Supply chain constraints are inevitable during wartime. Shippers are actively avoiding the Strait of Hormuz that connects the Persian Gulf to the Arabian Sea amid the Iranian nuclear tensions. This is a significant disruption as around 20% of global oil is funneled through this passageway.
Oman’s Musandam Peninsula hosts a narrow passageway with Iran that is only 30 miles wide but large enough for mass oil tankers to navigate. These strategic route allows for the shipment of around 21 million barrels per day. One-third of global liquefied natural gas (LNG) primarily from Qatar, rely on this crucial route. An estimated $1.7 billion of oil can pass through this channel on an average day, and any disruption has the ability to cause ripples throughout the global economy.
The United States, India, China, Japan, and South Korea are among the many developed economies that rely on this strait for its energy needs. Even a temporary pause in shipments would cause oil prices to skyrocket and disturb international trade. Iran has repeatedly used this passageway as leverage in negotiations. The Iranian government is well aware of the power it wields and have threatened to prevent passage during times of unrest and sanctions.
I provided the declassified documents for the Ben Gurion Canal Project—a trade route through Palestine and Israel that could only be created by obliterating Gaza. Declassified documents reveal that the US Department of Energy was planning to take extreme measures to make this canal possible. On July 1, 1963, a plan was outlined to create the Israeli Canal by detonating 520 underground nuclear explosions throughout the Negev Desert. “Such a canal would be a strategically valuable alternate to the present Suez Canal and would probably contribute greatly to the economic development of the surrounding area,” the declassified document stated.
The West does not want Egypt and, therefore, Russia to have control over world trade and the movement of goods. Disruptions to the Strait of Hormuz would amplify the need for a Western-controlled trade route through the Middle East.
The U.S. Navy’s Fifth Fleet is closely monitoring the situation and has found that the number of ships passing through the strait has drastically reduced in a matter of days since the US first attacked Iran. Bimco, a corporation that represents major global shippers, reported a notable downtick in movement. “Before the US attack, the impact on shipping patterns was limited,” Bimco’s Larsen said. “Now, after the US attack, we have indications that the number of ships passing is reducing. If we begin to see Iranian attacks on shipping, it will most likely further reduce the number of ships transiting through the [Strait of Hormuz],” he added.
The incentive for a false flag event or attack is tremendous. Again, the United States has been concocting methods to implement the Ben Gurion Project for nearly 60 years. Detonating underground nuclear weapons in Gaza is not something that the international community would permit. Unless, of course, countless nations began facing energy shortages, the price of oil soared to the point of imploding government budgets, and trade as a whole began to plummet. A full-scale global energy crisis could be exactly what the US and Israel need to explode ground on the Ben Gurion Canal Project.
