Why convoys cannot fully protect oil tankers from Iran attacks

PARIS: The Israeli-US war on Iran has provoked a reaction from Tehran that has effectively choked a large chunk of the world’s oil supply, and untangling the blockage will take a regional effort beyond what is currently being proposed, experts have told AFP.

President Donald Trump has repeatedly urged other global powers to send warships to escort convoys of tankers through the Strait of Hormuz, a vital waterway for the world’s oil and liquefied natural gas supplies.

Iran has effectively closed the strait since the United States and Israel began a war on the Islamic republic last month, sending global oil prices up by more than 40 per cent.

Iran has however shown it has a much wider reach and can disrupt supplies throughout the Persian Gulf and beyond, simply by firing off a clutch of drones or a missile.

Trump has acknowledged the dangers of this kind of attack, at least in the strait.

“It’s easy for them to send a drone or two, drop a mine, or deliver a close-range missile somewhere along, or in, this Waterway, no matter how badly defeated they are,” he posted on social media at the weekend.

But strategic planners need to look at a much bigger geographical area and consider a much wider array of tools if they are serious about protecting oil tankers, experts have told AFP.

“Treating ‘Hormuz security’ as a chokepoint-only problem is analytically incomplete,” naval analyst Tayfun Ozberk, a former Turkish navy officer, told AFP.

The strait is labelled a “chokepoint” because it narrows to around 38km as it snakes between the southern Iranian coastline and the Arabian Peninsula’s eastern tip, a jutting piece of land shared between United Arab Emirates and Oman.

“The effective threat envelope Iran can generate already extends well beyond the narrows,” said Ozberk.

“That matters because traffic is exposed not only during the brief transit of the strait, but during the longer ‘funnelling’ phase where routes, speed constraints, and predictable lanes increase vulnerability.”