Iran’s Hormuz blockade is its most powerful card against Trump and Israel. It won’t back down easily | Jack Watling
By imposing massive costs on the global economy, the Iranian government hopes to cause the US to back down, says Jack Watling of the Royal United Services Institute
The US and Israeli decision to attack Iran has sent economic shockwaves around the world. About 20% of global oil supplies have been effectively blocked from transiting the strait of Hormuz since Iran began attacking ships, resulting in a huge jump in oil prices. Militarily, while the United States has the firepower to significantly reduce Iran’s capacity to strike ships in the strait, it is unlikely to be able to eliminate the threat entirely.
Reopening the strait, therefore, is not only a question of military capabilities but of diplomacy, and to negotiate it is necessary to understand what each party to the conflict is trying to achieve.
For the Iranian government, the purpose of its arsenal of ballistic missiles was to deter any direct aggression, allowing the country to subvert its adversaries through violent proxies without incurring retaliation. That deterrent has failed. The idea that Iran can be attacked whenever its actions displease its opponents is clearly unacceptable, and so the Iranian government wishes to re-establish deterrence by imposing such a cost on the global economy that further attacks are not contemplated. The mechanism for doing this is the closure of the strait of Hormuz.
Within the US strategic community, there is a fear that if China attempts to seize Taiwan in 2027 the world could find itself in global simultaneous protracted conflict. To this end, the US wishes to remove threats to its global operations beyond the Indo-Pacific, establishing coercive control over Venezuela, eliminating Iran’s military capabilities and neutralising a hostile government in Cuba. Russia, by virtue of its nuclear deterrent, cannot be so reduced and the US has therefore been trying to build conditions so that the Kremlin would not intervene in any US-China confrontation. Failing that, the US is asking its European allies to take more responsibility for their own security. The US’s military objectives against Iran are thus limited, as the chair of the joint chiefs, Gen Dan Caine, articulated, to the destruction of Iranian military industrial sites and strike capabilities. US political objectives, however, are broader.
In theory, if these were the only variables, it is conceivable that the US would inflict a level of damage where it had confidence Iran could not threaten its bases or global operations for an extended period, and the Iranians could prove that they retain the ability to impose economic punishment on any attacker to the point where both sides could de-escalate and claim victory. These are not, however, the only variables at play.
Donald Trump has proposed a range of political objectives that go well beyond degrading Iran’s striking power, from establishing coercive control over a future Iranian leadership, to regime change. While the US president has a record of flexibility on adherence to his past definitions of success, what is consistent is that he wants to be seen to have won. This latter condition is very difficult to square with Iran’s need to re-establish deterrence and thus in effect have the last word.
Negotiations are further complicated by Israel’s objectives. Israel arguably wishes to see the collapse of the Iranian regime or the descent of Iran into internal strife such that the timeline on it recovering to pose a threat to Israel is extended. Israel has said that it will try to kill anyone who comes to power in Tehran, whereas Trump wants to have someone in power who will be deferential to the US. While Israel will probably accept the end of the campaign if the US disengages, it will also conduct strikes that make negotiations harder, extending the window during which the Israeli air force can try to degrade Iran’s revenues, capabilities and the regime’s tools of control.
On the Iranian side, while the government may wish for de-escalation, parts of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps want revenge and will endeavour to kill Americans in the Gulf and farther afield for an extended period. Given that Iranian command and control has become decentralised, this could see isolated IRGC elements continue to attack shipping even if the government is endeavouring to negotiate an end to the conflict. While such attacks persist, however, it will be hard for the US to disengage.
The Kremlin is another potential complicating factor. In 2023, Russian officials conducted assessments of what international events could help in its war effort against Ukraine. The most prominent global events identified were an escalation in the Israel-Palestine conflict, a crisis in the strait of Hormuz, and a Chinese attempt to seize Taiwan. Russia, therefore, has every incentive to extend this crisis – from which it is recovering huge revenues from oil sales – so long as it can avoid direct involvement.
For the Gulf states and Europe, there is a strong desire for the crisis to end quickly. Its continuation risks permanent damage to economic infrastructure in the Gulf and an energy crisis that could absorb revenues Europe needs to bolster its defences. But so long as Iran maintains the capacity to threaten shipping in Hormuz, negotiations will remain fraught. The US will hope that it can deter the Iranian government through wider strikes that cause the IRGC to back down. But having made the stakes existential for the Iranian government, it will be hard to compel a compromise. We shouldn’t bank on a rapid resolution to the crisis.
Dr Jack Watling is senior research fellow for land warfare at the Royal United Services Institute in London. He is the author of Statecraft: The New Rules of Power in a Divided World (Macmillan)