Retired US general reveals how quickly Trump’s quagmire can spiral into 'catastrophe'

Speaking with German newspaper Der Spiegel, a former U.S. general revealed just how perilous the situation actually is in the Strait of Hormuz, and how easily Iran could use it to cause a "catastrophe."

The Strait of Hormuz is a small strip of water off the southern coast of Iran that connects the Persian Gulf to the rest of the world, and therefore serves as a key pathway for shipping Gulf State oil to the rest of the world. In the wake of the U.S. and Israel's joint military attack, Iran closed passage through the strait and laid mines, causing a historically massive backup in the global oil supply and sending gas prices skyrocketing.

S. Clinton Hinote is a retired three-star Air Force general and combat pilot who previously helped plan out scenarios for a war with Iran under former President George W. Bush. Speaking with Der Spiegel in an interview published Thursday, he stressed that the closure of the strait was considered as an Iranian countermeasure in "almost all" of the scenarios he worked on. He further explained why the Strait of Hormuz is so specifically easy for Iran to block off.

"First, the strait is extremely narrow," Hinote explained. "There are only two shipping lanes for supertankers in the Strait of Hormuz: one for entering the Persian Gulf and one for exiting. Both are only about two miles wide. In between, there is a buffer zone that's also only about two miles wide. So our adversaries know exactly where the ships will be traveling, which allows them to plan their attacks with precision. Second, Iran has a wide array of offensive weapons: boats, missiles, drone boats, underwater drones, aerial drones. The risk from drones has grown particularly acute."

While confident that U.S. military escorts could provide a great deal of protection for getting ships through the strait, Hinote said that, in order for such a plan to be acceptable, it would need to be 100 percent effective.

"I am confident that our escorts would do an excellent job and fend off the vast majority of attacks on their own ships and on the tankers – all the more so with comprehensive Air Force support," Hinote said. "But I am doubtful that our people could guarantee 100 percent protection."

He added: "What would happen if just a single drone gets through and a supertanker starts burning in the middle of the Strait of Hormuz? The price to be paid if something goes wrong in the Strait of Hormuz is far too high. When you're defending a convoy, you have to be 100 percent successful. As long as the passage is not guaranteed, no ship owner will expose their crew to that danger. Even if an insurer were actually willing to underwrite a tanker for such a passage, it would demand extremely high premiums."

On the subject of mines, Hinote said that anything less than clearing out 100 percent of them would also be a recipe for "catastrophe."

"Our adversaries have a wide variety of mines. Some float on the surface – those can be detected relatively easily," Hinote explained. "Others drift below the surface, and still others can move up and down. Some are anchored to the seabed, others drift freely. Some have time fuses, others have sensors that can identify what kind of target to strike. Here, too, though, it’s the same problem: If we find 99 percent of all mines but miss just one, and a supertanker hits it, that could spell catastrophe."

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