The US-Iran interim agreement (called the Islamabad MoU) signed on June 17 has been torn to shreds, and the two countries are back on the warpath. The resumption of hostilities makes even a robust optimist pessimistic about the possibility of durable peace between Iran and the US.
The Strait of Hormuz remains the main spectacle of the US-Iran war. American forces have struck the port cities of Bushehr and Bandar Abbas. The US will also be reinstating its blockade of Iranian ports, which it did earlier in response to Iran’s blockade of the Strait of Hormuz. Washington seems to be set upon wresting the control of the strait from Tehran – an uphill task even for the world’s most sophisticated military – as a priority to divest it of what has been dubbed its trump card in the war. On its part, Iran has attacked some ships moving through the strait to reassert its control over the waterway.
The Strait of Hormuz is strategically so significant because it connects the Persian Gulf and the Gulf of Oman and provides the only sea passage from the Persian Gulf to the Indian Ocean. The economies of several countries, including Iran, Iraq, Kuwait, Qatar and the UAE, depend heavily on the smooth passage of cargo through the strait to the Indian Ocean. Once ships have passed through the Strait of Hormuz, they enter the Gulf of Oman and then the Arabian Sea before reaching the Indian Ocean.
The Strait of Hormuz and the Gulf of Oman are thus two of the world’s most critical transit checkpoints for oil and gas trade. Based in Bahrain, the US Navy’s Fifth Fleet called Naval Support Activity (NSA) is mandated to protect these two checkpoints by providing security to the ships. The NSA is only 200km off the Strait of Hormuz and 440km off the Gulf of Oman. Predictably, it was attacked by Iran at the start of the war with the US in February last year and again in the recent resumption of hostilities.
Iran controls the Strait of Hormuz, but it doesn’t control the Gulf of Oman or the Arabian Sea. Hence, before the signing of the Islamabad MoU and after Iran had blocked the Strait of Hormuz, the US retaliated by blocking the movement of Iranian ships outside its territorial waters near the eastern edge of the Gulf of Oman. If Iran wouldn’t allow the passage of ships through the Strait of Hormuz, the US wouldn’t allow the passage of Iranian ships through the Gulf of Oman into the Indian Ocean.
Before the US-Iran war broke out, the Strait of Hormuz was an open and toll-free shipping route governed by international maritime law. An unintended consequence of the war was that Tehran, which controlled seven of the eight islands in the strait, was able to demonstrate it was capable of controlling this critical maritime route for an indefinite period. Washington, despite its heavy military presence in the region, failed to dent Iran’s control, giving Tehran a sense of power which it didn’t have previously.
Logically, the management of the Strait of Hormuz was a sticking point in the conclusion of the US-Iran interim agreement. In the end, the MoU contained provisions that the US would terminate the naval blockade of Iran in 30 days (starting June 17), while Iran would make ‘best efforts’ to lift the blockade of the Strait of Hormuz and allow free passage of commercial cargo for 60 days. The future administration of the strait would be defined by a dialogue between Iran and Oman in line with the applicable international law, which allows free passage of commercial cargo. The dialogue had started before the resumption of the hostilities.
Iran’s keenness to control the Strait of Hormuz is rooted, in addition to its strategic significance, in nationalism. Since the 1980s, Iran has remained under Western sanctions for one reason or another, which has spelt disaster for its economy and the people. I lived in Tehran for a few years and saw prices go up at a gallop, necessary goods become even scarcer, and the value of the local currency dip. The Iranian authorities would watch the ever-worsening plight of the people with a lot of concern, but could do little to set things right.
The 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), which Iran signed with the US and the four other de jure nuclear states and the European Union, was a desperate attempt to have the sanctions lifted in exchange for accepting IAEA-supervised curbs on its nuclear programme. After Washington had walked out of the JCPOA during Trump’s first term in 2018, the sanctions were re-imposed. The Iranian economy was again in the doldrums, with all its repercussions on society and the government.
Although from time to time Tehran would threaten to close down the Strait of Hormuz, it never actually did so, probably because it didn’t believe in its ability to do so over months or even weeks. But after it was attacked by the US in early 2026, Iran blocked the strait. That was the only way for the government, other than attacking US bases in the region, to assert itself and salvage the pride of its people. When such a nation is economically and diplomatically squeezed over decades, when it’s attacked by the globe’s most powerful country and when it’s threatened with nothing short of extermination, it will respond with all the power it has regardless of the consequences.
Iran has set up the Persian Gulf Strait Authority to manage ‘safe passage permits’ for commercial ships passing through its territorial waters. This shows that Tehran expects that in future it will control the passage of the commercial cargo through the Strait of Hormuz, possibly in collaboration with Oman. The ships passing through the strait will be required to have a permit, upon payment of a fee. Tehran will be able to disallow the passage of ships – maybe for carrying the merchandise of or for a particular country – by withholding the grant of permits. Such a scenario will precipitate a showdown between Tehran on one hand and Washington and its Gulf allies on the other.
In retrospect, Washington made a capital mistake by starting the war with Iran. The war has not only disrupted the global economy but also undermined Washington’s prestige as the underwriter of global peace.
The writer is an Islamabad-based columnist. He tweets/posts @hussainhzaidi and can be reached at: [email protected]
