Hello, Tumblrites of all stripes, it is I, the Economy Side of Tumblr. Now that Orban’s defeat has restored some of my reserve of mental spoons, I can make a post about one aspect of the Iranian crisis. Just one though. I don’t think I can stomach doing more right now.
So then, what shall I speak of this day ? Naval transit and straits. Yep, we’re going for the high engagement, high octane, passion-ablazing topics today. But actually … it’s very much a subject, and one worth looking at.
It is indeed a map. With plenty of purple and turquoise strings on it. Very pretty, slightly psychedelic, and for the artistically inclined, maybe reminiscent of a black light painting. So, what is and what do ?
Well, this is a map of maritime trafic. Where there’s a line, there’s a ship. Or was. Ships have this tendency to move, it’s apparently very common among vehicles. The lighter the string, the more ships go there. So you have plenty of purple lines that are, yes, not very commonly used. And then you have the turquoise lines that are very very used.
OK, so what’s the link to the Iran crisis ? I’ll give it to you straight : the straits. No, I’m not talking about the sexual orientation, I know we’re on tumblr, but last I heard, geological formations do not have sexual orientations. Or if they do have one, they aren’t telling. Besides, how do you even confuse straight and strait when it’s in writing ?
As you may have heard or, if you don’t look at the news, as you may be learning now, the Strait of Hormuz is closed right now. There was a small period of almost opening, but it is now closed again and the US apparently want to blockade it. While the Iranians also blockade it. Iran and the US are having a kind of blockade off. And that’s actually bery fucked and stress inducing, to be quite honest with you, dear tumblrites.
Moving on closer to our topic, one of the points the Iranians insist on in order to reopen the strait is a toll. Related professions have taken to jokingly call the Strait the Ayatollbooth, but make no mistake, they hate everything about it. And hopefully, by the time you’re finished with this, you too will understand why everything about it is hateable.
Now, I know there are people here that think that would be amazing and great and fantastic, because it would give Iran money to improve life and hel – no actually, I’m not going to humour that idea any further. If you think the Islamic Republic of Iran would spend that money on their own people instead of using it to prop up terror proxies you are being willfully naive and obtuse. I’d like to remind you that they prioritized funding Hezbollah (AKA fuck what all the other Lebanese want, I wanna bomb Israel) or the Houthis (AKA sexual and chattel slavery, at all time of year, at all time of day, localized entirely in the north of Yemen), over making sure Tehran had goddamn tap water.
Now that that is established, let’s look back at the map. What do you notice ? Yes, indeed, there are quite a few straits on the map, good observation. Yes, another good answer, many of those straits are covered in turquoise ship trails, so there’s a lot of trafic, very good. Now, can anyone in class guess why I’m bringing it up in relation to the Hormuz toll idea ? Yes, yes, very good, international law is very much vulnerable to precedent-setting events, indeed, man you guys are good today.
So yes, if Iran does get to install a toll on Hormuz … what about the other straits ? If there’s a toll on one strait, why not on the others ? How large does the strait have to be ? How long ? What are the conditions ? How is the price of passage fixed ?
For canals, like Panama or Suez, they’re on national land, an artificial waterway that requires maintenance and reduces the available territory of a nation, so a toll makes sense, but straits ? Those are sea-ways, there was no land lost. And freedom of navigation has been a thing for … well … a fuck ass long time. If we start putting tolls on straits, that’s a knife to the ribs of freedom of navigation, and the implications are … urgh
Let’s clarify : if a precedent is established that allows a state to demand payment for the use of a natural waterway, what’s stopping Spain and Morrocco from demanding payment for going through Gibraltar ? What’s stopping Japan to demand payment for going through the Tsugaru strait ? Or Indonesia and Malaysia for the strait of Malacca ? France and the UK for the Channel ?
What do you think the effect of that shitshow would be on the worldwide economy ? How horribly would prices increase ? And on damn near everything. Inflation would ravage all economies.
"« "A small price to pay to fight capitalis..." - PEOPLE WOULD DIE. MANY people would die. This kind of nonsense would impose tremendous inflation and impoverish everyone, but especially those states with less favourable exchange rates, AKA most of Africa, parts of Asia and parts of South America. And with the increase in poverty, that means a lowered ability to have consistent access to food, which itself would be compounded by the reduction in harvest yields due to lower accessibility of fertilizers. If you thought the fertilizer crisis that’s coming from Hormuz being closed is bad, I am sorry to inform you it would be preferable to the costs if all straits got tolls.
The world economy is a complex and complicated balancing act, and freedom of navigation is one of its main points of support. If that falls, the world economy gets destabilized, and people will die. Add to it that then, some self-declared genius would propose to put tolls on peninsulas as capes, at which point someone would have to pick up a shotgun and exercise their right to self defence to put the idea to rest.
So, yeah, that’s why the Ayatollbooth is a horrible idea and needs to die immediately. I will never forgive Trump and Netanyahu for putting Iran in a position where they can start making that kind of demand, and I’ll never forgive the ayatollahs and the IRGC for making that demand.
