[klipt]

> now.. with that $2M toll, iran just learnt it can just toll the ships...

But the strait has two sides and Iran only controls one side. The UAE/Oman on the other side could equally threaten to attack Iranian ships unless Iran pays them a toll.

[citrin_ru]

According to this map https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Strait_of_hormuz_full.jpg shipping lines are in Oman's territorial waters. Iran controls the whole area by creating a risk that a ship can be attacked. And if Oman would try to impose payments it would break the UN convention on the Law of the Sea.

[sysguest]

well I guess that makes Iran really fked up...

the strait-using countries are surely going to "make a lesson out of" iran exactly for that reason

[zinodaur]

I think what we should have learned from this is that it's extremely hard to "make a lesson out of" Iran if you depend on moving oil past their borders... the gulf states are much more exposed to this than the US is, and much less powerful.

They are also not neutral - they have been paying in to the US protection racket, and are discovering that their payments haven't bought much.

[sysguest]

> it's extremely hard to "make a lesson out of" Iran if you depend on moving oil past their borders

it's not just gulf states -- look at who are the customers of those gulf states are. the whole asia, europe, and america -- the whole world is their customer.

Even if it's "extremely hard", those countries have no choice but "make a lesson out of" iran -- just like what we did with pirates

why would those "customers of gulf" just leave iran? after US leaves, will iran regime suddenly become nice and stop forcing that $2M-per-voyage bill?

no, and even if iran regime promises "I'll never bill those ships", how could you trust on that promise? the only way to ensure free-ship-passing would be obliterating Iran as an example, even if US backs away.

> They are also not neutral - they have been paying in to the US protection racket

hmm so were they "helping" US bomb iran? "being neutral" means it didn't participate on attacking iran, not whether it paid or not.

[zinodaur]

If Canada and Mexico started letting Iran launch bombing sorties against US cities from within their borders, would the US consider them neutral?

2 Million a ship seems like a pretty cheap price to pay for the damage the us and Israel have inflicted on Iran - they cannot be made to pay it though, so I suppose the rest of us will have to (through marginally higher oil prices in the long term - much less than the spectacularly high oil prices the US war will cause in the short term)

[klipt]

> price to pay for the damage the us and Israel have inflicted on Iran

Well if we're talking reparations, shouldn't Iran pay for the damage Hezbollah inflicted on Israel with Iranian supplied weapons for decades?

[zinodaur]

Since 1985, Hezbollah has killed approximately 600 Israelis (if you count IDF soldiers during the occupation of Beirut). Israel has killed 5x that number of civilians in the last two weeks, if you count Lebanon as well as Iran. If you count soldiers...

[PickledHotdog]

It would be miniscule compared to the damage Israel inflicted on Lebanon for decades

[jltsiren]

The value of the oil / natural gas production in the Gulf states is not infinite. Nobody except the US has the force projection capacity to fight a major war against Iran. If they are not interested in fighting that war, the rest of the world will find that the cheapest and least disruptive option is to cut consumption. To assume that nobody is shipping oil and natural gas from the Gulf, until a new status quo emerges in the region.

[klipt]

> the cheapest and least disruptive option is to cut consumption

And good for the environment!

[samus]

Most nations who are affected don't have a blue-water navy or similar means to pose a serious threat to Iran. They have to either back the USA or deal with the toll and the uncertainty that comes with it.