Flying over the Straits of Hormuz in an Omani helicopter made all of the war-game discussions of its criticality seem pale to me compared to the stark reality of how small and narrow the waterway really is, how obviously easy it would be to block. Just beyond the Straits, in the Gulf of Oman a large fleet of tankers were backed up, waiting at anchor for their turn to move through the Straits on what was a peaceful, normal day off the moonscape-like Musandam peninsula.
I have been focused on security in the Gulf since the early 1980s, when as a State Department officer I worked on the “re-flagging” of Kuwaiti tankers as American ships and the formation of international tanker convoys during the “tanker war” phase of the Iran-Iraq War. What has been clear to me ever since, is how fragile the oil and gas infrastructure in the Gulf is.
An image that will never leave me is the sky black at noon, a roar coming from every direction, oil falling from the sky, and flames on every horizon as I drove through devastated Kuwait while the oil fields were still ablaze from sabotage by fleeing Iraqi troops in 1991.
Sea mines with World War II technology dumped from one of the ubiquitous wooden dhows (small boats) can incapacitate an enormous tanker or a US warship. I boarded the USS Tripoli (LPH-10) right after it had limped to port in Bahrain following an attack in which a mine had blown a large hole in its hull. That image of the damaged US warship returned to me when I read that the US is now dispatching the current USS Tripoli (LHA-7) to the region.
Small, fast boats with commandos can destroy an oil platform. I recall flying out to an oil platform in the Gulf and looking through binoculars across to an Iranian platform a short distance away, seeing the Iranians looking back through their lenses. US Navy SEALs had blown up such an Iranian oil platform during the “tanker war” in the 1980s.
In the late 1990s, I began working on the possibility of arming drones. Since that capability was deployed by the US and then other nations, the risks to Gulf gas and oil facilities and shipping have only increased, with the introduction of large numbers of small armed drones which can be launched from anywhere and can stage swarming attacks to overwhelm defenses. The increase in the numbers and effectiveness of anti-ship cruise missiles, combined with the mobility and easily hidden nature of their land based launchers, also increase the threat to shipping in the Gulf.
In the early 2000s, as a private citizen, I advised on the creation of a security force to protect some of the Gulf oil and gas facilities. Visiting the gigantic gas facility on Das Island and the enormous oil complex at Ruwais, I was cautioned to obey the strict safety protocols in place because these expensive and complex campuses are at risk of explosions in peacetime. They are highly volatile and easily attacked, even through cyber attacks, as proven by the Shamoon attack on Saudi Aramco in 2012.
It is not just oil that moves through the Gulf, but a parade of some of the world’s largest ships, liquid natural gas (LNG) tankers from Qatar. I have, while consulting for LNG companies in the US and for communities seeking to prevent LNG shipping facilities from being built nearby, learned that while LNG does not explode in the technical sense, it can create large flares with great destructive power. LNG tankers have double hulls and safety-conscious designs, but were one to ignite, it would devastate whatever was near.
My personal experiences and recent analyses lead me to believe that combat in the Gulf is like playing catch with lit torches in a chemistry lab. Things are going to go badly. Things are going to blow up, expensive things, things that are hard to replace quickly. Trying to protect oil and gas facilities and ships against a determined foe is a highly difficult task.
To date, Iran has not engaged in a serious effort to destroy Gulf oil facilities. Its attacks have been demonstrative, not concerted. It has been sending a message about what it could do if the US and Israel escalated the war by doing such things as attempting to seize the oil facilities on Iran’s Kharg Island (as has been discussed in Trump Administration leaks). If we tried that, billions of dollars of Gulf oil infrastructure would likely come under serious Iranian attack, oil infrastructure that cannot be quickly replaced.
The reason that, thus far, only Iranian oil tankers have been leaving the Gulf, transiting Hormuz, is that the US was not prepared to establish a convoy system or suppress all of the ways Iran can harass oil tankers from the Shatt al Arab at one end of the Gulf to Hormuz at the other. The US Navy is not eager to place multi-billion dollar, exquisite air defense Arleigh Burke Class Destroyers in the Straits. The Navy, which has for decades largely ignored the anti-mine mission and has no mine sweepers or frigates in the fleet anymore, would be forced to employ for the first time in the anti-mine mission, the often unreliable Littoral Combat Ships (widely derided within the Navy as “little crappy ships.”) It is little wonder that President Trump is now calling for help from NATO and Chinese (yes them) navies.
If Iran chooses to continue the war until their terms are met (they have recently called for financial reparations to repair the damage caused by the 15,000 plus bombing attacks on them as well as the closure of US bases in the Gulf), they could make it even more costly to the Gulf states, the US, and the world economy. If the US organizes tanker convoys and tries to sanitize the Gulf and the Straits, the US and its allies could ultimately prevail, but bear in mind that it could be time consuming, costly and less than fully effective, should Iran seek to make it so.
Richard Clarke served for thirty years in national security roles in the US government, including ten years in the White House under three presidents. He is the CEO of Good Harbor Security Risk Management. (richardaclarke.net)
