SerpApi.Org
“We are now witnessing a new phase in the war,” Amir Mohammad Akraminia, the Iranian brigadier general, told state media on Thursday morning. He’s not wrong.
Houthi militants claim to have bombed two Saudi oil tankers in the Red Sea, making good on their threat to blockade the Bab-el-mandeb.
The Yemen-based Iranian proxy said a further 10 Saudi tankers had been turned around, and that it was ready, if necessary, to bomb Saudi Arabia itself.
The Saudis have been using the Bab al-Mandab, on the country’s opposite coastline to the strangled Strait of Hormuz, as an escape valve for almost five million barrels of crude oil a day, shifting it cross-country via the pipeline.
So in launching this new front on the Red Sea, Iran has also fired the starter’s gun on a race to stabilise global oil supply.
The new squeeze on world oil supplies brings global energy markets closer to a tipping point. Beyond that, an economically punishing supply shortage, and price spiral, lies in wait.
A crisis has been averted so far because China and the US are aggressively running through their stockpiles, easing the market pressure. But nobody knows how much Beijing has left in the tank and the US strategic petroleum reserve has been drained to its lowest since 1983.
Since March, the Americans have released about 105 million barrels. They can release about that much oil once more before they run the risk of damaging their tanks and pipelines becomes too great.
As of the start of the month, the reserve had roughly 319.5 million barrels left.
Unsurprisingly, the Brent crude oil price is bubbling up again. It is now verging on the $100-a-barrel threshold at which Donald Trump typically takes to Truth Social and claims that a deal with the Iranians is imminent.
This time, he has taken a harder line. He said he would keep bombing Iran until it came to the table with a pledge to reopen Hormuz.
His latest threat is to take out an Iranian bridge or power plant in exchange for every tanker that Iran or its proxies attack. The writ of the Geneva Convention no longer runs in the Middle East.
Mr Trump’s campaign to bomb Iran into submission needs to succeed before the oil market reaches the precipice.
If not, the economic hit could scupper the Republicans’ chances at the mid-term congressional elections in November. No amount of talk about Chinese electoral malpractice will be able to deflect the blame.
But the annals of war suggest that bombing campaigns alone seldom bring an adversary to accept defeat. It will take a vast amount of munitions, and perhaps ground troops, to grind Iran into a truly hopeless position.
This, in turn, highlights the ticking of a second clock. The Americans are running out of money and missiles.
Pete Hegseth, the war secretary, warned of “critical shortfalls” as he pleaded with congress to unlock more cash for a war that has already cost close to $38bn (£28bn). Legislators are baulking at his request to find $67bn to fund the war.
Yet the cash continues to burn. F-16 and F-35 fighter jets have now been added to the theatre. More refuelling tanker planes are on their way to Israel, too. Air-defence munitions are being further depleted in response to Iranian attacks on US military bases across the region. These will take years to replace.
Iran is hurting too, of course. Its economy is in pieces, its military has been degraded, its own drone and missile stocks are dwindling. If the US shuts off swathes of its power supply, both military operations and ordinary life will become very hard indeed.
But life was already pretty hard under sanctions. And there is not much alternative, or much capacity for dissent. So it is probably safe to assume that the Iranian pain threshold is higher than the American one.
As the clock ticks down, Mr Trump will either have to retreat or double down. The Iranians seem almost hopeful of luring him into a ground war.
“Ground operations provide many opportunities to damage and inflict more casualties on the enemy. Our effectiveness and efficiency will certainly be much higher in this area,” said Brig Gen Akraminia.
The rest of the world will be hoping that Mr Trump’s race against time has a viable exit ramp. But it’s hard to spot it through the fog of war.
