Stephen Hoadley: international relations expert on whether Iran will close the Strait of Hormuz

Following the recent US strikes on Iran, experts have voiced concerns over whether Iran will close the Strait of Hormuz.

The strait is considered a significant oil 'choke point' with one fifth of global oil supplies and a third of liquefied natural gas passing through it.

International relations expert Stephen Hoadley says it's an option Iran's considering - and warns closing it will come with significant implications.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:09):
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Speaker 2 (00:16):
Let's get on to the most important stuff of the day.
After America's attack on Iran over the weekend, the big
question now is whether Iran will close the Strait of Homos.
Now twenty percent of the words world's oil is shipped
through this narrow straight it runs between the coasts of
Iran and Orman. Stephen Hoadley is a retired professor of
international relations and with us right now. Hey, Stephen, good evening, Heather, Stephen,

(00:37):
thank you for joining us. This is not going to happen,
is it now?

Speaker 3 (00:40):
Well, it may happen. It's all option, and even just
the threat of closing it would be enough to send
insurance rates higher to prevent other ships from entering. Apparently,
the number of ships in the Gulf has declined from
seven hundred and fifty to seven hundred and continuing to fall.
There is a lot of ships, A lot of companies

(01:02):
are simply not putting their ships into danger because they
anticipate the possibility of the closure of the strait.

Speaker 2 (01:10):
How would they actually close it.

Speaker 3 (01:13):
With military action? They put mines in the water. The
channels are only six kilometers wide, three kilometers one way
and three kilometers coming the other way. They've got fast
patrol boats armed with rough propelled grenades. They've got short
range artillery, they've short range missiles. There a variety of

(01:35):
things that could harass. Remember, an oil tanker is very vulnerable.
They're not armored, they're not armed. They could not withstand
even a small piece of artillery and they might burst
into flames. So those ships, skippers are going to stand back,
They're going to anchor out, they're going to stay away
from harm's way. That will be enough to send up

(01:58):
the price of oil.

Speaker 2 (02:00):
I see that Marco Rubio has gone on Fox today
and called on China to intervene here and have a
chat to Iran and stop this from happening. Would that work?

Speaker 3 (02:08):
Use society that are well, China's oil does come out
of the Strait from Iran. It's smuggled. Iran is under
strict sanction from the West, but of course they ignore
those sanctions. China does too, and gets oil from Russia
in the same way. But yeah, it would be interesting

(02:28):
to strange bedfellows the United States and China ganging up
on Iran to say don't close the straits or moose
the Chinese. I think do have a strong point. I
think they may prevail, and it could be that the
Iranians will be very selective in their targeting. If they do,
in fact target any ships, they can identify them one

(02:51):
by one. They can target them if they're related to
the United States or to Israel, and let the Chinese
ships get a free pass through the straits.

Speaker 2 (03:00):
Stephen, You've been doing this for a very long time,
so I want you to take on it. Did the Americans
make a mistake bombing those sites?

Speaker 3 (03:07):
Well, look, we're divided, The Prime minister is divided, the
foreign ministers divided. Everyone is trying to be very kind
to Donald Trump. We don't want nuclear weapons, so we
approved in that respect. We don't want to invade other
people's countries, so we disapproved in that respect. I think
the world, I think New Zealanders are pretty divided on
the whole question. So it's not an easy call. If

(03:31):
it turns to custard the way the Iraq invasion did
in two thousand and three and the Afghan invasion did,
we will look back and say it was a terrible mistake. If, however,
there is a regime change and the government, like Syrian
government next door, suddenly becomes pro West and moderate will say, well,
it wasn't a mistake. It was jolly good to put

(03:54):
down the Iranians and relieve this dark shadow that's wafted
over the Middle East since nineteen seventy nine, and you know,
give Israel a break.

Speaker 2 (04:07):
Stephen, thank you very much on everything. I really appreciate
your expertise that Stephen Hoadley, retired Professor.

Speaker 1 (04:12):
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