Let’s be honest. Iran has US President Donald Trump in a headlock over the Strait of Hormuz. The White House is fighting to reopen a waterway that wasn’t closed before the conflict started. But Tehran risks overplaying its hand: If it continues to squeeze, it will lose strategic leverage — not immediately, but over the next five years or so as its neighbors build more bypass routes.
Don’t take my word for it. Listen to what Iranian officials say themselves. “The strait is valuable while the traffic through it increases day by day, not when it decreases,” Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, the Iranian parliament speaker and top negotiator, told state television earlier this month. “We must not turn the strait against itself.”
And yet, that’s precisely what the Islamic Republic is doing. By striking oil tankers off the coast of Oman, it has convinced every one of the Persian Gulf states, as well as oil importers including deep-pocketed nations such as China and Japan, that the only way to guarantee future oil flows is to invest billions of dollars in new pipeline capacity.
Also read | India tells seafarers to steer clear of Hormuz Strait
Sure, Iran will win some short-term battles; the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. can prevent ships from crossing the strait, maybe even for an extended period. If so, oil prices will increase, piling economic and political pressure on Trump. Only the use of the US strategic petroleum reserves, alongside China reducing its oil purchases dramatically, will stop the energy market from exploding. But over the longer term, Iran’s ability to hold the global economy to ransom will fade as transit overground displaces seaborne passage via Hormuz — which will happen relatively quickly.
