The Iran War is currently in such flux that it is not worth writing about the day-to-day flip-flopping of the Trump administration; the only certainty is that they will repeatedly cycle between escalation and negotiation, aggression and docility, and praise and insults. The strategy is confused and confusing, the messaging even more so. Of course, this is all eminently avoidable. We don’t even need to choose between all-out warfare and capitulatory diplomacy; there is a third option. But this piece isn’t about that – you can read my essay in full over at The Dispatch if you’re curious. What this is about is the one issue that gets brought up by Iran War critics more than anything else: the Strait of Hormuz. For these skeptics on both sides of the aisle, the question of the strait is akin to a checkmate against any view supportive of the conflict. It comes up incessantly, used as a trump card in most discussions of the war. But many of the claims related to the strait that are levied against hawkish voices are either misleading, poorly-reasoned, exaggerated, ignorant, or downright false. Here are five of those tendentious claims, along with the (far better) counterarguments. Claim #1: The Strait of Hormuz has been totally closed by Iran. The common understanding of the situation in the Strait of Hormuz goes something like this: “Iran has forcibly shuttered the whole of the waterway, ensuring that commercial traffic cannot transit the route unless specifically allowed to do so by the Iranians. The passage is impassable and has been made so by military means.” But although this top-line understanding is not unreasonable given the media coverage of the issue, it fails to capture the reality of the situation. In actuality, the strait is not fully closed, the purported closure has less to do with the power of the Iranian military than it does the weakness and risk aversion of insurers, and there are indeed safer passages available. Commercial traffic passing the strait has massively declined since the start of the war, but it has not ceased entirely, whether during active hostilities or periods of relative calm. The decline is not necessarily permanent, especially because the closure has not been caused by overwhelming Iranian firepower or physical closure of the waterway. Iran has threatened shipping in the strait, firing occasionally at vessels but without sinking them; they have laid a few mines in the area, meant to scare ships away from passage; they have cajoled ships into Iranian waters, but have not interdicted traffic in the international section of the passage. This is not a military closure of the strait. And it should not be treated as though it is. The reason ships are not passing through the area is that insurers and shipowners have seen this risk as not worth the cost – but that calculus is far easier to alter than is the decision pattern of the Iranian regime. The nuance here matters a great deal, despite what critics may have you believe. As we shall see, it opens different options for a restoration of free navigation that would be unavailable if the passage was, as is commonly claimed, fully physically closed by Tehran. Claim #2: Iran has won the war because of this disruption to maritime traffic in the Strait of Hormuz. This claim often goes in tandem with the first, acting as a corollary to the misstatement of reality in the strait. Critics suggest that since navigation has been challenged and insurers have buckled at the test (the actual reality of the situation), Iran has unlocked an indefatigable weapon that we have no answer for; ergo, they have won the war on the back of this strategy. This is simply wrong. Economic disruption is painful, but it does not automatically lead to victory unless we let it. It does not kill Americans, destroy American military hardware, force a tactical retreat in the face of superior firepower, collapse our government, or even impoverish us to the point of capitulation. It does not stop us from pursuing our own objectives, including turning the closure around on Tehran by blockading their own traffic through the waterway. This would be far more destabilizing and dangerous to Iran than whatever pain they could inflict by disrupting neutral traffic. Another point against this claim is that it has diminishing returns. Not only does a reverse closure massively harm Tehran, the global market will adjust to the threat and pursue alternative options, whether that be sourcing energy elsewhere or rerouting Gulf energy to other export outlets. This does not spell victory for Iran under any circumstances other than our choosing to allow it to do so.
