Latest / Best of Business / Stephen Hoadley: international relations expert on whether Iran will close the Strait of Hormuz

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Stephen Hoadley: international relations expert on whether Iran will close the Strait of Hormuz · Best of Business

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  Speaker 1: You're listening to a podcast from News Talks. A'd be
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  Speaker 2: Let's get on to the most important stuff of the day.
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  Speaker 2: After America's attack on Iran over the weekend, the big
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  Speaker 2: question now is whether Iran will close the Strait of Homos.
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  Speaker 2: Now twenty percent of the words world's oil is shipped
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  Speaker 2: through this narrow straight it runs between the coasts of
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  Speaker 2: Iran and Orman. Stephen Hoadley is a retired professor of
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  Speaker 2: international relations and with us right now. Hey, Stephen, good evening, Heather, Stephen,
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  Speaker 2: thank you for joining us. This is not going to happen,
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  Speaker 2: is it now?
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  Speaker 3: Well, it may happen. It's all option, and even just
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  Speaker 3: the threat of closing it would be enough to send
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  Speaker 3: insurance rates higher to prevent other ships from entering. Apparently,
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  Speaker 3: the number of ships in the Gulf has declined from
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  Speaker 3: seven hundred and fifty to seven hundred and continuing to fall.
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  Speaker 3: There is a lot of ships, A lot of companies
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  Speaker 3: are simply not putting their ships into danger because they
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  Speaker 3: anticipate the possibility of the closure of the strait.
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  Speaker 2: How would they actually close it.
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  Speaker 3: With military action? They put mines in the water. The
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  Speaker 3: channels are only six kilometers wide, three kilometers one way
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  Speaker 3: and three kilometers coming the other way. They've got fast
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  Speaker 3: patrol boats armed with rough propelled grenades. They've got short
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  Speaker 3: range artillery, they've short range missiles. There a variety of
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  Speaker 3: things that could harass. Remember, an oil tanker is very vulnerable.
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  Speaker 3: They're not armored, they're not armed. They could not withstand
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  Speaker 3: even a small piece of artillery and they might burst
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  Speaker 3: into flames. So those ships, skippers are going to stand back,
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  Speaker 3: They're going to anchor out, they're going to stay away
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  Speaker 3: from harm's way. That will be enough to send up
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  Speaker 3: the price of oil.
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  Speaker 2: I see that Marco Rubio has gone on Fox today
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  Speaker 2: and called on China to intervene here and have a
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  Speaker 2: chat to Iran and stop this from happening. Would that work?
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  Speaker 3: Use society that are well, China's oil does come out
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  Speaker 3: of the Strait from Iran. It's smuggled. Iran is under
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  Speaker 3: strict sanction from the West, but of course they ignore
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  Speaker 3: those sanctions. China does too, and gets oil from Russia
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  Speaker 3: in the same way. But yeah, it would be interesting
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  Speaker 3: to strange bedfellows the United States and China ganging up
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  Speaker 3: on Iran to say don't close the straits or moose
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  Speaker 3: the Chinese. I think do have a strong point. I
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  Speaker 3: think they may prevail, and it could be that the
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  Speaker 3: Iranians will be very selective in their targeting. If they do,
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  Speaker 3: in fact target any ships, they can identify them one
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  Speaker 3: by one. They can target them if they're related to
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  Speaker 3: the United States or to Israel, and let the Chinese
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  Speaker 3: ships get a free pass through the straits.
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  Speaker 2: Stephen, You've been doing this for a very long time,
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  Speaker 2: so I want you to take on it. Did the Americans
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  Speaker 2: make a mistake bombing those sites?
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  Speaker 3: Well, look, we're divided, The Prime minister is divided, the
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  Speaker 3: foreign ministers divided. Everyone is trying to be very kind
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  Speaker 3: to Donald Trump. We don't want nuclear weapons, so we
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  Speaker 3: approved in that respect. We don't want to invade other
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  Speaker 3: people's countries, so we disapproved in that respect. I think
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  Speaker 3: the world, I think New Zealanders are pretty divided on
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  Speaker 3: the whole question. So it's not an easy call. If
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  Speaker 3: it turns to custard the way the Iraq invasion did
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  Speaker 3: in two thousand and three and the Afghan invasion did,
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  Speaker 3: we will look back and say it was a terrible mistake. If, however,
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  Speaker 3: there is a regime change and the government, like Syrian
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  Speaker 3: government next door, suddenly becomes pro West and moderate will say, well,
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  Speaker 3: it wasn't a mistake. It was jolly good to put
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  Speaker 3: down the Iranians and relieve this dark shadow that's wafted
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  Speaker 3: over the Middle East since nineteen seventy nine, and you know,
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  Speaker 3: give Israel a break.
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  Speaker 2: Stephen, thank you very much on everything. I really appreciate
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  Speaker 2: your expertise that Stephen Hoadley, retired Professor.
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