Keeping strait open to get tougher as Iran bolsters forces

The U.S. and its allies would be able to reverse any Iranian attempt to block oil traffic through the Strait of Hormuz within weeks, according to the authors of a report on Persian Gulf strategy. Reopening the shipping lanes may prove harder in future years, they found.

“Iran has some capabilities today, in terms of anti-ship cruise missiles, in terms of mines and swarming boats, that can create a significant problem for us,” said Mark Gunzinger, co- author of the report issued yesterday by the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments in Washington. “Can we counter that challenge today? Yes. No question about it.”

Iran’s Vice President Mohammad Reza Rahimi said on Dec. 27 that his nation may close the Strait, the passageway for about a fifth of globally traded oil, if the U.S. and its allies impose stricter economic sanctions in an effort to halt his country’s nuclear research. Reopening the narrow channels would take as long as a month if Iran laid thousands of mines and fired at U.S. vessels with shore-based anti-ship cruise missiles and small boats, Gunzinger and colleagues said in a briefing.

“We have no current indications that Iran is trying to impede or halt maritime transits through the Strait of Hormuz, which is an international waterway,” George Little, a Pentagon spokesman, said today in an emailed statement.

Prospects for 2021

The report issued yesterday focused on Iran’s future capabilities, finding that reopening the Strait will be much more difficult by 2021 if Iran continues to improve the quantity and precision of weapons designed to confront U.S. forces.

“We’ve got some pretty good capabilities today, but the trend line is worrisome, and we are really going to need to focus on the kinds of capabilities they are going to acquire,” said Gunzinger, a retired Air Force colonel and a former deputy assistant secretary of defense for force transformation and resources.

European Union foreign ministers are scheduled to decide Jan. 23 whether to impose a ban on importing Iranian oil.

France wants the EU embargo delayed by no more than three months while members seek alternative supplies, a French government official, who declined to be identified citing state rules, said on Jan. 16. A six-month delay favored by more EU nations remains the most likely compromise, according to a second person, an EU diplomat who also spoke on condition of anonymity because the talks are confidential.

‘Be More Wise’

Oil was little changed in New York today after rising yesterday. Crude for February delivery on the New York Mercantile Exchange rose 23 cents to $100.94 a barrel at 9:48 a.m.

Iran cautioned Saudi Arabia yesterday after that nation’s oil minister told CNN the kingdom can make up for any loss of crude production under sanctions on Iran.

“If this comment is the official stance of Saudi Arabia we advise Saudi officials to be more wise and responsible in their approach,” Iranian Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi said, according to the state-run Fars news agency.

Iraq’s Oil Minister Abdul Kareem al-Luaibi, speaking in his capacity as current head of OPEC, said today in Baghdad that he will visit Iran tomorrow to seek assurances on the protection of Persian Gulf crude shipments and Iranian production.

Mine-Sweeping Ships

General Martin Dempsey, chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, said in a television interview that aired Jan. 8 that Iran has the ability to block the Strait “for a period of time,” and the U.S. would take action to reopen it.

“We’ve invested in capabilities to ensure that if that happens, we can defeat that,” Dempsey said.

The U.S. has four Avenger-class mine-sweeping ships in the Gulf — the USS Ardent, USS Dextrous, USS Gladiator and USS Scout. The U.K.’s Royal Navy has another four vessels — the HMS Pembroke, HMS Middleton, HMS Quorn and HMS Ramsey, according to the U.S. 5th Fleet in Bahrain.

The U.S. and its allies are concerned about the collective effect of Iran’s so-called asymmetric warfare tactics, combining midget submarines, mines and small fast-attack vessels, according to a European military official, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss internal deliberations.

Iran’s routine presence in the Persian Gulf and Arabian Sea also creates difficulty in discerning whether a particular move constitutes hostile intent, heightening the risk, the official said.

Iran has sought to demonstrate its capabilities with small surface craft in previous exercises, demonstrating the technique of swarming an enemy’s ship.

Pentagon Assessments

The Pentagon’s first public assessment of Iran’s military power in April 2010 listed four midget subs, 80 patrol craft and 18 guided missile patrol boats under control of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps navy.

The Guard navy since the 1990s has purchased speedboats from Italian manufacturer Fabio Buzzi Design and has been making them domestically, according a 2009 report by the U.S. Office of Naval Intelligence. It also has Chinese-built C-14 missile boats and North Korean-made “semi-submersible” vessels that can carry two torpedoes.

The Strait “could be mined effectively in a relatively short period of time,” the intelligence office’s report found.

Not every mine would have to be found and cleared before shipping could resume, Chris Dougherty, an analyst with the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments, told reporters yesterday.

‘Robust’ Tankers

“Tankers are remarkably robust ships,” he said. “It’s very difficult to sink them, even with a direct mine strike. They are designed to take a hit and keep on going. Would insurance rates spike for a little bit? Probably.”

Mines in the Strait could prompt insurance companies to raise rates on tankers utilizing the waterway, which in turn could lead at least temporarily to higher oil prices.

U.S. officials who follow Iran for the U.S. Central Command estimated in 2008 that Iran possessed as many as 5,000 mines. That compares with 1,000 mines in the 1980s during its conflict with Iran and the “tanker war” with the West when it attempted to block vessels.

These include moored mines such as a variant that damaged a frigate, the USS Samuel Roberts, in April 1988 during the Operation Earnest Will escort of Kuwaiti and Saudi tankers.

The inventory also includes as many as 600 advanced mines bought from Russia, such as the MDM-3, which can be dropped from an aircraft. These “influence mines” can be programmed to detonate based on a ship’s acoustic signature.

Iran was assessed in 2008 to possess a substantial inventory of mines that could be laid by the three Russian-built Kilo-class diesel subs it bought in the 1990s, officials said.