 Hello and welcome to News Clicks International Roundup. Today, we discuss the situation in West Asia and the Persian Gulf in the aftermath of the attack on two tankers in the Gulf of Oman. To talk more about this, we have with us Praveel Prakash. Hello Praveel. So Praveel, as we know, the two tankers were attacked a couple of days ago. And the U.S. has been quick to claim that Iran is responsible for this incident. And we also know that last month, there were similarly attacks on four tankers off the UAE coast. So how do you evaluate these claims and what is the reason for it? Well, of course, very difficult to figure out who has really attacked whom, at least whom is more clear because they are going to Japan, they are owned by different organizations. But clear, the attempt is to also make everybody realize how vulnerable the tanker movement in that region can be. That's one possible scenario. Another possible scenario is that this is a false flag operation. The U.S. has earlier done this, the famous one being Gulf of Tonkin, that we had the other example, the Iraq war itself when they said in 45 minutes or something, WMDs can hit parts of West Asia. All of that shows that the false flag operations do take place and they take place in the parts of the world. And the U.S. has a history of doing this. So therefore, is it possible that like the Iraq WMD scared that Iran is doing all of this is actually an attempt to create a war-like condition and possibly attack Iran? In this, there has also been arguments in the U.S., shall we say, the military, the State Department, the NSA and the Trump administration's different factions of it have different attitudes to the war, a war in Iran. And the Bolton who has been, the one who has been talking about at different points of time bombing Iran back to stone age kind of rhetoric and has also been pushing the war rhetoric, war against Iran rhetoric very hard. Also claiming that various intelligence agencies, which essentially appear to be Israeli intelligence agency because Americans don't seem to have come to this conclusion is Iran is preparing for war, is going to attack. So all of this put together, this is a possibility that this is a false-like attack which the Americans or what the Iranian foreign minister has said earlier, a B team, in which case it's very clear which the B team is, it's Israel, it's United Arab Emirates, it's Saudi Arabia. This is the B team that they're talking about. The B team mounting this attack, hoping to draw America in on the American side, with acid support from Bolton and others who want to really go to war in Iran. This is one false scenario, another scenario and I'm not going to say that anybody sitting at this point can really say which scenario is the correct one, is that Iran while realizing that there are attempts to actually build up a war campaign, war hysteria, which may lead to attacks by the United States and Iran is also firing salvos across the Bos to warn them that if there is a war in this region that Iran has the ability to strike and if they do strike, then it will really lead to a total disruption of the, shall we say the tanker movement in Hormuz as earlier also Iran has warned that if we don't export oil, nobody else will throw straights of Hormuz. The one reason why I think this is not so likely, if we look at the tankers which have been affected, they're pretty close to the shores of Iran and it would mean that if they really did get hold and again when you make a strike like this, it's always possible that you would lead to puncturing of the hull and large amounts of leakage. It defectively run much more than anybody else, it's quite close to the coast. Now US military has released some photographs or videos showing that there is an Iranian patrol boat which went and removed a limpid mine. The Japanese owners of one of the ships have made very clear that they do not believe it was a limpid mine that was used in the attack. They seem to believe that it was actually a torpedo or it could also be a drone which could be used to attack. So they don't seem to give cognizance to the limpid mine theory which is what the US has been talking about by showing that video. The Iranian boats came, removed the limpid mine because that didn't explode. So those are still open issues what really happened but I'm surprised at one point which I think one of the observers has pointed out that why is nobody asking for a United Nations Security Council led investigations of the whole scene for this particular two tankers that we're talking about and find out what really has happened. Why not put up a multinational task force also whose whole task could be determining who has actually done this or who could be possibly responsible for this and why was this not done. In the earlier tanker cases also where again of the coast of United Arab Emirates, Fujaira this happened and there also demand was not made instead when we went straight into saber rattling. While it must also be recognized, well the US is a B team, so does Iran have a B team in the area. They're not controlled by Iran directly but there are the Houthis who have their own acts to guide, grind against Saudi Arabia and there is also Hezbollah, there is also Syria and there is also sections in Iraq. So Iran is not without allies in the region. So I think we have to really at this stage say while it's quite possible this is a false flag attack meant to ratchet up the war hysteria possibly under the ages of Israel and Saudi Arabia and United Arab Emirates or it could be warning shots by Iran. At the moment we don't have evidence to show either way but yes the US record would seem to indicate that US is quite possible. It's quite possible sections in the US State Department, in Kulayvins with others or with other sections with the Trump administration is also interested in creating incidents which that can be used for war. We can see the war rhetoric has been ratcheted up considerably and that is something which is very dangerous for the world. And to take a step back and look at the larger picture so to speak. So what is the relevance of the Straits of Hormuz specifically in this context and also in the context of the global tanker flow because that has been the subject a core point of the discussions that have been taking place around this issue. If you go to the picture of the tanker movements you will see in the Straits of Hormuz this is where we are talking about the very, very thick density of the tankers that goes through this area. In a larger context I think almost 20% of the world's oil flows through the Straits of Hormuz. It has a number of oil producing