Iran Conflict Brief: A 'Tacit Bargain' Protecting Gulf Energy

“Iran is still able to utilize the long-husbanded resources that they have to threaten access to the Strait of Hormuz and thereby global energy supplies, to threaten financial centers in Dubai, to threaten even just population centers, whether they're in Israel and Gulf of Arab States or so forth, and certainly US forces operating too. So more than anything, I think what the current situation shows is that Iran still has the ability to throw its weight around, to throw a force around, and to try to impose real costs on the United States for this campaign. The Iranians still have a lot of capabilities, not necessarily to win, but to persevere. And persevering might be enough to really risk US interests long term.”

“It's pretty clear it's in the interests of the United States, as well as basically the entire world economy, that the Strait of Hormuz has simply got to be open for energy transit. And so, you know, there's really only two ways this is going to happen. Either with an agreement of some kind of a deal that the Iranians need to agree to, so just us unilaterally saying we're done, but Iran doesn't stop, doesn't seem like that works, or Hormuz is going to remain disrupted until it is pushed open by force.”

“I think they want four things. Thing number one is they would also want unimpeded access to be able to sell oil. And it goes to the second thing, which is I think the Iranians would look for some kind of sanctions relief. I think third, they'd be looking for some kind of non-aggression assurance. This is going to be the biggest one of all because there's no real way of verifying it. Then I think the fourth big thing is they'll be looking for some broader regional security arrangement, at least discussions along those lines.”

“When the president says they want to make a deal and people are talking about an agreement, I think what people would find radically quickly is that a deal is a lot harder to structure. I think coming up with an actual negotiated solution is probably beyond the parties at this point. What's much more likely is we're just going to collectively be done here kind of decision. It's not a deal, it's not a military solution, it's just we're done here for a moment, and that's just going to create a whole lot of tension, probably lingers for quite some time in the Gulf and beyond.”

“Look, I've described it as a tacit bargain. I'm not the only one who has. That between the parties, they've decided that this is an area they didn't want to go into, and for reasons. Both the US and the Iranians have an interest in these energy facilities maintained. The Iranians want there to be a future for them, and to be able to continue exporting oil in the long term. The United States wants the Iranians to not unleash what they could on oil and gas infrastructure on the western side of the Gulf.”

“I don't think the United States is asking for partners to come in because we lack the physical capabilities to target the Iranian missile launchers, drone fleets and launching points, mine layers and those sorts of things. I think the real reason why you want to bring in a coalition is you want ships that are not party to the conflict to be escorting other ships through in hopes that the Iranians won't attack them. It's also possible the Iranians would try and negotiate with those countries individually for safe passages, apparently has been underway with India, maybe underway with Pakistan as well.”

“Taking Kharg Island, taking parts of the Iranian shoreline, maybe stops those particular jurisdictions from being areas with which the Iranians can manage the straits. But Iran's missiles are longer range than that. Iran's drones are longer range than that. You're going to have to go a fair ways inland to try and stop Iran from being able to launch missiles. And I'm not sure the US is prepared to have 2,500 Marines going that much further inland to try and chase missile sites on the shore of the Persian Gulf.”

“Oh, that's a rough one. So if you'd said April Fool's Day, I would have said yes. To me, I think that this has got at least another couple of weeks in it. It wouldn't shock me if tomorrow we woke up and there was reports that we're done for now. We've reached that kind of ceasefire. So I'd say about another two weeks or so of this. And then again, my scenario, my baseline is we get to a kind of unresolved ceasefire that then lingers for some period of time.”