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Comment by SubiculumCode | Hacker News Reader

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Geography prevents most people from exerting the form of control Iran has. It would be much more difficult for, say, Canada to control it. The Iranian coastline is pretty favorable.

Also, most governments are more susceptible to being bombed than Iran. They’ve been preparing for it for decades. If nearly any country (except for maybe a couple of Irans neighbors) tried, they’d be easily routed.

Iran is getting a lot of help from Oman, so perhaps thats a place to start.

What do you mean by "so that's a place to start"?

Oman is known as the "Switzerland of the Mideast" and has served as a trusted mediator in the region for a long time. Ostensibly, the Omanis have advised the US about the perils of attacking Iran, which is why no president before the current one was stupid enough to do it.

The US is the second largest foreign investor in Oman, and Oman is one of just 14 countries the US has a Free Trade Agreement with. US citizens can own a business in Oman 100% without a local partner.

Oman is not helping them, they are merely being granted tolls by Iran because the strait is shared. Iran has launched several attacks on Oman.

Yes. The US is already increasing exports from the Gulf and UAE broke with OPEC to increase the throughput of Fujairah. If Gulf countries start exporting through Fujairah or other ports, it's eventually game over for Iran.

All of those are within range of Iranian missiles and drones. The only ways out of this are total war or final settlement giving Iranian favorable terms.

The US, China, Russia, India etc can bolster UAE defense in Fujairah. It's UAE and Omani controlled waters around there, the same area that the US is enforcing its current blockade.

That scraggly tag team of allies, the US, China, Russia, and India.

I can only see two natural allies here (US and India) and clear reasons why Russia and China benefit from the current order, or at least are harmed less than the US.

I don't mean they'll literally ally, I meant any one of them could guarantee the UAE.

Also multiple partners don't need to ally to necessarily guarantee the UAE. UAE has been growing closer to China recently and now that UAE has left OPEC+ they could make deals with China for protection for favored oil contracts. The US could do the same.

Iran is also playing a PR war lately, playing the victims of the big bad USA.

They IMO embarrassed themselves hugely by shooting missiles and drones at their neighbors; not sure they'll want to also try to sink (literally) a new way for the world to get oil from that peninsula but through other routes.

Though of course propaganda knows no rest. They'll likely bend over backwards and do a front flip to again make it the fault of everyone else but not them.

It’s probably still a lot cheaper to pay toll than moving cargo from Jebel Ali to Fujairah over land

UAE already built a pipeline called ADNOC that ships oil to Fujairah. They're committing to doubling [1] their export capacity by 2027.

[1]: https://gulfnews.com/business/energy/uaes-new-west-east-pipe...

The pipeline is obviously not called ADNOC. The exisitng pipeline is called Abu Dhabi Crude Oil Pipeline (ADCOP) and not "Abu Dhabi National Oil Corporation" (ADNOC).

The existing pipeline carries 1.8 million barrels per day [1].

Which you have to put against the 20 million barrels per day that used to be sailed through the strait.

[1] https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/uae-accelerate-oil-p... [2] https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=65504

Yes ADCOP not ADNOC, you are indeed precisely correct. But it's also called the Habshan–Fujairah pipeline :)

The East-West Pipeline that empties into Yanbu can run 7 mbpd and House of Saud claims [1] that it ran at 1.3 mbpd before the war. If we double the capacity of ADCOP to 3.6 mbpd and add an extra 6.7 mbpd through the East-West Pipeline, we'll be up to 11.4 mbpd which is over half the capacity of the Strait of Hormuz which is probably enough to bring Brent down a lot lower.

[1]: https://houseofsaud.com/saudi-arabia-energy-export-reroute-r...

Correction: 5.7 mbpd additional for the East-West Pipeline summing up to 10.4 mbpd still roughly half of the capacity of SoH.

The straight was open until the US/Israel attacked Iran without reason (and by bombing an elementary school full of girls).

Lets not let the truth get in the way of defence companies selling weapons for another middle east conflict!

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