Comment by tehjoker
6 hours ago
You realize that America "in theory" wants ships to transit the strait right? The US blockade is self-defeating.
You can't block the strait if we block the strait! lmao
6 hours ago
You realize that America "in theory" wants ships to transit the strait right? The US blockade is self-defeating.
You can't block the strait if we block the strait! lmao
I think this is incorrect. The point is to show that if Iran does this, then they will not be the only ones that can do it. The last thing that should happen is to reward Iran for rent seeking on the Strait. Others can also seek rent then, and the whole strait gets shut down..which encompassed around 90% of all Iranian oil exports, which in turn was about 90% of their economic exports.
There is truth to this but it's basically we'll hurt ourselves to hurt you more. This is a lose-lose strategy.
I am not sure if in the long term it is our interest to allow Iran to extract rent from this trade route, which would only strengthen China. It seems to me that the hurt is spread around the world quite widely, with inordinate impacts on Iran and China, not the U.S. or Europe [1].
[1] https://www.visualcapitalist.com/charted-oil-trade-through-t...
The US is blockading the Iranian coast, not the entirety of the Strait.
The reason the US is blockading is because Iran is only partially blockading it. If Iran wasn't blockading at all then America wouldn't either. But it's pretty clear that "only shops whose countries pay a lot of money to Iran" would help Iran.