Iran Fights Back on the Energy Front as Donald Trump Looks to ‘Finish the Job’

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From the opinion pages of the Wall Street Journal, this is Potomac Watch.

As the war in Iran closes in on the end of its second week

around strategy to fight back is becoming very clear.

Imposes much pain as possible on world energy markets.

So President Trump stops the bombing sooner than he had planned.

As the world oil price hits $100 a barrel.

Markets reel around the world.

Is that strategy working?

And what would victory for the US look like in this Iran conference?

Those are our questions for today.

I'm Potomac Watch. I'm Paul Gigo.

Here in the daily opinion podcast of Wall Street Journal opinion.

And I'm here with my colleague Elliott Kaufman.

So let's hear a summary, quick summary by Dan Kane,

the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff from Tuesday about the progress militarily that's being made.

Our strikes mean we've made significant progress in reducing the number of missile and drone attacks out of Iran.

Ballistic missile attacks continue to trend downward.

90% from where they've started.

And one way attack drone has decreased 83% since the beginning of the operation.

A testament to our air defenders and our air defense systems.

And as I said, our partners in the region continue to do great work as well.

Second, we're making substantial progress towards destroying the Navy.

In the first 10 days of the conflict were more than 50 Iranian naval ships into the campaign using a combination of artillery,

fighters, bombers, and sea launch missiles.

As Admiral Cooper noted last Thursday, we struck in sank and Iranian drone carrier ship.

And US sent comp continues today to hunt and strike mine laying vessels in mine storage facilities.

This this work will continue.

All right, Elliott, so sounds like a lot of progress.

And it is indeed, particularly on the ballistic missile front.

On the other hand, Iranian drones are still doing some damage, significant damage to shipping in the Gulf.

And some boats here on Thursday, as we talk, are aflame, some tankers aflame from having been hit.

Insurance costs are not going down, shipping through the Gulf vastly reduced.

And the oil markets around the world reflect that with Brent crude, the global benchmark,

seeding $100 a barrel.

And I think what we've seen is that US Iran's capabilities have diminished in the way that General Cain described.

Its priorities have narrowed, have focused, and have been fairly effective.

Because Iran is no longer shooting large numbers of missiles and drones at Israel.

It has his bala to do some of that, but it's not doing it itself.

It can't get those long range missiles enough of them at the same time to really make it worthwhile.

It's no longer really even shooting that many missiles or drones at the UAE, United Arab Emirates, as it was at the start of this conflict.

Those numbers are way down, and we've had three or four straight days of that.

But what it is doing is focusing the missiles and drones it has on energy infrastructure.

It has decided that is the pain point where it can really get banged for its buck.

It doesn't take that many drones.

It doesn't take that many hits at fairly short range to shut down a natural gas plant.

To shut down a half a Gulf country's oil production.

And through that it can affect prices, affect markets, and it hopes affect President Trump.

Iran's new Supreme Leader, the Ayatollah Mukhtada Hamini, son of the late Supreme Leader, was explicit on this point on Thursday.

And the statement didn't appear personally, probably because he's in a bunker somewhere.

But the issued a statement saying that Iran will indeed shut down oil traffic through the Strait of Hormuz, through which 20% of the world's oil flows.

And they'll do that until the bombing ceases.

Your point about attacking infrastructure is exactly right. They're attacking facilities in Iraq, the UAE, Qatar, and of course shipping that the tankers that are moving through.

The pain point is being inflicted, is being manifest in oil prices and supply.

One of the interesting things about this is that the US is fairly well supplied with oil because we're a big domestic producer.

And of course the same is true of liquefied natural gas, which we have become a big producer in the last decade and a big exporter in the last decade.

Oil exports, we didn't do at all until about 2015 because going back to the oil embargo of the 70s, we didn't export oil.

It was technically not banned, but in all practical purposes was. And that was lifted in 2015.

And now we're very substantial oil exporter, which is the supplies in which are helped to keep global prices down.

But particularly for Asia, their supplies are being reduced and the price for getting them are going up.

And that was one reason why it was very good to see Japan in particular release.

I think it was 80 million barrels of oil from its emergency reserve.

And do it not over four months as has been talked about by the US, but immediately and get that oil on the market.

That makes a difference for them.

But the stakes are very high now and you could say this is Iran's other nuclear option.

The nuclear program is one, but here, and it's been talked about for many years, what Iran can do to the global energy markets.

Hormuz, yes, production facilities in Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Bahrain, Oman, and so forth.

We're only seeing what we had feared about what Iran can do on this front.

A capability it's had all this time, and we're finding out just how threatening that there really was.

And the nature of it is as the military strategist say asymmetric.

That is, the Iranians are not fighting back plane for plane or missile for missile.

It's cheap drones versus naval shipping.

It's mines, and there's some debate about how much they've mined straight so far.

But it's a threat, and mining is relatively cheap.

