{"id":24593,"date":"2026-03-18T07:00:10","date_gmt":"2026-03-18T07:00:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/24593\/"},"modified":"2026-03-18T07:00:10","modified_gmt":"2026-03-18T07:00:10","slug":"letters-strait-of-hormuz-is-irans-trump-card","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/24593\/","title":{"rendered":"Letters | Strait of Hormuz is Iran\u2019s trump card"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Feel strongly about these letters, or any other aspects of the news? Share your views by emailing us your Letter to the Editor at <a rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_self\" class=\"e1yy41x40 ef9u0v01 css-1ankfgb ecgc78b0\" href=\"http:\/\/www.scmp.com\/cdn-cgi\/l\/email-protection#2e424b5a5a4b5c5d6e5d4d435e004d4143\" title=\"\" data-qa=\"BaseLink-renderAnchor-StyledAnchor\">[email\u00a0protected]<\/a> or filling in <a rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_self\" class=\"e1yy41x40 ef9u0v01 css-1ankfgb ecgc78b0\" href=\"https:\/\/docs.google.com\/forms\/d\/e\/1FAIpQLScZLByU3MtE_JrpQ8z3hMzWl2Xcn2e-8PNDFoJsy43n7SfmBA\/viewform?module=inline,inline,inline,inline,inline,inline,inline,inline,inline,inline,inline,inline,inline,inline,inline,inline,inline,inline,inline,inline,inline&amp;pgtype=article,article,article,article,article,article,article,article,article,article,article,article,article,article,article,article,article,article,article,article,article\" title=\"\" data-qa=\"BaseLink-renderAnchor-StyledAnchor\">this Google form<\/a>. Submissions should not exceed 400 words<\/p>\n<p datatype=\"p\" data-qa=\"Component-Component\" class=\"e8zc9q40 css-1c6uqr6 ec74h0k1\">Last week US President Donald Trump reportedly said that oil tanker crews should go through the Strait of Hormuz and \u201cshow some guts\u201d, adding that \u201cthere\u2019s nothing to be afraid of\u201d as Iran has \u201cno navy, we sunk all their ships\u201d. Is it that simple? Let\u2019s do a risk assessment here.<\/p>\n<p datatype=\"p\" data-qa=\"Component-Component\" class=\"e8zc9q40 css-1c6uqr6 ec74h0k1\">At its narrowest point, the Strait of Hormuz is 21 nautical miles wide, running next to Iran\u2019s coastline. Large oil tankers up to 380m long travel at a sluggish pace of around 15 knots (28 km\/hour).<\/p>\n<p datatype=\"p\" data-qa=\"Component-Component\" class=\"e8zc9q40 css-1c6uqr6 ec74h0k1\">Note that escorting destroyers must slow down to match the tankers\u2019 speed, rendering them unable to make normal evasive manoeuvres. Thus, they become sitting ducks for Iran\u2019s shore-based anti-ship missiles, drones and other weapons.<\/p>\n<p datatype=\"p\" data-qa=\"Component-Component\" class=\"e8zc9q40 css-1c6uqr6 ec74h0k1\">Iran\u2019s widely deployed Shahed-136 drones, travelling at speeds of around 185 km\/hour, can cover the distance from the coastline to the centreline of the strait in about five minutes. The upgraded Shahed-238 cuts the travel time to about two minutes. Also, the small size of the drones makes them difficult to detect during their initial, low-altitude flight phase.<\/p>\n<p datatype=\"p\" data-qa=\"Component-Component\" class=\"e8zc9q40 css-1c6uqr6 ec74h0k1\">Escort fleets must execute countermeasures \u2013 detection, identification, classification, weapon allocation, command issuance and interception execution \u2013 all within less than five minutes for each incoming threat; in \u201cswarm attacks\u201d involving multiple threats simultaneously, the defenders could be overwhelmed.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Feel strongly about these letters, or any other aspects of the news? Share your views by emailing us&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":24594,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[2369,262,38,11846,496,102,34,37,49,498,39,11847,101,153],"class_list":{"0":"post-24593","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-strait-of-hormuz","8":"tag-arabian-sea","9":"tag-china","10":"tag-donald-trump","11":"tag-exxon-valdez","12":"tag-gaza","13":"tag-hormuz","14":"tag-iran","15":"tag-israel","16":"tag-middle-east","17":"tag-palestine","18":"tag-persian-gulf","19":"tag-shahed","20":"tag-strait-of-hormuz","21":"tag-us"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@iran\/116248892040506732","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24593","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=24593"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24593\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/24594"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=24593"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=24593"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=24593"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}