The key question about Iran’s energy-export terminal on Kharg Island is not whether the United States can seize or disable it. Of course it can. The real issue is what happens afterward, when the conditional logic that the U.S. has applied to its alliances begins to shape allied behavior in turn. When allies’ behavior can no longer be assumed, American power becomes more constrained. The key variable is no longer what the U.S. can do, but what costs others will be willing to bear. American primacy rested on a simple bargain — pay more, decide more and allies follow. That bargain is broken.

Such is the problem now confronting U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration. Kharg Island looks like the kind of target the world’s strongest military should be able to turn into leverage with relative ease. But difficult trade-offs would soon follow. Seizing and holding it would impose a sustained burden that allies would be expected to help carry, whereas destroying it would deliver a sharper, escalatory blow whose costs would be immediate, unevenly distributed and concentrated among the partners most vulnerable to energy shocks. Both options rely on allied participation in different forms and neither can be taken for granted.

Obviously, any serious disruption would cascade through global energy markets, tightening supply, driving up prices, and increasing shipping and insurance risks. But much of that sensitivity reflects the vulnerability of the Strait of Hormuz, a chokepoint for a significant share of global oil flows, where even limited disruption can affect supply expectations far beyond any single facility.

© The Japan Times