Again you've given no hard evidence of this capability. Closing the straights requires at least the ability to control the sea in the sea in the straights.
They can't close the Strait (I didn't word my response right the first time). But they can greatly disrupt shipping for an extended period of time. Like I said before if just a few tankers were hit and people knew that for sure the Strait was mined, not alot of people are going to be willing to go through there.
Well whose oil tankers are they sinking?
Although this may seem unusual, the Saudi public has alot for support for Iran. They are held in high esteem for standing up to the US and Israel.
If the Saudi government chooses to involve itself in any type of "tanker war" in the Strait it is unnecessarily risking further unpopularity with its own people.
USAF doesn't have strike capabilities against ships? What you mean the B-52's, and B-1's can't carry anti-ship missiles?
Do you think that USAF is actually going to send B-1's and B-52's when the USN and USMC are perfectly capable of doing that with less important planes?
The only USAF asset that would be of real value to an attack over Iran is the F-15E (and not for anti-shipping).
So it's a matter of getting a decent size naval force to clean up the potential early war minefields.
This where it gets tricky.
"Closing Time: Assessing the Iranian Threat to the Strait of Hormuz"
Download and read the PDF in the web page above. It describes the significant challenges the USN might face during anti-mine operations.
It says that an optimistic estimate about how long that may last is around a month. So, at the very best the world is going to have to survive 28 days with a significant portion of Persian gulf oil (nearly 1/4 of world production) off of the market. And oil prices won't be likely to stabilize until a very long time the after the war.
I know what they do. And it has yet to yield results. Iraqi casualties are decreasing, the Iraqi government is stabilizing.
It has yet to yield results?
The very fact that you said that shows that you don't know what they do and are capable of in Iraq. The decrease in violence you're seeing couldn't have happened if Iran didn't want it to (remember all the US and Iraqi talks about the "security of Iraq?). Attack Iran and you are putting all of these gains at significant risk.
Also consider that a major portion of the Iraq Army is from the Badr Organization which is
highly loyal to Iran.
Use as proxy =/= ally. It's pretty easy to distinguish between the two. Someone may be your ally, your proxy, both or neither.
Russia isn't using Iran as a proxy. Iran doesn't even like Russia nor does it trust Russia and the feeling is mutual. I explained the relationship between them before.
It has very little to do with countering US-influence and more to do with shoring up Russia's.
I'll admit that much. I am not. Though the relationship is more financial then political in my humble opinion. I was offering to leave that part out of the discussion because I know little about it and can't debate with you. So I'll agree with your claim.
Now I would be interested in a solid reply to my abovementioned points.
You misunderstood my words. I didn't claim anything. I used the word "suspect" for a reason.
If you meant my "claim" about trade relations then here is the link straight from Iran's state media:
Iran-China trade exchanges to hit $30b