And the damage, if an naval ship, an American naval ship would hit one of those substantial, not just in loss of life.

But of course, that would be paramount, but also just these ships are expensive.

And the US does not have a lot of demining ships.

We decommissioned the bulk of our fleet.

So there's been some controversy over comments by Chris Wright, the US Energy Secretary earlier in the week, said, well, we have begun escorting a tanker through the Gulf.

Well, had to take that back. It hasn't begun.

And now it seems that that is going to have to wait a week or two, or maybe more, as the Navy gains confidence that it can escort ships safely through the Gulf.

But that's described again the asymmetric nature of what Iran is doing.

And it's very significant, because if it succeeds in imposing these costs in such a way that the President and Israel feel they have to stop, either because they can't sustain the domestic political pressure, or fears of the election coming up, the midterms, and what high costs of gas would do, gasoline.

Or pressure from the rest of the world, then that would be, I think, a pretty big victory for Iran, potentially a victory.

Now it's standing all the damage being done to its military infrastructure.

That right there is how Iran could win this war.

That is probably its only path right now it looks like to victory.

Because if you look at all the other facets of this war, you see steady continuing American-Israeli progress on the missile front, on the drone front, on missile production, attacking regime targets,

where even seeing now a few strikes on the remaining nuclear targets, a few also remain on that front.

But the U.S. and Israel appear to be carrying out their planned four to five-week campaign and proceeding well-apace.

They have aerial supremacy, they can do what they want, strike whatever assets they see.

They can do that methodically and weaken Iran's capabilities if they can sustain and deal with the pain on this one front, where you have a very difficult technical issue, how to get the tankers possibly escorted by U.S. Navy ships across a very narrow straight.

So can they outlast that one week, two weeks, even three weeks of time to solve that problem in order to allow them to continue striking everything else?

Alright, we're going to take a break and when we come back we're going to listen to the president talk about his timetable for when he thinks this war could end.

Energy demand is rising, what we built today will help secure more affordable, reliable future.

Let's make it possible, visit permittingreformnow.org to learn more, paid for by the American Petroleum Institute.

Welcome back, I'm Paul Gigo here with the Potomac Watch, the daily podcast of Wall Street Journal Opinion and I'm here with Elliot Kaufman, my editorial page colleague.

Alright, let's listen to President Trump in Kentucky on Wednesday talk about when this could end.

As we end this threat to America and this threat to the world, we don't want to leave early, do we?

We got to finish the job, right?

Over the past 11 days, our military has virtually destroyed Iran.

Tough country.

Their Air Force has gone, totally gone, that took the better part of about three hours.

They no longer have radar, they don't have anti-aircraft equipment, they don't have anything, their missiles are down 90%, their drones are down 85%, we're blowing up the factories where they're made left and right.

Well, even if those details are correct, it doesn't end the threat, the problem is they still get a lot of drones and they're causing some damage there.

But an interesting message to President said we have to finish the job and that is crucial, we don't know exactly how he defines that, as he often does, he sends inconsistent messages on this war.

At one point he said, well, we basically already won and then Justin said, well, but we still aren't winning enough.

No definition of how that is other time he says, well, it's just going to take another week or two.

But then you're sending a message to Iran when you say that, they can just keep another week or two of fighting back and last the President's patience here with the war.

So it's interesting, he does seem to understand that he can't end this war prematurely.

On the other hand, the pressure is going to bill if gas prices rise up to $4 a gallon or so.

I think they're kind of mid-threes now on average nationwide, higher, of course, in states like California where they have their own bad policies to explain for that.

The question for you, Elliott, in this context of the President's staying power and just making sure that Iran does not emerge from this with what I would call a veto on energy markets, a veto over exports from the Gulf.

And that is, why are we letting Iranian ships carrying oil through the Gulf?

And most of that goes to China, that's still happening.

And we haven't seized Carg Island, which is where it's the major export terminal for Iranian exports.

Why are we not seizing those even as Iran is blocking oil exports from other countries or allies in the region?

In other words, why should Iran be the only country able to sell oil out of this area of the world?

It's a good question. I think the reasons that would be offered are, first of all, if it can help global energy markets, then it's one way to help sustain the larger campaign, just to get barrels of oil out of there going somewhere.

China, unfortunately, but somewhere. The other reason is, well, if Iranian tankers are transiting this area, then Iran can't mine the whole area.

So that's another important reason, especially as the US military now focuses in on destroying some of those mine laying ships and boats.

As it does more of that, you could see American tactics change and start thinking maybe Iranian tankers allowed all of a sudden.

That's one way. Another way would be to capture Carg Island. So this is risky involving ground forces, and then they might have to hold it.

But this is Iran's major export terminal. Some 90% of Iranian oil exports come out of there. We could take that.

We could also blow it up, which again, you might not want it, you know, could hurt Iran in the future, even under some other regime, which isn't our enemy.

