In all cases, by blocking Iranian ports, the US is opening a new chapter in this war, testing Iran’s pain threshold in different directions.
Iran could choose a military route, by launching attacks on US naval vessels or persuading the Houthis in Yemen to attempt a blockade of the Bab El Mandeb Strait, Alhasan told CNN.
“Iran could also increase the smuggling of fuel through its long land border with Pakistan or evade the blockade by blending its own oil with Iraqi oil, as it has done in the past,” Alhasan noted.
This may include gas exports via pipelines to Iraq, Turkey and Armenia, Alhasan said, or oil exports via its Neka oil terminal in the Caspian Sea.
“Iran has several options for offsetting the economic effects of the US blockade, but their overall impact is uncertain,” Hasan Alhasan, a senior fellow for the Middle East Policy at the International Institute for Strategic Studies in Bahrain, told CNN, adding that Tehran “could seek to ramp up oil and gas exports through alternative routes that bypass the Strait of Hormuz.”
The blockade began at 10 a.m. ET yesterday, after weekend peace talks in Pakistan ended without a breakthrough. Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) has vowed to retaliate, and Iranian officials have warned of the ripple effects on the global economy, including at the cost of the American consumer.
Donald Trump believes economic pain will do what weeks of air strikes couldn’t: break Tehran’s will and force it to concede. But some experts say this might be misreading Iran’s threshold for pain.
