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A dicey situation
There is this relentless escalation of tensions and the corresponding discomfiting rhetoric. Whether construed as belligerent or provocative is anyone’s choice, but everyone’s concern, wherever located. There is much at stake, all menacing.
`Amidst reports that range from “murky” to “conspiracy” this much is factual: Tankers have been interfered with, some damage done, and sabotage is suspected. Fingers are pointed all over; so, too, are the raised voices and sharp postures, inclusive of American and Saudi suspicions and accusations. Insurers have cast their gaze at the Revolutionary Guards. It is the perfect storm of contradiction and confrontation. Nonetheless, this is the worst lane for such a matter to occur; things can pileup quickly in horrendous tangles.
Harsh realities unnerve: from tightening supply fears, to prices already on the move, to bottlenecks posed by the tight and strategic Straits of Hormuz. Loading up and concentration of armaments in those very small lakes hold the heavy probability of error in judgment or accident or the camouflage and recklessness of a Gulf of Tonkin cover story.
There are those in the West, who do not need much incentive or context to take the plunge.
The Iranians have largely moved away from the aggressive, sometimes apocalyptic language of Ahmadinejad.
There is more nuance, but no less danger. They have long possessed a heavy streak of martyrdom embedded in their psyches; not helpful. They are also manifesting the doggedness of the underdog.
There are too many interrelated, hostile parties in the pressure cooker of the volatile Middle East. With so many powers vying for ascendancy in the region’s politics and economics a conflagration is threatened.
One slip, an abiding determination to not step back and lose face, and zeal with the weapons and manpower available are all that it takes. Everyone professes disinclination towards war; none moves away. The pump is continually primed. There are enough extremists clustered in those parts, and not exclusively with the adversarial parties alone. They would like nothing better than realization of visions of end times.
Any engagement is not likely to be isolated to a single theater. There are broadsides of overwhelming power on the one hand, and on the other, there are those pockets and unknowns that combine to create a broad, soft underbelly.
It would be to the advantage of the sanctioned, strapped, and beleaguered Persians to involve as many nations as possible in what could be a dogfight in a taut strategic junkyard. It pays to make it more than a David versus Goliath encounter. There are so many more itching for a chance to strike at traditional enemies. There are all those proxies currently unoccupied and waiting. They are a known and formidable. This can get hopelessly barbed and nightmarishly messy.
The Israelis may be tempted to be adventurous in manners covert to exploit the situation, if only to add to the woes of a longstanding tormenter and scorner. For certainty the Saudi Arabians are not going to sit on their hands if fighting breaks out. In fact, the Saudis have taken the lead in ecommending that hostilities be commenced sooner rather than later.
Regardless of location on the global map, none will be spared, all will feel the heat. It would be in the form of steep hikes in oil prices; for oil dependent nations that would be the equivalent of actual economic sanctions, because of the stringencies and pain that are sure to follow in the wake.
Guyana is not producing any oil at this time, so it is not in a position to be protected domestically, or to capitalize internationally. It is an untimely place to be: so near, yet so far. Nearby are the intractable political problems that are more immediate, more personal. Iran, though, could be Armageddon.
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