The brilliance of blocking the Strait of Hormuz

[MsAmerica]

I don't get the feeling that most people appreciate the brilliant move of closing the Strait of Hormuz. None of the news stories I'm seeing say so.

Of course, Iran has made destructive attacks (although all defensive now, I believe). But U.S. and Israel have ONLY attacked, only intent on wreaking damage and directly killing people.

Technically, closing the Strait wasn't a violent act, and hurts no one directly, no matter how disruptive it may otherwise be. Brilliant.

@dwordle

All i can say is that America has effectively attacked Europe, this is economic warfare

According to some sources/commentators it does appear that the US might be better buffered, at least in the short term, against the continued closure than UK/Europe.

It might well suit POTUS to sit on this issue and allow the blockade to continue for quite some time to come....

The thing is it might not stop there, Greenland hasn't gone away, Israel is getting worse and the Falklands may our next problem. On its own Argentina is in no position to fight the UK but with the help of the yanks using economic pressure and arming the Argentinians we could find ourselves in a tight spot.

What people need to realise that Israel is causing a lot of friction and Turkey is next in the firing line..... question is what will NATO do is Turkey strikes first or attempts to acquire Nuclear weapons of its own.

This is the problem with the current American administration it's purposely changing global politics....and it's anti west and anti democracy.

Yes. No one could know how it played out. What's happening is horrendous, but this just shows that Trump is acting worse than Iran.

I don't think it's correct to say that America has attacked Europe, but it's certainly true that Trump is incapable of considering others in a normal way, and is usually incapable of thinking ahead.

And it hasn't helped, the way Europe was pandering to him.

Part of the "suiting" is just that Trump is incapable of admitting he was wrong.

He’s acting the same as Iran in blockading the strait of Hormuz.

Yes, but the US don’t own the Strait of Hormuz do they-it’s not his to blockade, so not quite the same. There are Iranian bits and international waters. Which were running freely before Trump decided to abandon negotiations (without any discernible trigger for doing so) and start lobbing missiles.
Is the Iranian regime inherently awful? Yes. But so are lots of others and I don’t see wars being started with them, which can only be down to what Iran has that America wants, that other regimes don’t.
Trump doesn’t want ‘a lunatic to be in charge of a nuclear weapon’. He hardly looks sane himself at this point does he?
I think pretty soon he will lose interest in this and the US will pull out. The best case scenario then is, wildly, that we return to the status quo with Iran controlling the strait. Although even in that case, Iran will have been empowered by what they see as victory and the fact that they now know they can control global economies to a degree by shutting the strait at will. They don’t care about protecting global finance, or human rights, or sailors stuck on boats for months on end. They arent trustworthy in terms of anything anyone manages to negotiate with them -even less so now than they were before, because the top level
people who were in power and who might have been slightly more sensible are dead. Those in charge in Iran now are likely to have had all their family killed by the US and have less rational
thought re progress. We have gone from bad to worse in terms or who we have to negotiate with. All this has just proven that to be the case. Basically we’re all a bit screwed is my view.

I agree it's not quite the same as Iran do own bits of it.

But Iran were also guilty of weaponsing the Strait of Hormuz which is not something that should ever have been weaponised due to the negative impact on the rest of the world.

And it hasn't ended well for them so hardly a brilliant move as OP suggested.

Here's the thing: IT'S IRAN'S TERRITORY.

The U.S. has no business there.

That doesn’t mean they were right to weaponise it - what if other countries started doing the same thing too whenever they had disputes with other countries?

Other countries don’t do that for very good reasons - oh but Iran thought it would be a brilliant idea and so did you.

Indeed. 12 nautical miles from the low water baselines are sovereign territory per UNCLOS. Same as if it was land. The next 12 miles beyond that is called the contiguous zone. They are also sovereign, except other nations have the right to overflight. Then there is the 200 mile EEZ, where Iran owns the resource rights, but other nations can sail through. It is all divided up by adjoining nations, with the median rule applying where overlaps occur.

And here (attached) is the US Dpt of State document from 1994 recognizing Irans claim under UNCLOS (Although neither Iran nor the US ratified UNCLOS, the claims are recognized). And yes, the US disputed the low water baselines claimed by Iran (they are using straight line segments, same as China, that goes against UNCLOS guidance), however the sovereignty is not disputed, it's the extent that is.

It's an odd technical feature on UNCLOS, that the UN has no power to decide on the claims made by adjoining States. Called delimitation. It is up the adjoining states to mutually sort it out. The US can lend support to either state, but they have no official part to play unless it is their coastline and water.

It's a concept the UN calls " Land has dominion over water". That is the basis for UNCLOS. That to control any part of the sea, the state must have land there. And in this case, Iran does have land there. The USA does not,

LIS No. 114 - Iran Maritime Claims (state.gov)

Page 15 of that report is the important bit. It covers Iran's claims to article 8 and 9 of UNCLOS. Suspension of innocent passage and Exceptions to innocent passage. Except when I check UNCLOS, the US got that wrong. It is not UNCLOS article 8 and 9, it is articles 17, 18 and 19.

UNCLOS allows for exceptions to the rules, but only if lodged and published at the time of signing. Iran has signed, but not ratified.

Sorry for the waffle, it just happens to be a subject I have had an interest in for a fair number of years, because I follow the South China Sea dispute. It's a really technical thing that I struggle with at times. Case in point, see bolded part above where the US state dpt got it wrong.

I am not any sort of Lawyer, just a layperson with a long standing interest. And to get a good grasp on the SoH one really needs all the docs and detailed maps.

And no, the above is not AI.

No one is denying part of the Strait is Iran’s territory - didn’t make it a brilliant idea to blockade it. As they eventually found out.

Plus other countries could equally start charging tolls to pass in their territorial waters but that wouldn’t be a great idea either.

Okay, but I wasn't talking about legalities - I was just talking basic logic.

These days, there's a lot of weaponizing that shouldn't be weaponized.

But my point is that it was brilliant in terms of being a non-lethal move when the U.S. and Israel's moves are for "maximum lethality.

Sure thing. The legalities do matter though.

There is a chat about this on another thread. The conversation is page 9 on. We are starting to get into the nitty gritty. Specifically about how what Rubio says about international waters is just not true re UNCLOS.

A poster there posted an excellent site that allows one to look at maps of the sea, and who owns what areas.

Worth a follow.

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If it was so brilliant it wouldn’t be something that the US could copy to hurt Iran economically.

Well, not with Trump. He prefers choices that involve direct violence and death.

That sentence makes no sense in regard to the post you were quoting.