Iran talks called off for now
Witcoff and Kushner can unpack their bags. Then again, maybe they always keep an Islamabad bag packed, just in case. But another round of talks with Iran seems like a waste of jet fuel at this point, so the cancellation appears wise.
The gist of what I’m been reading lately – whether it is correct or incorrect – says that the economic screws we’ve been tightening on Iran right now seem to be having the desired effect:
Iran is scrambling to get a massive crude carrier to Kharg Island, in a sign that President Trump’s blockade is bringing the regime’s oil-critical hub — which controls roughly 90% of Iranian crude oil exports — to the brink, according to a report.
Tehran has been forced to take a 30-year-old oil tanker, Nasha, out of retirement as Kharg Island nears its maximum onshore capacity, Gulf News reported Friday.
The vessel, which has been anchored empty for the past several years, is being revived as floating storage for Iran’s teeming crude supply, the outlet reported. …
The frantic move comes as Kharg Island’s remaining spare storage could fill up in just 12 to 13 days, with Iran’s net oil inflow running around 1 million barrels per day, analysts told Gulf News. …
Trump threatened to finish the war “militarily with the other 25% of the targets” if Iranian leaders “don’t want to make a deal,” he warned Thursday.
I doubt he’ll do more bombing if he thinks Iran really is on the brink of economic collapse in a way that threatens the regime. The oil reserves are a big big deal in this sense. The link I just gave is to a CNN article which I chose because it offers a relatively gloomy estimate for amount of time it will take; other source say it would be shorter, a matter of weeks. But the principle is the same:
If the country cannot shift the millions of barrels of oil it produces daily, it could be forced to cut production. Crude oil and petroleum product exports are Iran’s primary source of foreign currency.
Iran could probably sustain current oil production for another two to three months before storage issues become “a significant consideration,” Batmanghelidj said.
Iran also still has plenty of oil storage space remaining onshore, shipping analytics firm Kpler said, noting it has almost 30 million barrels of headroom, which means it’s still weeks away from its limit.
It could even push storage capacity longer if it finds other methods of offloading the stored oil.
One option Iran is exploring is using its retired crude tankers.
The CNN article omits this sort of thing about what “shutting down” might actually mean:
This is a well-known technical challenge in petroleum engineering. If Iran were to deliberately curtail or shut in production across its major fields, water infiltration (also called water influx or water encroachment) would be a serious and potentially irreversible problem. Here’s why:
The Core Mechanics
Most of Iran’s giant fields — Ahvaz, Gachsaran, Marun, Aghajari — are carbonate reservoirs under natural water drive. Aquifers underlying or flanking the reservoir rock are under pressure, and they push water upward into the pore space as oil is produced. When you stop producing oil, you remove the pressure sink that was keeping water at bay. The aquifer doesn’t stop — it keeps pushing.
Much more of the technical stuff can be found at the link to the tweet. Suffice to say it probably would be a major, perhaps permanent, problem.
Trump and Netanyahu have the task of balancing harm to the current regime against harm to the people of a future Iran. They want to maximize the former and minimize the latter, if possible.
If possible finish it.
Meanwhile, in the toxic clown show that is the Democratic Party’s version of reality…
“How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Feed the Jews to the Mob;
“The Democratic Party Embraces Third Worldism”—
https://critiqueanddigest.substack.com/p/how-i-learned-to-stop-worrying-and
H/T Powerline blog.
when it involved the UAE and the Kingdom, CNN and other outfit, were much less oblique, (why would that be), was this the sunk cost, that the Autopen imposed on much of our domestic capacity, when they closed off extraction on federal property, and damage the reservoir tanks with the draw down
the Times is remarkably uncurious, but so are the counterparts across the pond, which are nearly as myopic
“Iran also still has plenty of oil storage space remaining onshore”
That situation can easily be reversed. In fact, absent regime change, ruining Iran’s carbonate oil reservoirs might be the best way to curtail the Iran’s support for terrorism. Iran has spent 100s of millions in support of its terrorist proxies.