nations or its shall we say bordering the Straits of Hormuz and because it's a choke point it can be very easily stopped by any military action by any player on that side. Of course Iran holds a very important position because it abuts the Straits of Hormuz. So for it to stop the Straits of Hormuz all tanker traffic is very easy. Given the number of tankers going there there are two risks that is there. If for instance there are this kind of unknown players attacking the tankers. Now if the sink of course huge pollution that will take place destroy large amounts of coast slide on that area it will be marine disaster of a major bank to choose. And apart from that the other issues that would immediately take place is it push up the cost of a tanker hiring and it also push up considerably the insurance charges. So it would immediately push up the cost of oil significantly in the international market we can already see the cost of oil or the price of oil having jumped post these attacks. So I think these are two very important considerations. And the point is if there is any war in this region it's not that you now have a shall be say scenario where Iran is not will not be able to do anything vis-a-vis United States. The issue is that it's much easier for a attacking force to create vulnerability for tanker movements and it's very difficult for the United States to stop this completely because you talk about fast boats which are really light therefore they're very believable quick and can definitely sink a tanker fairly easily you have underwater submarines again which can do various things. So there's a whole range of now possibilities including ground to sea missiles which also can be used by Iran. So Iran's strike power against tankers is pretty large. If you want to take that out you have to really do what Bolton was claiming bomb Iran back to the stone age and if you do that then it's aircraft carriers etc. also vulnerable to missile strikes and on top of that it's also true that about 20,000 American troops within missile range of Iran. So can they take all of this out without damaging the tanker flows or their air bases or their land bases this is the question and I think this is really dicing with death and it will take out some amount of American infrastructure in the region it will inflict body bags with something the United States today doesn't want to face and more important it can really paralyze the traffic in the states of Hormuz and a 20% drop of oil flow in the states of Hormuz has horrendous implication for the rest of the world. So basically what we're seeing is once again oil becoming a major deciding factor in this crisis and it's also important because China is also one of the country which is going to be massively influenced considering Iran it's one of the largest importers of Iranian oil and the global supply chain as we see is actually under threat in some senses. Absolutely you see this is what has showed up the American dollar not that Americans required oil for actually domestic consumption which partly now they have overcome and also they're exporters today and fracking has provided a major element to that. Now I'm not going to get into how the fracking oil how viable it is and so on there are different debates going on about that but nevertheless today is the US is actually oil surplus economy. What has really made US grip over the global economy so strong is the fact that the oil is denominated largely in dollars. So unless it is exchange trade which Iran might be able to do a couple of other countries to it's really the international price of oil being pegged to the dollar which has given dollar essentially the position of a reserve currency of the world and being the reserve currency of the world it's ability therefore to impose sanctions on any country in the world and that's what we are seeing at the moment that all these countries companies are coming into the orbit of sanctions because of the ability of the US to control the dollar and therefore identify any entity that does not obey the sanctions could be brought under its heel because they have to still exchange dollars they will be vulnerable to it. So if we look at the oil scenario 20% of oil passes to the choke point of states of orbit so supposing that drops stops there are no easy solutions in sight the even the pipelines which are there could at the most take about additional 5% and they still would not be able to reach the destination that we currently see it reach. So what we are going to see is a huge impact particularly in countries like India, China, Japan and Korea these are the countries which would be affected of course you have also Indonesia, Malaysia and others so but the major impact is really going to be in these four countries they are the major oil guzzlers and particularly India and China and Japan these are the three countries which will be most affected. So the choke point of Horbos is very important for these countries but also if you have a 20 to 15% drop in oil production your oil price could go through the roof and we do not know where it would stop because every country will be then vying for oil and that would actually be a major blow to the global economy. People have said it could go to 200 dollars, 250 dollars but certainly if 20% of oil flow stops we were likely to see a global recession and at least oil prices in the region of 120 to 150 dollars. The argument of course that others have given that US apart from the Iranian issue taking out Iran as a regional player, strategic player in the region has also a subsidiary interest because that makes a fracking oil far more competitive than it is today. I do not believe this was a really being fought on economic basis. I think really what it is being fought on is the fact that Iran is a strategic player in the region, Russia having coming back to the region that Iran therefore has greater shall we say maneuverability and strategic autonomy than it had earlier and this is what is changing the shall we say the rules of the game in West Asia and the dominance that US had post 90s in that region is slipping and this would mean that the dollar denomination of the oil that may no longer hold and if that breaks then the US ability to control the global economy would slip and that is a region they really want to take out Iran at this stage whether they are willing to take the risk of the kind of disaster which will take place in the rest of the world and whether the rest of the world has any will or leverage vis-à-vis the United States this is the open question. Thank you Premier. That is all we have time for today keep watching NewsClick.