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Comment by smallmancontrov | Hacker News Reader

The Ayatollah Booth is egg on the US's face regardless, but $2M/ship is about $1/barrel for perspective. Spot price is $95/barrel right now.

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$2M/ship is $1/barrel for VLCCs, but it's a lot more for smaller ships. Practically, nobody will use a ship smaller than a VLCC with the toolbooth.

VLCCs are already 2/3 the oil traffic, but yeah, rough day to be a small ship with cheap cargo.

Israel is already breaking the ceasefire conditions. Ref: "Netanyahu: Ceasefire doesn’t cover Lebanon" https://www.timesofisrael.com/liveblog_entry/netanyahu-cease...

Territorial expansion was probably always Israel's goal of this, with a bonus of weakening a regional rival.

In the 75 years of their existence it seems like they suck at expansion.

They should take a page from Indonesia’s book for example. Or turkey.

Indonesia?

Takeover of half of Papua New Guinea, now called irian Jaya. Transmigration, that is, moving Java people there and to Borneo (Kalimantan)in order to flood local populations with Malays.

But this did not make the news that much. Not that interesting I guess…

Israel violated the 2024 ceasefire over 10,000 times [0], not counting all the ones since Feb. 28. I guess this time they're not satisfied with having only 50 "freebies" a day.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2024_Israel%E2%80%93Lebanon_ce...

Have Israel ever respected a ceasefire?

Has Hamas or Hezbollah?

Textbook whataboutism.

Israel would not be doing this if not for the continuous attacks from those jihadist groups (well funded by Iran). But you know that.

The Nakba was not provoked by jihadist groups, it was provoked by colonial invaders. The victimization narrative never worked.

You seem to be implying Israel is no better than a terrorist group.

Hamas is the (originally elected by the people) government of Gaza. Hezbollah is a partner of and inside Lebanon's government.

In addition, both parties are who Israel was nominally in a ceasefire with. So extremely relevant to the discussion about Israel and ceasefires and not random whataboutism.

You seem to be implying discussion should be waived away if a counter party is both a government and a terrorist organization.

Not sure why you're replying to me?

I'm not the one comparing Israel, Hamas, and Hezbollah.

Though next time I'll put terrorist group in quotes, as everyone has their own opinion.

Not only is it no better, it is significantly worse.

Yes

why is that relevant? Israel is a nation state, the others are 'terrorist groups'. are they equivalent? your response seems to imply that.

Interesting.

Israel is not a nation state but a western colony in Palestine (like Tibet is a Chinese colony, or Algeria was for france).

Hamas is the government in Gaza who the ceasefire was with and whose acts it was contingent on.

Hezbollah is part of the government in Lebanon and who the ceasefire was with and whose acts in was contingent on.

The relevance is pretty obvious.

'why are do you want to include both sides (including the actual governments on both sides) in a discussion about ceasefire' is a wild take.

They have a far better track record. The other side constantly lies and violates every rule.

Less times than Israel, and usually in response.

Israel has done more terrorism than Hamas.

Not only that, but Israel financed Hamas to politically destabilize Palestine. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Israeli_support_for_Hamas

Ceasefire include removing Hizballa from Lebanon, but facts doesn't matter for terror supporters

They’ll probably receive most if not all of Iran’s focus now.

Perhaps they'll pro-rate it by size.

Maybe they'll end up with a sliding scale fee based on ship size/capacity

If Iran's 10 points become the basis of the peace, it ratifies Iran's sovereignty over the strait, at which point they can raise the price. It will be years before alternative routes devalue control of the strait, during which time Iran can siphon a lot of money out of passages taxes.

One thing I've not heard much discussion of is alternative routes. In the early days of this war there were discussions i of pipelines but it tapered off pretty fast

Pipelines are expensive and slow to build and notoriously vulnerable. Also you would need many I to match even half of the Hormuz throughput

Pipelines are possible, but they take time to build. The pipeline would have to cross several countries (depending on what route is taken - look at a map) which makes it much harder. Will Oman even be interested in this? Saudi Arabia I guess could build a pipeline to the red sea entirely internally, every other country in the region would have to cross someone else.

Still if Iran does charge the $1/barrel of oil they are proposing expect the countries in the region to look into a pipeline. That is a lot of money and a pipeline could potentially be cheaper in the long run.

The big issue with alternative routes is that they don't really solve the problem. Ports in Oman and Yemen outside the persian gulf are still close enough to Iran to be subject to attack by drones and missiles. Saudi Arabia has invested considerably into pipelines to the Red Sea but Iranian-backed Houthis can strike there. Even if there was a safe port somewhere, the pipelines themselves would be easy targets. There's a reason no alternative route has been pursued over the decades.

The most economical option is to just invest in the military technologies to pass through the Strait. Minesweepers, missile defenses, an appropriate number of escort frigates - an appropriate naval force could most certainly escort ships through. It's just incredibly dumb to start a war with an adversary that has been threatening to close a major waterway for decades immediately after decommissioning your minesweeper fleet and while there are zero frigates in your navy.

Also Iran can drop the price of the Taxes whenever they want to in order to drive the alternatives into a loss.

$2M/ship is $100B/year at pre-war crossing rates.

Nice. I wonder what the costs of reparations would be if the ceasefire were to end the war?

I’m 99% sure that if there is a deal where Iran collects a toll, it’s going to involve counting that toll (and/or sanctions relief, and/or unfreezing Iranian assets) as reparations. I would be very surprised if the US or Israel ever agree to direct payments to the Iranian government.