here’s an interesting twist,
https://www.thetimes.com/uk/crime/article/iran-international-tv-spy-freed-espionage-london-bnht6m3hp
why would a Chechen who are predominantly Sunni be spying for Iran,
I’m not sure I understand why shutting down the oil pumps will cause such catastrophic damage to the oil wells but conventional wisdom says it most certainly will. In some cases the damage will be permanent. Maybe an animated short would explain so even I can see it. Meanwhile if the regime still has “plenty of oil storage space”, the question is why haven’t these storage facilities been destroyed? It would be much easier to construct new facilities after the fighting is done because the giant tankers will be transporting newly pumped oil to wherever. We just haven’t been made aware of why these facilities are still left standing.
chazzand, from what I have read, shutting down the wells mean shutting down the pumps. Then, water fills the wells, and all sorts of bad stuff starts happening. They are very hard to operate again.
Actually, I will ask my Brother, he works in the Texas Oil fields.
As to Iran, the IRGC needs to be destroyed, otherwise Iran will not change. Bomb the you know what out of them. Sink any ship, boat, zodiac, dinghy, row boat, rubber raft that Iran has.
Hope some read this. Maybe Neo can post this in another posting.
Life in Trehan.
https://x.com/ItsDecado/status/2048092005922701388
I’m beginning to have some small doubt about the administration’s strategy here. To me, kinetic action along with the blockade would be the fastest way to the endpoint. Is this waiting, waiting, waiting, just to appease the US population?
Patience is a virtue, but I’m becoming quickly less virtuous.
Physicsguy, why bomb when you can destroy them with economics. This is a checkmate move. No need to bomb or invade.
Whats your hurry??
I have trouble seeing a 30 year old tanker as particularly old, although I grew up on the Great Lakes, and thanks to the peculiarities of the maritime laws there (including the Jones Act,) 30 is not very old at all for a Laker, with a substantial portion of that fleet having passed the half-century mark.
Although it’s certainly worth noting that fresh water is rather less corrosive than the salt.
Re: Waiting in Iran
My understanding is that it is, at least partially, to get around the strictures of the War Powers Act without getting Congress involved. Stopping combat operations resets the clock, or so multiple previous administrations have argued, and the longer the ceasefire the better that argument becomes.
@ physicsguy – Based on past form, President Trump is waiting FOR something, but whether it is coming from Iran, America, or some country (countries?) in the Middle East is not showing up on my Magic 8 Ball.
In re the wells, the link Neo posted is a reply to a very lengthy, and IMO very interesting, observation about the basic situation regarding Iran’s resources, and Trump’s team’s expertise.
I didn’t see an easy way to cut the Xweet without ruining Brode’s argument.
https://x.com/Gary_Brode/status/2046958281693024315
I had read about the Millennium Challenge and the Navy’s “cheating” response some time ago while doing some military-related research.
There were certainly understandable reasons for restarting the game, because the forces were “booked” for thirteen more days, but see the Wikipedia article for pros and cons of the way that continuance was structured.
Forcing your opponent to lose so you can keep going is maybe not the best way to learn from your gaming exercises.
Only James Tiberius Kirk is allowed to use the Kobayashi Maru gambit.
I wonder if the drastic loss of the US forces in the Challenge influenced some presidential decisions, then and later, since Iran (or whoever) would NOT be reading from the US script, and there was not a lot of appetite in DC for changing the parameters of the conflict in the way that was allegedly required for a genuine victory.
.
If you can’t beat ’em, pay ’em off?
Reading through the details in the Wikipedia article, it seems to me that Trump’s Team did indeed learn at least some of the correct lessons from the exercise, one of those being “don’t telegraph your position, your forces, or your exact intent.”
If Turtler is around tonight, I suspect he can elucidate.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Millennium_Challenge_2002
https://mises.org/power-market/our-no-win-kobayashi-maru-economy
@ Barry – thanks (I think!) for the link to “The Democratic Party Embraces Third Worldism”— it was somewhat frighteningly incisive.
Mansour’s conclusion is well supported by his argument.
@ SHIREHOME – why in the world would that person go back to Tehran in the middle of a war??
I had a conversation with Grok about that several days ago. Iran mostly manages its own wells, so they have internal expertise, but they only deal with a hundred or two a year. The wells are mostly in fractured carbonates, so water can pass easily. There are going to be thousands of wells needing work. Iran can recover many, but it is going to be a long grind.