War between Israel and Iran now seems inevitable. Leon Panetta claimed that it would be this coming spring—and I see no reason to doubt him.
How an Israeli-Iranian war will play out—that is, whether it will draw in more geopolitical actors (such as the U.S.), or if it will be a series of limited attacks, counter-attacks, and then stalemate—is impossible to predict. War tends to take on a life of its own.
But we can predict how it will affect the global markets.
A very reasonable assumption is that oil supplies, especially to Europe, will be severely curtailed. Aside from the fact that one fifth of the world’s oil production passes through the Straight of Hormuz—ground zero of a war with Iran—the rest of the world and especially Europe depends on Iranian oil. As discussed in the SPG Scenario of this past June (“An Israeli-Iranian War?”), close to 10% of the eurozone’s oil comes from Iran—and the countries most particularly dependent on Iranian oil are precisely those most in trouble right now: The so-called PIIGS.
So oil prices will inevitably rise. And so—just like 1979, after the overthrow of the Shah of Iran and the subsequent Oil Shock—the world’s economies will experience another likely oil shock which will send up the price of oil, hurting the world economies rather badly—
—and driving up inflation.
