Why Hormuz will haunt us long after this war ends
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The closure of the Strait of Hormuz is one of the most foreseen “unforeseen problems” in history. For decades, academics and game theorists have speculated about the possibility that, in wartime, Iran could choke off the narrow waterway through which 20 per cent of the world’s oil exports pass.
Donald Trump was warned of the danger to the strait as America and Israel prepared to attack Iran. But the US president waved away these concerns, predicting instead that the Islamic republic would swiftly capitulate.
A conflict with Iran that started with vague war aims now has one clear and overriding objective: reopen the Strait of Hormuz. Ironically and infuriatingly, the only reason the strait is closed is because the US and Israel went to war in the first place.
It is not in Trump’s power to reopen this vital sea passage by declaring victory and walking away. Instead his war with Iran — and the particular issue of the Strait of Hormuz — will define the rest of his presidency and may haunt his successors.
That is because the strait’s closure creates both an immediate crisis and a long-term strategic quandary. The current problem is that the longer it is closed, the greater the threat of a global recession. The future dilemma is that Iran now knows that control of the Strait of Hormuz gives it a stranglehold over the world economy. Even if it relaxes its grip in the short term, it can tighten it again in future.
The difficulties of reopening the strait are already very apparent. Iran does not have to sink or impede every tanker that tries to pass through. The spate of attacks already carried out — and the threat of new ones — has been enough to persuade ship owners, crews and insurers to steer clear.
Intensive bombing of Iranian military infrastructure — or even a mooted US occupation of Kharg Island, which is crucial to Iran’s own oil exports — are not a direct solution to the Hormuz problem. The Islamic republic has many military options to threaten traffic through the strait, including deep-sea mines, missiles, inflatable boats equipped with limpet mines and drones. Iran has particular expertise in drone warfare. Its Shahed drones have been crucial in Russia’s war against Ukraine.
Trump is now asking America’s allies to send their navies to break the Iranian chokehold on the strait. He has even appealed to Beijing. The UK, the EU and China do have a real interest in reopening the Strait of Hormuz. But they will be understandably reluctant to put their own forces at risk to solve a problem that they did not create and that the US navy cannot fix on its own.
A year of tariffs, threats and insults from the Trump administration towards its European allies has also burned through goodwill towards Washington. They also know that any navy operating in the Strait of Hormuz would be very vulnerable to Iranian attacks — and might have to keep the operation up over many months.
The US may be considering the use of land forces to try to secure the coasts just off the strait as well. But a decision to deploy ground troops in Iran would inevitably mean higher American casualties and would not guarantee even the limited objective of opening up the strait.
Beyond the immediate crisis lies the longer-term problem. By assassinating the leaders of Iran — and making clear that regime change is a goal of the war — the US and Israel have permanently changed Iran’s incentive structure.
Before this latest war, the Iranian regime still had a motive to avoid the all-out confrontation with the US that would be the inevitable consequence of closing the strait. But now Iran’s thinking has changed. As Sir Simon Gass, a former British ambassador to Tehran, put it to me, Trump’s effort to overthrow the Iranian government “is the moment at which the regime concludes that this is potentially a fight to the death and that therefore they have to use all of the tools at their disposal and closing the Strait of Hormuz is one”.
Iranian moderates, who once argued for diplomacy with the west rather than all-out confrontation, may have been permanently undermined by the fact that the US attacked while negotiations were still under way. Even if the Islamic republic decides, at some point, that it has an interest in reopening the Strait of Hormuz — it will always want to retain the option of closing it again as a visible threat to ward off aggressors.
The US and Iran’s wealthy Gulf neighbours — who continue to face daily drone and missile attacks — will therefore face a long-term dilemma. Do they try to reach an accommodation with the current hardline Iranian regime, in the hope of persuading it never to close the strait again? Or do they press even harder for regime change in Iran, accepting all the associated dangers of prolonged military conflict and regional chaos?
The Islamic republic is currently taking a massive economic and military battering. But having demonstrated to the world — and to itself — that the closure of the Strait of Hormuz is a genuine and actionable threat, Iran has discovered a powerful future deterrent that is quite independent of nuclear weapons. If the regime survives this war, it may yet emerge in a stronger position internationally.