But this one is our enemy, and it would certainly hurt their ability during and also after the war to keep their grip on power and pay all of the regime officials and thugs they need to keep in line.

And so there are many options there. My sense is that President Trump himself has some understanding, as we heard, that we're not quite there yet.

The risk is, okay, maybe now it's fine to say we've won, but we need more time to win even more. What about a week from now? When they say President Trump, didn't you say a week ago?

It's all over. We destroyed them. We won. Didn't you say that two weeks ago? These statements could begin to become liabilities. I want to watch that.

Yeah, I think it's a very fair point, because what you need to do is you need to keep the public on your side.

We're going to take another break, and when we come back, we will talk about what the President's timetable for ending this war might be.

Energy demand is rising. What we built today will help secure more affordable, reliable future. Let's make it possible.

Visit permittingreformnow.org to learn more, paid for by the American Petroleum Institute.

Don't forget you can reach the latest episode of Potomac Watch anytime. Just ask your smart speaker. Play the opinion Potomac Watch podcast. That is play the opinion Potomac Watch podcast.

From the opinion pages of the Wall Street Journal, this is Potomac Watch.

Welcome back on pause. You go here with Wall Street Journal opinion. I'm Potomac Watch, and I'm here with my colleague, Elliott Kaufman.

Elite opinion, certainly in Europe, and certainly in the press, and nearly all of the Democratic Party, except for Senator John Federman of Pennsylvania, is we oppose this war.

We think it's going to be a catastrophe. So it should end immediately, no matter what the consequences are, which we will blame on Trump in any event.

So he's got those obstacles in his way to try to persuade America, but he needs a consistent message, I think, that says here's our war aims.

Here's how we're making progress towards them, and here's what we still need to do without putting a particular timeline on it, because the more you put a timeline on it, then the enemy also gets a vote.

Well, we just have to outlast him till March 31st, and that is a signal you don't want to send.

I keep going back, as I think about this president, and why he's taking this enormous risk in a war, and he is taking a risk.

In some ways, it's one of the more principled risks he's taken the whole time, because he seems to believe Iran is a threat, and if he was doing it because he thought it was popular, well, it isn't.

From the start, the polling hasn't been good. He used to criticize and has criticized consistently previous presidents for not fighting wars to win.

He likes to say, well, we won World War I, we won World War II, we used to win wars, but in recent decades, we just haven't fought to win.

We didn't fight that way in Korea, Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan, etc. If you're going to fight a war, fight to win.

Well, here we are, Mr. President. Are you going to fight this one to win? And you're going to do what it takes to win, and even if that means escalating in order to do it, because as the war has evolved, sometimes your war aims have to evolve with the shape of the war, because of how the enemy responds.

And the President of the top said, well, we want to destroy the nuclear program. We want to destroy their missile production, their stockpiles, and their ability to produce and launchers, and we want to destroy their navy.

And we hope that maybe the regime will fall if the Iranian people will seize the moment. Those were the initial war aims, but now the way that Iran has proceeded to make energy and energy vulnerability of the West a major issue.

He has to take that on and solve that problem before he can claim victory, I think. What do you think?

I think that's right. What it means to win wasn't so well understood at the outset. And there were some confusing statements about that, but I think we've gained some more clarity. And as you say, it's also changed a little bit.

So victory doesn't require regime change on our timetable, on the four to five week schedule that we have for it. And if that doesn't happen, that certainly doesn't mean it was a failure.

The goals were degrade Iran's capabilities, reduce the threat from Iran as much as you can, and then put the Iranian people in a situation to push for regime change.

And I think the US and Israel are well on their way to doing all of that. But now that energy is so at the heart of this. And now that Iran has played all of those cards and showed that it could do this some other time as well at an even less opportune moment for the US.

I think the US has to reopen. That's right. Has to show that Iran won't be able to hold us hostage once again via global energy markets. And so that has more or less become part of what it means to win this war.

Right. So that at any time Iran decides, OK, we would like to have the price of we'll go up to $100 or $110. And all we have to do is take out a few tankers or bombs and infrastructure. And the only way the US could respond to that would be with another bombing campaign in Iran.

That just can't be a state of affairs that is allowed to happen after this. Otherwise, the Iranians will say, look, we ended up prevailing. And they might have a case for saying we can now determine events ourselves through how we handle energy through the Gulf rather than being hostage to whatever the United States decides to do.

The pipelines, Saudi pipeline that goes to the Red Sea, we're going to need more of those, I think, in the future. That provides what is at about one third of a can make up about one third of the tanker oil traffic. But the price would be a lot lower right now in this crisis if we had pipeline that could send the oil instead of having tankers send the oil.

But there's asymmetric military problem with drones and cheap drones. And mine is a big one that the United States has to address and Trump has to think about here as the war moves ahead. All right. Thank you, Elliot Kaufman. I good to see you as always. Thank you all for listening. We are here every day on Potomac Watch.

Thank you.