Iran's recent threats to close the Strait of Hormuz into the Persian Gulf may only be hollow threats, but they must be taken seriously.
Such a closure would immediately and dramatically raise oil prices - perhaps by 50 per cent - and put another stranglehold on an already faltering, global economy.
Considering that almost 20 per cent of the world's daily oil trade and 85 per cent of all Asian oil and natural gas pass through this strait, one can easily see that military action would be the only option if diplomacy fails to convince
Iranians of their folly.
Due to its very narrow confines - less than 35 miles wide - the Strait of Hormuz poses a possible nightmare scenario for the U.S. Fifth Fleet, based in Bahrain.
Should Iran decide to follow through on their threat, the strait could easily be blocked with mines and threaten any shipping with armed speed boats capable of launching torpedoes. Along the shoreline, Iran has the capability to simultaneously launch anti-ship cruise missiles which could easily take out enormously expensive targets like
aircraft carriers and warships.
There is no doubt that America would eventually win the day in such a military confrontation but it may take weeks, or months or even longer. Stationary, Iranian targets inland and the Iranian state navy would be easy targets for the USAF, but Iran's heavily camouflaged mobile missile launchers along its 1,000-mile Persian Gulf shoreline would pose a greater difficulty.
Whether Iran would carry through with its threat to close the strait is another matter and one, mitigating factor may alter their decision.
The question remains: would Iran close the Strait of Hormuz on which it so heavily relies to send more than two million barrels of oil per day on which its economy depends for survival?
Such a closure, which would also end imports of food and consumer goods on which the Iranian people rely, may be nothing short of economic suicide.
There are also several variables which both sides must take into account, especially the U.S.
One of these variables is what I impolitely call the loony factor.
There are still leaders in this world who are unknown, unstable, or unpredictable - to wit: Kim Jung-Un of North Korea, Bashar Assad of Syria and
Mahmoud Ahmadinejed of Iran.
What they will do and why is known only to them and one must always tread carefully around them.
Two other variables are miscalculation and overreaction - by either side.
In the brief 1988 engagement between Iran and the U.S., a U.S. navy radar operator mistook a passenger plane as a military target. A missile was fired and 290 innocent people were killed.
A similar incident today could have extremely devastating consequences.
As in any war, another unsettling factor is the unknown. If we remember back to the 1982 Falkland Island War, the British were tragically surprised to discover that their ships were sitting ducks for Argentine warplanes carrying deadly, French-built Exocet missiles.
What Iranians have in their basket of weapons is unknown.
For another factor, which one may call the Drake factor, one must go back in history to the Spanish Armada of 1588 when the tiny, English navy faced the largest, most well-equipped navy of the day. The Spanish navy was unexpectedly defeated by the English using smaller, speedier attack vessels in the English Channel. One can easily see the comparison to today's situation in the narrow Strait of Hormuz.
In 2002, the U.S. Defence Department carried out just such a simulated war game and disturbingly concluded that any small, agile speedboats swarming a navy convoy could inflict devastating damage on larger, more powerful
warships.
Could history repeat itself?
