Iran pulling Hormuz ‘lever’ to maximum in US standoff
Iran has been talking about the threat of closing the strait, a critical transit point for global energy supplies, for decades.
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When the United States and Israel launched a surprise war on Iran on February 28, killing religious leader Ali Khamenei, Tehran finally followed through on those threats and brought the vital waterway to a halt.
Since then, the United States has implemented its own blockade, stopping the shipment of Iranian oil that escaped the closure.
This situation caused economic turmoil around the world.
European politicians fear rising inflation, food shortages and flight cancellations as jet fuel runs out. As energy prices rise in much of Asia, home to the Middle East’s biggest buyers of oil and gas, poor countries are bidding higher for scarce resources, leading to shortages. Energy prices increased by 40 percent in Sri Lanka.
The loss of vital fertilizer resources, of which the Gulf is the main producer, is also expected to cause food prices to rise in the developing world.
We won’t leave
Although causing global economic pain gives Iran negotiating leverage, Iran cannot fully escape the blowback due to a U.S. blockade that halts oil exports worth tens of millions of dollars every day.
With the two-week ceasefire in the war ending this week, renewed clashes over the strait will shake the leadership, which is trying to find its footing under the rule of new religious leader Khamenei’s son Mojtaba, who has not yet appeared publicly.
“The Bosphorus is under the control of the Islamic Republic,” said Mohammed Bagher Galibaf, a Revolutionary Guard veteran who currently serves as Iran’s parliament speaker and is seen as the chief negotiator for talks with the United States.
In his speech broadcast on Iranian television, he said, “When they wanted to send a minesweeper to clear mines, we stood our ground and opposed it. We said these were ceasefire violations.” he said.
“We are here (in the Strait of Hormuz), we will not leave,” he added.
Who will blink first?
The blockade of Hormuz represented a change of strategy for the Islamic Republic, which had long fended off the threat without success.
The West, which has been trying for decades to prevent Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons and fighting pro-Tehran proxies, now faces a new and potentially long-term problem.
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“As long as Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has been in power, the Islamic Republic has at times sent mixed signals regarding its nuclear program and threatened to close the Strait of Hormuz, but has fallen short on both,” said Ali Alfoneh, senior fellow at the Arab Gulf States Institute and author of “Political Succession in the Islamic Republic of Iran.”
“With Khamenei gone and the regime struggling for existence, this restriction is no longer valid,” he said, adding that “Iran’s nuclear doctrine may also be under revision.”
However, he warned that the US counter-blockade on Iranian ships in Gulf ports could also harm the Islamic Republic by cutting off oil revenues at a time of intense economic fragility.
“The conflict has now become an endurance contest… Who will blink first?”
In his first major written statement on March 12 since taking office, Mojtaba Khamenei called for the use of the “arm of blocking the Strait of Hormuz.”
With possible new talks between Iran and the United States in the coming days, Iranian First Vice President Mohammad Reza Aref said in a statement on Monday that “the security of the Strait of Hormuz is not free.”
“The choice is clear: either a free oil market for all or risk of serious costs for all.”
Analysts at the International Crisis Group think tank said Iran’s strategy towards Hormuz is to signal that it is open to diplomacy, but only under conditions that suggest it is not suffering strategic defeat.
But with the US naval blockade aimed at “nullifying Iran’s control rather than negotiating”, the strait has turned from “a bargaining chip into a flashpoint for potential military tension”.