Truly an Art of the Deal - make countries that didn't choose to attack Iran... Pay for reparations.

With friends like Uncle Sam, who needs enemies?

For reference: This would almost triple their govts funds each year. One must also not forget that they're able to raise tolls in the future, both for monetary investment but also for negotiation purposes.

So we spent a ton of money and a bunch of people died to negotiate a much worse situation.

5D chess!

Making outrageous demands is normal in these negotiations. You can just look at what Hamas demanded during the ceasefires. What usually happens is no strong concessions from either side and hostilities just end. The regimes get to survive just in a badly degraded state.

Most importantly Iran can't afford to keep the strait closed to enforce this. If they block shipping their own will be blocked as well - which hasn't yet happened, they were still allowed to ship oil. Iran was already in terrible financial shape before the war and they aren't negotiating from a strong position of power to take those risks.

Is that an argument for them not being to enforce the ayatollbooth or its price to remain reasonnable ?

> Most importantly Iran can't afford to keep the strait closed to enforce this. If they block shipping their own will be blocked as well - which hasn't yet happened, they were still allowed to ship oil.

Why do you say this? During the war they set up a checkpoint system so their ships and ships they allowed to pass could still pass through.

Of course Iran wouldn't block its own ships at its own checkpoints, but the US is capable of easily interdicting Iranian shipping if it wants to.

this would be a worse crisis than we've just had; it'd put China (if not all of Asia) directly against the USA and would put Australia in a very peculiar spot.

While the crisis would be worse, I am not that sure that China will confront US on this militarily. So far they have stayed out of other's fights.

Iran charging a massive toll would also cause a crisis with the gulf states and they aren't going to tolerate it. This is much bigger than Iran vs US, and the idea they hold the cards for such a claim is mostly propaganda.

Just pointing out that for the volume of these ships, it's not really a massive toll. It's honestly a bargain, paid for in a really easy to stomach way by the people who allowed this to happen: Everyone else.

Doesn't explain why UAE, Qatar, Kuwait, Bahrian, and Saudis would tolerate a fee transiting the strait. Let alone why America would agree to that in negotiations given they have little incentive to agree to any large demands.

If that is agreed upon it's going to come with some concessions by Iran which is even less likely.

They'd tolerate it because they all poked a giant in the eye and it didn't go down. It's by far the cheapest route to peace any of them have.

USA could agree to it because it's not particularly dependent on that fuel supply and therefore would only pay the costs indirectly via market forces, which as the thief-in-chief pointed out, does (the parts he cares about of) their economy no harm as a net petroleum-product exporter, and above all else, they are losing the war.

Not quite, since they plan to share the revenue with Oman, or at least that’s what they’re currently claiming.

good for them, hopfeully they will be able to better protect themseves from rogue nations that don't respect international laws.

We‘re still talking about the largest funding nation of terror cells mate

Who enforces "international laws" anyway?

Trump cancelled the Iran deal, replaced it with nothing and now Iran has found an infinite money glitch.

100B/Year

How are they spinning this, that it is not Reparations?

"10. Iran to use Hormuz fees for reconstruction instead of reparations"

What is the splitting of hairs here?

I think reparations could be spent as they see fit. Reconstruction implies the money is going to exactly that.

But I agree it's a weird nitpick at this stage, as it seems almost impossible to verify once in place

No, the point is that instead of the US paying reparations from their own pocket they will allow Iran to tax Gulf countries.

That sentence is just worded badly, I would rewrite it as:

10. Iran to use Hormuz fees for reconstruction instead of demanding reparations from the US.

I think you're right, it's a bracketing ambiguity.

Rather than "Iran to use Hormuz fees for (reconstruction instead of reparations)" it's more likely to mean "Iran to use (Hormuz fees for reconstruction) instead of reparations"

Yeah, I think they want to do it this way, because Iran wants some compensation for damages, but paying reparations directly would be too humiliating for the US, and Trump would never agree to it.

Soon the dubai influencers will flock to Teheran.

Not convinced it will happen. What would prevent Saudi Arabia from retaliating and introducing a special fee on all ships coming from Iran. It's not like intercepting those massive cargo ships in a small sea is of any difficulty for a well funded military.

Geography and missiles? Iran have everything to lose and have been put in a position where they literally have to fight for their existence.

Militarily Iran is a giant and Saudi Arabia is a minnow.

Saudi Arabia has something like twice as many jet fighters than France. Even if you factor incompetence, it's not hard to hit a cargo ship or an oil production facility in absence of any meaningful air defence.

Does Saudi really want to fight an existential battle alone with Iran over 100B? probably not possible politically too.

well "want to" isn't "does not have to"

That would mean Saudi Arabia is starting a war with Iran, which they presumably don’t want to do.

Saudi Arabia has FAR more to lose. Paying $1 or its equivalent in Yuan per barrel is utterly nothing for them. Chump Change.

Unfortunately, I do not believe Israel will stand for peace on this terms, so a false-flag sabotage attack will happen as soon as they are freed from their conquest of Lebanon.

Saudi Arabia needs jet fighters to patrol a very large desert and active threats all around. France doesn't have enemies on all sides, and it has nukes and a navy. There's no pressing need for France to have more planes than Saudi Arabia

Isn't it already happening ?

Rather than $2M per ship, it's €1.7M or 13.7M CNY per ship.

1$/barrel - of barrels they are not producing surely ? That would make them able to levy Saudi Arabian and UAE oil and gas.

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