Word: tankerous
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Worse yet, the U.S. military again looks like a gawky Goliath, beset by poor planning, faulty conception and just plain bad luck. Last week the Bridgeton, a Kuwaiti tanker now flying the Stars and Stripes, prepared to limp out of the Persian Gulf with a 30-ft. by 10-ft. hole in its hull caused by a mine that caught its American protectors unprepared. Jumbo military transports belatedly began ferrying minesweeping helicopters from Norfolk, Va. A Navy helicopter trying to land on the command ship of the task force crashed, with four Americans presumed dead. And the whole region...
...Bridgeton took on oil at week's end and another reflagged tanker, the Gas Prince, began its return trip with a full load, it was all too clear that the gulf is no place for ill-conceived operations. Had the mine been struck by a U.S. warship instead of the Bridgeton, the result might well have been yet another tragedy, with no easy way to retaliate. Indeed, from its inception, the whole reflagging operation has seemed drawn from Alice's curiouser and curiouser looking-glass world...
...America's stated goal is to protect oil shipments. But oil experts say the gulf war has stopped only 1% of tanker traffic. What's more, a halt in tanker traffic would damage Iran the most. Thus America's bold action is directly defending Iran's highest strategic interests...
...conflict in the Persian Gulf is sometimes called the tanker war, and last week's skirmishes showed why. In a nighttime raid, Iraqi warplanes bombed several Iranian tankers near Kharg Island. A day later an Iranian gunboat hurled nearly a score of rocket-propelled grenades at a U.S.-operated Liberian tanker off the Kuwaiti coast; no casualties were reported. The attacks followed a bout of muscle flexing between the U.S. and Iran. Soon after Iran tested a Chinese-made Silkworm missile at the Strait of Hormuz, the U.S. Navy held its own drill, launching planes from a carrier...
Second, this scenario -- "their oil" in the gulf, "ours" safely elsewhere -- is not just false, it is beside the point. The reason for reflagging Kuwaiti tankers has little to do with securing Western oil supplies. There is no new threat to world oil supplies. Iran has long threatened to close the Strait of Hormuz and long desisted, for the simple reason that nearly all its own oil flows through the strait. And the tanker war in the Persian Gulf has been raging for almost four years, during which time the world has seen the greatest oil glut and sharpest price...