widening gulf
India, and the world, stand to su ffer if the US-Iran Persian Gulf stand-off gets out of hand
Strait O f Uncertainty
While economic hardship can
be plainly seen in Tehran’s
old bazaar, the defiant banner
is testimony to Iran’s
fighting spiritby Pranay SharmaT
hat the current US adminis-
tration has no use for volumes
of history is another matter, but
past experience shows impos-
ing ‘crippling sanctions’ to
force adv ersarial nations to fall
in line has seldom worked for ameri-
can presidents. armed interventions,
too, send out dire warnings across the
years. afg hanistan and Iraq are two
notable exa mples, where strong-arm
tactics had backfired devastatingly,
eff ects of which blight the region still.
As US President Donald Trump and his
team of hawkish advisors ratchet up war
rhetoric on Iran after the downing of an
US surveillance drone by the Iranian
Revo luti o n ary Guard Corps—an incident
pre c eded by attacks on several oil tankers
from unidentified sources in the Persian
Gulf—policy planners across the world
are watching the developments with
trepidation and a touch of scepticism.More than one-fifth of the world’s oil
passes through the Straits of Hormuz—
the 39 km-wide choke point that passes
from the Persian Gulf to the Straits of
Oman on to the Indian Ocean—making
the region’s stability and security a global
issue. The current turmoil has already
started affecting oil prices, pushing it up
to $65 dollars a barrel. The fear is, it could
rise further and growing tension could
affect the uninterrupted supply of oil.
The Trump administration has put Iran
under sanctions (top Iranian military and
civilian leaders were also specifically tar-
geted by sanctions after the drone inci-
dent) and used its economic clout with
other countries to stop them from buying
Iranian oil to choke Tehran. India is one
of the eight countries that have been
prevented from buying oil from Iran —
New Delhi’s third largest supplier.
India could be one of the worst affected
countries if the situation deteriora tes—
the Gulf is its major source for oil and
home to over seven million Indians. The
ap28 OutlOOk 8 July 2019