Despite their attempts to look strong by means of calculated reactions to the sanctions imposed by the Trump administration, including shooting down an American drone in June and detaining a British oil tanker on 19 July, Iran seems to be the biggest loser in the crisis, Middle East Monitor writes in the article The winners and losers in the Iran crisis.
The US-imposed sanctions have cut Iran’s oil exports from 2.3 million barrels in April last year — before Trump pulled out of the nuclear deal — to less than 300,000 a day. At the current price of oil, Iran is losing about $100 million a day, or $36 billion a year, which is nearly 40 per cent of the country’s budget. The losses are even bigger when we factor in the sanctions affecting mining and petrochemicals, along with the flight of foreign investments. Moreover, some of the losses may be permanent, since Iranian oil has been replaced in the market by other sources, such as Russia and America, for example. In addition, the growing foreign military presence in the region will have major implications for Iran’s own security and its regional influence.
The second biggest losers in this crisis are the Arab Gulf states, primarily Saudi Arabia and the UAE, not least because the tanker and open navigation crises have led to an increase in the price of insurance for ships and their cargoes. The price to pay for US protection has also gone up. Furthermore, the threat to the Gulf oil market includes the fact that clients in Asia, such as China, India, Japan, South Korea and Taiwan, are already looking for alternatives because they fear the disruption of supplies in the event that war breaks out and the Strait of Hormuz is closed.
On top of this all, there has been major movement of investments from the Gulf, specifically from the UAE, the economy of which is partly reliant on financial services and derivatives. The American bankers JP Morgan estimated that $80 billion in investments left Saudi Arabia last year. Gulf stocks have also taken a hit due to the crisis.
According to the Middle East Monitor, the biggest winner at this stage is Russia, which has gained the bulk of Iran’s share of the world oil market, and also exploited the fears of the disruption of Arab oil, by removing Saudi Arabia as the largest supplier of oil for the Chinese market. China’s concerns about US control over the Gulf shipping lines are pushing Beijing more towards Russia. This reinforces the position of President Vladimir Putin in his relationship with the Chinese, who are becoming increasingly energy-dependent on Russia. The US is seriously concerned about the rapprochement between Moscow and Beijing. Nevertheless, Washington is the second largest winner in the current crisis, as it has also increased its oil sales at the expense of the Arab Gulf states and Iran, and boosted its sales of arms and security services to the region.
Unless Iran and the Arab states — the biggest losers in the current conflict — reconsider their policies, they not only risk their governments being deemed irresponsible and losing their capacity to lead and govern, but also risk the fate and future of their people and the region as a whole. The winners and losers illustrate clearly that this crisis is about much more than the US and Iran.
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Meanwhile, the growing tensions in the Persian Gulf concern Moscow. Russia believes that the course of events is moving towards a dangerous line and is fraught with the risks of a large-scale military clash. According to the official representative of the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Maria Zakharova, the United States deliberately aggravates the situation, including by organizing a pirate capture of the Iranian tanker in Gibraltar in order to strengthen the US military presence in the Persian Gulf area under the pretext of "ensuring freedom of navigation”.
Recall that on July 19, the Navy of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps detained the British tanker Stena Impero in the Strait of Hormuz - Iranian territorial waters - and subsequently escorted it to the port of Bandar Abbas. The incident with Stena Impero was the actual response of the Iranian authorities to the detention of the Iranian tanker by the authorities of British Gibraltar on July 4.
According to Zakharova, the United States draws other countries, even those that are, in principle, far from this region, into controversial schemes: “They form some kind of ‘sea coalition’. This is a favorite technique of recent years - the formation of forces to maintain peace not basing on the international law, stability, and the creation of certain coalitions, the powers of which are practically not defined by any rights, laws, have no legitimate ground, but simply act on the basis of the opportunistic interests of a certain group of countries. The ‘Marine Coalition’ is created not to maintain peace, but to make pressure on Iran, unfortunately, as we understand, the United States is a key player here.
Prior to the US unilateral withdrawal from the agreements ensuring the peaceful nature of the Iranian nuclear program, shipping and oil traffic through the Strait of Hormuz were carried out stably and calmly. There was no need to create any coalitions to ensure security until Americans began to artificially escalate tensions.
There is a feeling that Washington is looking for a reason to aggravate the situation, continue aggressive rhetoric against Iran and move to a more active and hot phase of the conflict. Moreover, they are guided mainly by their domestic political calculations amid the current round of the electoral cycle. Every time we state that it is a vicious policy - the pursuit of voter support, manipulation of consciousness, information and through this influence on ratings by risking civilians’ lives of other countries, as well as their own citizens. "
Commenting on the inclusion in the US sanctions list of Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif, Zakharova said: “The United States is driving itself into a dead end. They themselves denied the opportunity to use a wide range of diplomatic resources and tools to resolve various issues, leaving only one tool - sanctions. It doesn’t work, it has not shown itself anywhere and has completely discredited both itself and those who resort to it. When a large, great, in every sense significant state uses unilateral sanctions as an element of solving issues, the insolvency of its other institutions becomes clear. The big question is why the US diplomacy in this absolute dead end.”
