the u.s, GCC and iran want to take this? The only way you can defeat iran is using ground troops. Will the u.s send its army? Im not sure yet. If your losing a war which is what could happen to the u.s, Israel and the gcc (forgot to mention israel) would you choose to use nuclear weapons to save your own troops? Again im unsure. Another question is who else will get involved? considering if iran isn't dealt with if things continue to escalate they will still maintain a strangle hold on the economy.
This situation could be devastating in France, germany and even Britain. These nations could very well enter the war. If that happens it is possible russia and China could enter the war on the side of iran. Maybe by China going into Taiwan as they said they would in 2027, this could tie down the entire u.s fleet out in the Pacific. Maybe Russia could destroy the north sea oil rigs? Russia has the oil to give to China and iran.
This could spiral out of control