Iran’s war of attrition: Exporting pain

There’s no letup in the United States and Israel’s escalating strikes on Iran, with the latter’s retaliation showing that it is far from declaring an “unconditional surrender” demanded by the US for the war to end.

As the war rages on, Iran’s Middle Eastern neighbors have become daily targets of Iran’s ballistic missiles and Shahed drones, relatively cheap unmanned combat aerial vehicles compared with advanced missile interceptors, such as the Patriot missile provided by the US to allied Gulf nations.

Shahed “kamikaze” drones, which are fast becoming the bane of Gulf nations, gained the attention of the world when Russia began deploying them in its invasion of Ukraine in 2022, according to CNBC (source: tinyurl.com/w7nvaa5c). The cheap Shahed-136 drones—the most advanced variant—are trying to overwhelm Gulf air defenses, as “they have become central to Iran’s retaliation strategies against the US and its regional allies, with thousands unleashed” since the war began on Feb. 28, according to CNBC.

These drones have relatively small payloads that can swarm air defenses, allowing states like Iran “a cheap way to impose disproportionate costs,” the same CNBC article said, quoting Patrycja Bazylczyk, an analyst with the Missile Defense Project at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington. Bazylczyk said the use of these drones would “force adversaries to waste expensive interceptors on low-cost drones, project power, and create a steady psychological burden on civilian populations.”

Economic pain: Oil price hike. Facing a textbook case of asymmetric modern warfare against the US and Israel, Iran, a regional power with proxy militia groups like Hezbollah, Hamas, and the Houthis, has devised a strategy of prolonging the war by using these cheap but pesky drones. Iran is also choking off the oil supply passing through the Strait of Hormuz, a narrow strait between the Persian Gulf and the Gulf of Oman that serves as the only passage out of the Arabian Gulf through which a fifth of seaborne oil trade passes annually. Some commentators have described this as a strategy of “exporting economic pain” to the Middle East and the world to somehow pressure America into ending the war.

Here at home, we have begun feeling the effects of this economic pain, with the oil companies’ unilateral decision to raise pump prices beginning Tuesday, which could reach as high as P13 for gasoline, P24.25 for diesel, and P38.50 for kerosene in the coming weeks, according to the Department of Energy. Besides being unwarranted, an oil price hike—no matter if the implementation is staggered or not—is unconscionable, even unpatriotic, because they are selling old stock bought before the war. I call this pure and simple profiteering made at the expense of the commuting public.

But the domino effect of successive oil price increases can be devastating for the Philippines if this war persists. Asia is the most exposed to volatility in the Middle East, where Japan and the Philippines import almost 90 percent of their oil needs. Oil price increases affect food prices, as well as having inflationary effects on manufactured goods, power, communications, transportation fares, and other services. Under this grim scenario, expect fewer customers for businesses, tourist attractions, and public transport, further weighing down the economy that was already battered by the flood control scandal last year.

But the silver lining of this crisis, not of our making, cannot be found on our shores.

The first ray of hope that oil tankers will once again sail through the Strait of Hormuz without fear of Iranian strikes came with France’s decision to deploy almost a dozen warships to the region, including in the Strait of Hormuz.

On March 11, the US destroyed 16 Iranian naval ships and minelayers near the oil route in the strait, foiling Iran’s strategy to choke off the oil supply—an economic warfare that is being blamed for wreaking havoc on energy markets. Around 68 loaded oil tankers are currently trapped in the Gulf, according to Greenpeace.

The war in Iran has made us realize that, first, our oil buffer stock of 50 to 60 days is insufficient to cushion price volatility, so we need to increase our stockpile. Second, doubling our renewable energy mix by 2030 (not 2040) and aiming for net zero carbon emissions are the only sustainable long-term solutions that can wean us off our oil dependence on the Middle East.

Third, deregulating the oil industry is a very bad idea (that has only lined the pockets of oil companies and abetted monopolistic behavior), which begs the question: Can we buy back Petron? In 2021, its CEO offered to sell it back to the government.

Fourth, we have made politics a national pastime, and we often forget that geopolitical issues have a greater impact on our present and future trajectory as a nation than the behavior—and political fortunes—of buffoons in our legislature.

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lim.mike04@gmail.com