Scott Ritter is a former US Marine Corps intelligence officer and author of 'Disarmament in the Time of Perestroika: Arms Control and the End of the Soviet Union.' He served in the Soviet Union as an inspector implementing the INF Treaty, in General Schwarzkopf’s staff during the Gulf War, and from 1991-1998 as a UN weapons inspector.
Scott Ritter is a former US Marine Corps intelligence officer and author of 'Disarmament in the Time of Perestroika: Arms Control and the End of the Soviet Union.' He served in the Soviet Union as an inspector implementing the INF Treaty, in General Schwarzkopf’s staff during the Gulf War, and from 1991-1998 as a UN weapons inspector.
The US-Iran War is officially over. After months of back-and-forth negotiations, a finalized Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) has been signed by US President Donald Trump and his Iranian counterpart Masoud Pezeshkian, the fighting stopped, and shipping will resume at Iranian ports and through the Strait of Hormuz.
It is this last part that deserves more attention, because the entire focus of the American effort during the negotiation period boiled down to getting oil flowing freely once again through this choke point. As James Carvelle famously noted during former US President Bill Clinton’s 1992 election, “It’s the economy, stupid.”
The minutia of foreign policy can drive those elites in power, but to remain in power they need the support of the people on election day, and to get that support they need to attend to affairs of the wallet. It’s the economy, stupid.
The Israeli-driven military misadventure has ended in a strategic defeat for the United States. The inescapable irony is that the principle negotiating position of the US – the opening of the Strait of Hormuz – existed only because of this war. Before the US and Israel committed their combined act of perfidy back in February of this year, the Strait of Hormuz was open to all shipping, and there were no income-generating transit fees.
The nuclear issue, on which so much emphasis was placed at the start of this war, has evaporated, replaced by token references to common sense.
The US blockade is likewise dissipating. The MOU calls for it to be totally lifted in 30 days, along with the opening of the Strait of Hormuz. Because Trump needs the oil to flow. Now.
This is the ‘Hormuz Effect’, the reality attached to the fact that Iran’s control of this strategic waterway has empowered it like no nuclear weapon ever could. Iran will forever be positioned to squeeze the economic life out of the world. And there is nothing the US military can do about it.
While the rest of the world ponders the geopolitical consequences of American (and Israeli) imperial overreach, the resumption of the flow of oil out of the Persian Gulf is being touted as a masterstroke of US diplomacy, the epitome of presidential leadership, and the result of American grit, determination and military prowess.
Of course, all this is being done to get the American economy (and that of the world, since everything is interconnected these days) back on track, so that by September some impressive economic growth and prosperity statistics can be generated for an American audience unable and/or unwilling to ask the obvious questions, such as how is the return to an economic ‘normal’ that existed before Trump ordered the US military to attack Iran considered good policy?
Left unspoken will be the real economic costs of this war – the depletion of the US arsenal of precision-guided munitions, and the excessive replacement costs the US taxpayer will be called upon to bear. The billions of dollars in destroyed and damaged infrastructure throughout the Middle East.
And the lives lost – those of American servicemembers (a relatively small number), and those of the Iranian people (thousands, including the 165 children murdered while attending school in Minab).
There is no time for morality and common sense amongst the American people. They have money to spend – gas prices are down, and there is a consumer-driven life that must be led. Because it’s the economy, stupid.
This is the ‘Hormuz Effect’: the deliberate dumbing-down of a society driven more by the need to sustain an artificial cocoon of comfort than the necessity of building a foundation of moral and legal responsibility.
Because with responsibility comes the need for accountability, and no American will be called to account for the embarrassing defeat the US has suffered because of this war.
The world will now wrestle with the questions of how the US fits into a changing world order, and any President worth his salt would do the same. But this would require the ability to engage in constructive self-criticism.
Instead, the American population will be sold a non-existent victory while being unable to pick out the Strait of Hormuz on a map, let alone Minab. As long as the terms of the MOU hold, the American people may yet forget about the costs they have collectively paid for this Middle East debacle, and instead focus on the trickle of dollars diverted their way, as if this temporary thickening of the American wallet symbolizes the victory of a nation.
The ‘Hormuz Effect’ is the ultimate bribe for a people who have lost all self-respect. A people willing to sweep the crimes committed in their names under a carpet of illusory economic well-being.
The ‘Hormuz Effect’ is the ultimate symbol of the decline of the American dream.
The statements, views and opinions expressed in this column are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of RT.
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