Tolling the Strait. Is Iran acting with reason in a Trumpian world?
· Michael West
To some, it may be heresy, but charging tolls for passage through the Strait of Hormuz looks reasonable in a Trumpian world, Michael Pascoe argues.
Visit mchezo.life for more information.
If, unlike Richard Marles, you accept that the US has annihilated the “international rules-based order” and that under Trump’s rules, whatever you can get away with is now legal, Iran’s tolling ships passing through its territorial waters seems relatively reasonable.
Most immediately, the idea of opening the Strait while the US blockades Iranian ports is Trump-level insanity.
In the near-immediate term, the tolls are cheap.
The standard scary headline for the tolls – and the headline almost all people read – has been that Iran demands $2m per ship. That is misleading. That’s about how much for a supertanker, as Iran is seeking ($) $US1 a barrel for oil (about $US 7 per tonne). The toll for most ships obviously is much cheaper.
In any event, that $1 a barrel is less than one per cent of what oil is selling for and would come out of the rich profits oil producers are reaping in present circumstances. The toll would not add to the price of oil as the price is set by the usual interaction of supply and demand in a supply-constrained environment.
If you want cheaper oil and fertiliser and all the rest, you’d do whatever it takes to open the strait and end blockades. Paying a toll and ending the blockade is quicker and cheaper, especially in terms of human life, than continuing the war.
As for the “legality” of such a toll, there are international lawyers who support Iran’s case. Yes, there are always lawyers arguing any case, but the key element is that Iran, like the US and Israel, has never ratified the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) under which tolling would be illegal.
The Economist reports that most – but not all – legal experts argue “the right of innocent passage” predated UNCLOS and had become customary international law. Basically, “it’s the vibe” when said vibe is
enforced by those with the power to do so over those without the power to resist.
Google customary international law (CIL) and you’ll get examples such as upholding state sovereignty and diplomatic immunity and prohibiting genocide, non-refoulement and torture, all of which the US and/or Israel are accused of breaching without penalty.
Tolls vs piracy
When it comes to CIL maritime customs, the US, for example, indulges in acts of piracy, seizing ships on the high seas, because it gives itself the power to unilaterally sanction any nation or person it wants to. So much for maritime customs.
It has ever been thus. Britain’s state-sanctioned piracy against the Spanish was crucial to Queen Elizabeth I’s government finances. Liz herself was a direct investor in pirate operations. Queen Liz, King Donald, same same.
(The most egregious and blatant current example of the Trump gang breaking the diplomatic CIL is its sanctioning of UN Special Rapporteur Francesca Albanese.)
When it comes to the vibe of Iran tolling, those in favour cite the fees on the Suez and Panama canals and Turkey’s Bosporus and Dardanelles. The canals are rather different, being constructed as national infrastructure, but I’ll come back to the Suez case.
The Turkish straits are entirely within Turkey’s territorial waters, are covered by their own 1936 treaty and are excluded from UNCLOS.
The Straits of Hormuz, of course, are shared by Iran and Oman, so to be relatively acceptable, Iran could only toll ships passing through its waters and not impede or threaten those in Oman’s. In normal times, at the narrowest part, ships sail in on the Oman side and out through Iranian waters.
But other than Trump-style “because it can”, what basis could there be for Iranian tolls?
A reconstruction toll
The massive damage inflicted on Iran’s infrastructure by the illegal American/Israeli war will need to be repaired. The chances of winning reparations from the US and Israel are Buckley’s.
It strikes me as reasonable that the tolls for reconstruction and avoiding an international recession shouldn’t be seen as unreasonable by nations that approved the illegal war being launched
(I’m looking at you, Anthony Albanese)
or assisted US military actions or at least didn’t speak against the war, so that’s just about everybody. But again, the only real cost to nations would be a little less tax revenue on oil producers’ fat profits being slightly reduced.
Singapore’s Foreign Minister has made a strong case for not negotiating safe passage tolls as a matter of principle, which is reassuring as the Straits of Malacca carry vastly more traffic of importance to us.
But America has been undermining “principles” for decades,
with Trump finally smashing whatever remained of the rules-based edifice.
And, everything being relative now, there’s the principle of paying tolls to a country that has been attacked compared with the principle of easing sanctions (effectively paying) a country that is doing the attacking, as the US is again with Russian oil.
The cost, financial and human, of naval action to open and keep open the Strait would be greater for taxpayers than paying the tolls.
Codifying a temporary “reconstruction” toll system could be an important part of actually achieving peace in the region, maybe even returning to the basis of the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action that Trump destroyed in 2018.
But no US agreements are worth the Sharpie marker they might’ve been signed with.
The Suez precedent
Meanwhile, back at the 1956 Suez Crisis triggered by President Nasser nationalising the canal, the attack on Egypt by the UK, France and Israel was militarily successful and a complete failure for the old imperial powers. The attackers withdrew, and Egypt kept the canal. It is generally seen as the humiliating end of Britain’s imperial pretensions, the beginning of the end of Britain “East of Suez”.
Three years earlier, the UK and US had conspired to overthrow Iran’s secular democratic government in a coup to install the Shah as their puppet despot after the government nationalised the British-controlled oil industry.*
The wheels of the Karma bus may turn slowly, but the bus still comes around.
As previously suggested here, Trump’s Iranian “excursion” should hasten America’s withdrawal from the Middle East and end up being America’s equivalent of the Suez Crisis.
Orban’s demise a win for EU, and a big loss for Benjamin Netanyahu
The wars in Gaza, Lebanon and Iran have massively weakened Americans’ approval of Israel. With Trump crowing that the US no longer needs Middle East oil, not just the MAGA brigade can wonder why it still maintains a score of military bases and between 40,000 and 50,000 personnel across the Middle East, plus the odd carrier task force.
Trump’s challenge to leave the Straits of Hormuz issue to Australia and the other nations that he claims didn’t “help” him attack Iran could be reasonably resolved through diplomacy and tolls.
Call them temporary, call them pilot fees, call them reconstruction contributions, call them anything you like – pragmatism can work when laws no longer do.
Historical footnote:
It was Australian money that discovered oil in Persia, which established the Anglo-Persian Oil Company that became BP. William D’Arcy was 17 when his family migrated from England to Australia in 1866. Sixteen years later, he was a solicitor in Rockhampton and became a partner in a mining venture that became Mount Morgan Gold Company and made D’Arcy, the largest shareholder, fabulously rich. He took his fortune back to England to spend on stately homes, the good life and financing oil exploration in Persia. As part of the “Great Game” between Britain and Russia, the Britain Government supported D’Arcy’s negotiations with the Shah to secure an oil concession over most of the country. D’Arcy was facing bankruptcy when a final well, drilled against instructions to stop, struck the black gold. But that’s another story.
The Madness of Trump. What’s his next criminal outrage gonna’ be?