The Foreign Affairs magazine published an article titled, “The Stalemate With Iran Is Not Sustainable,” to discuss the diplomatic strategy to end the war.
“For six months, the war with Iran was disruptive but manageable. The Strait of Hormuz was largely closed to maritime traffic, blocking a transit route for roughly 20 percent of the world’s liquefied natural gas trade and an even higher proportion of the oil trade. Prices ticked upward and many parts of the world struggled with oil and gas shortages, but countries found ways to help stabilize the global energy market. The United States and Iran both refrained from overly destructive attacks on the Gulf region’s vital energy infrastructure. It seemed that Washington and Tehran could extend their current stalemate, occasionally trading airstrikes and attacks on individual tankers and energy facilities, without leading the world into economic calamity.” the article mentioned.
“That is no longer the case. The war has now expanded to critical parts of the region’s energy infrastructure, including the very routes that had been making it possible to offset the asphyxiation of the Strait of Hormuz. As of mid-September, the Bab el Mandeb Strait—a maritime chokepoint along the Red Sea route that is the main alternative to shipping oil and gas through the Strait of Hormuz—is under the control of the Houthis, a Yemeni-based group aligned with Iran. And a drone launched by an Iranian-affiliated militia operating out of Iraq struck the East–West pipeline in Saudi Arabia, through which the kingdom had diverted a large portion of its oil exports. The attack temporarily disabled the pipeline.”
“As a result, the price of oil jumped from the mid $70s in August to $110 per barrel in September. And if the rest of the region’s energy infrastructure is no longer off limits to military attack, further supply interruptions could easily push oil prices to $150 or even $200 a barrel. An escalation of fighting between Saudi Arabia and the Houthis, which has become a very real risk since the Houthis launched attacks on the Saudi cities of Riyadh and Yanbu last week, would add to the upward pressure on prices. If that happens, an energy crisis that plunges the world into recession is not far off.”
“Washington must now find a way out of this untenable situation. Half a year of alternating military attacks and economic coercion has not forced Tehran and its partners to make concessions, and there is no reason to expect that those strategies—much less threatening to ‘annihilate’ Iran, as U.S. President Donald Trump did in his UN speech on Tuesday—would compel them to change their behavior today. Nor would it be possible for the United States and its allies to protect energy infrastructure and shipments indefinitely under threat of attack by Iran and other hostile actors.”
Source: Foreign Affairs