If Iran resists, the global economy will pay |
Western governments, including Australia and New Zealand, have backed US and Israeli strikes on Iran. But the decision risks economic catastrophe, regional escalation and the further erosion of international law.
Western countries, including Australia and New Zealand, were quick to line up to support the US-Israeli blitzkrieg on the Islamic Republic of Iran launched this weekend. They were effectively throwing international law into a cauldron of blood and mayhem. These same Western powers – and the Gulf Arab states that stand with them – may soon come to regret it.
Should the Iranian state survive the terrifying onslaught, it has vowed to strike back in ways that could crash the global economy.
Two early signs of their potential to do so are the closure of all the civilian airports in the Gulf and the effective closure by Iran of the Strait of Hormuz. The first one stops the daily movement of 500,000 international passengers through Doha, Abu Dhabi, Dubai and other airports, the second cuts off the shipment of 21 million barrels of oil and gas a day (20 per cent of global daily requirements). The knock-on effects of a prolonged war are almost incalculable but as I pointed out in a recent article if Iran manages to resist the most powerful military in the world, the shockwaves will soon transfer to our own economies.
Countries like Australia and New Zealand may end up on the losing end of a bidding war for oil, LNG and agricultural petrochemicals if the Strait of Hormuz remains closed. One should remember that Iran has many thousands of short range missiles and countless mines sprinkled along its coastline which will be all-but-impossible to suppress.
For the moment, the assassination of the Supreme........