...The Chokepoint Owned by Iran

of all the oil America uses comes from OPEC countries, one-seventh from Arab OPEC countries, and one tenth from our pugnacious neighbor to the south, Venezuela.

Its nuclear ambitions make the headlines, but the more immediate danger is its geography. All of the Persian Gulf countries ship their oil – 30% of world supply – through the Strait of Hormuz at the entrance to the Gulf, a waterway as little as 21 miles wide with Iran looming over its northern shore in the shape of an open hand poised to choke.

There have been threats in the past to do just that: to mine the strait or to sink ships to block its channels, which would have devastating consequences for the world’s economies. There were reports in 2006 that Iran's Revolutionary Guard had prepared for a massive assault on U.S. naval forces and international shipping in the Persian Gulf to disrupt trade. This would be triggered should Israel or the U.S. attempt to halt Iran’s nuclear program. The strait is reportedly targeted by Iran with anti-ship missiles.

In early January five speedboats taunted three U.S. warships entering the Gulf in a provocative action that almost drew our fire. Speedboats may seem to be no match for powerful naval ships, until one remembers that an even lesser suicide craft blew a hole in the destroyer USS Cole, when it was docked in Yemen in October 2000, killing 17 sailors. More ominous still, a war game conducted in 2002 showed that warships are disturbingly vulnerable to waterborne guerilla tactics. In that simulation a Navy convoy lost 16 major ships, including an aircraft carrier, in a matter of minutes to a “swarm” of such speedboats.

It is not difficult to imagine that this startling result inspired the recent speedboat probe as a trial run to test our Navy’s reaction. What if we were to retaliate, or attack Iran over the nuclear issue? As a country that provides 4.9% of the world’s oil, Iran has us in something of a bind.

Saudi Arabia is not directly hostile to the U.S. Indeed, President Bush is in the kingdom as this is written, and is promoting a $20 billion arms deal as a bulwark against rising Iranian aggression. But, as we are so often reminded, the country gave us bin Laden and 15 of the 19 9/11 hijackers; it is founded on the conservative Wahabi branch of Sunni Islam that funds madrassas throughout the Middle East where youths learn little other than to recite the Koran and to hate Great Satan America; its private charities are known to support Al Qaeda; and its mosques have