Scorched earth: Iran’s revenge against Trump will be devastating

You have reached your maximum number of saved items.

Remove items from your saved list to add more.

No gift articles left

You've used all of your gift articles. 3 more will become available on the 1st of every month.

The playbook of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards is neither a secret nor a bluff. If Donald Trump launches a second round of Operation Fury and persists in trying to bomb their regime to its knees, they will retaliate with a scorched-earth policy across the Middle East.

They will escalate from attacks on individual vessels to wholesale attacks on the Persian Gulf’s energy and transport infrastructure, drastically tightening a global energy market that has already drawn down a billion barrels of oil inventory and has no margin left for further shocks.

“Simply put, the world has eroded its supply buffers,” says Sultan Al Jaber, the head of the Abu Dhabi National Oil Company.

The guards will hit ports, terminals, refineries, pipelines, pumping stations, storage tanks, offshore rigs and logistics hubs. They may well hit electricity systems, which are needed to run the region’s desalination plants and provide almost all the drinking water for the coastal cities on the Gulf shore.

‘One way or the other’: Trump’s threats send oil prices surging

Stephen BartholomeuszSenior business columnist

Senior business columnist

“Attacks will likely involve a combination of mass strikes on critical nodes in oil and gas networks and targeted strikes on remotely located infrastructure,” says Daniel Byman, the director of warfare at the Centre for Strategic and International Studies in Washington.

Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei told his senior commanders over the weekend to be ready to hit back “without geographical limitation” with an enlarged “target bank” covering all the enemy’s material and non-material assets.

We do not know how many Iranian drones and missiles remain hidden in Iran’s mountainous hinterland, but the stockpile is probably large enough to outlast........

© The Sydney Morning Herald