Claim #3: America is dramatically weakened and Americans significantly impoverished by this closure. The biggest impact of the disruption to maritime trade in Hormuz for Americans has been an increase in fuel prices at the pump, but even this has been far less severe than many critics predicted. We have not seen $200/barrel oil, nor have we seen $6 gasoline. There was no major energy shock. There are no lines at the pump. There isn’t rationing. We do not have shortages, nor is anyone really living their life differently. Don’t get me wrong, paying more for gas is a meaningful change; but had you told someone before the conflict that we would be engaged in a massive shooting war with Iran, leading to almost no traffic heading through one of the world’s key energy chokepoints, and that prices for gas would only rise by a couple dollars per gallon, they’d think you were kidding. That energy markets have remained relatively stable despite this serious global trade interruption is a major accomplishment. Other regions that are far more dependent on Gulf energy transshipped via Hormuz – East Asia, India, and Europe come to mind – are much worse off than we are, yet even they have not had to deal with catastrophic outcomes. In fact, some of the new realities created by the Iranian threat to the strait are going to be hugely beneficial for America in the medium and long term. Not only are Gulf states shifting their export routes to bypass Hormuz, thus reducing Iranian leverage, American producers and refiners are likely going to score big by taking up demand and reaping the rewards of a new normal in the Gulf. American producers, alongside Venezuelan producers which have been coopted by Washington since the Maduro raid in January, have little of the downside risk that Gulf producers now have to deal with; this will likely enhance America’s status as an energy superpower and give us another arrow in our geopolitical and economic quiver. Claim #4: America cannot open the Strait of Hormuz. This claim confuses the (poor) choices made by the Trump administration for the objective reality of the situation. That we have not really tried to force the strait or alter the risk calculus for shippers does not mean that we are unable to do so. There is a plethora of options here, running the gamut from escort missions for commercial vessels in the Omani channel of the strait to backstopping maritime insurers at the US government level and working to place defensive weaponry or trained military auxiliaries on commercial vessels transiting the strait (we do this routinely for heavy piracy areas). We have run escort missions haphazardly, but can certainly extend this service and regularize it to ensure that there is at least some traffic flowing out of the area. Our navy is very well-equipped to handle such a mission – in fact, we carried out a very similar one just a few years back when the Houthis (unsurprisingly, also an Iranian-backed terror group) attacked shipping in the Bab el-Mandeb Strait that leads into the Red Sea and eventually to the Suez Canal. That was not an easy mission, but it was a relatively successful one. This would be more of the same. It is not riskless, but it is doable. Some critics claim that escort missions would be too dangerous for our sailors and ships, as we would be under fire from IRGC forces in Iran. But if this were indeed the case, that any threat of damage or attack is too much to bear, why do we even have a navy? This faulty line of thinking is very reminiscent of the German high command, notably Kaiser Wilhelm II and Admiral Alfred von Tirpitz, in the First World War. In that conflict, their reticence to utilize the massive seagoing fleet they had created over the prior decades spelled doom. Instead of fighting it out and using the fleet to their advantage, their risk aversion led them to hold it in reserve until it was too late. American military planners and political leaders should not make the same unforced error. Claim #5: The Strait of Hormuz isn’t our problem, or it is exclusively our problem. These two claims are complete opposites, but are also deeply interrelated. And they’re both wrong. First, let’s address the idea, most often promulgated by right-leaning anti-war skeptics, that the strait simply isn’t our problem. This piggybacks off the very real truth that we are not the nation most heavily impacted by the disruption, but takes it a step further by declaring that we should not even bother trying to reopen the passage for commercial shipping. This is where the argument goes off the rails. America has, for our entire history as a sovereign nation, been dedicated to protecting the freedom of the seas, both for our own vessels and all neutral commercial ships. Some of our first wars as a nation were intrinsically related to this issue; the Barbary Wars were fought to end maritime piracy in off the coast of North Africa, while the War of 1812 was largely sparked by the illegal impressment (seizure and conscription) of American sailors to serve in the British navy. A century later, one of the primary reasons we entered World War I was due to German attacks on American cargo liners. We have used our military might to open various sea lanes and nations to free trade, including the forcible opening of Japan in the mid-1800s. We routinely carry out freedom of navigation operations across the world and have for over a century. Our dedication to the freedom of the seas has been at the heart of American maritime ideology since the 1700s, and it has helped lead to our current status as the primary world power. This is absolutely our problem. And it is even more our problem when you realize that choosing to demur here would lead to major tests of free navigation in other theaters that would more directly harm us, including the Indo-Pacific. But this isn’t only our problem; it is absolutely a problem for European powers and other affected parties, too. The Iranian attack on free travel through Hormuz, alongside its illegal claims of sovereign control over the whole of the international waterway, are a shot across the bow of the world order. For European nations that have made a big stink about the sanctity of international law over the past decade, they are awfully quiet about the biggest threat to that system in ages. It is not only incumbent on America to protect these rights, but also other nations that see the value in the system as it exists. And perhaps no region has been more heavily benefited by the international order than Europe. Their involvement in ending Iranian threats in the strait would not be to help America, but to defend and protect their own national interests. If they choose to skip out on that, they cannot complain when America chooses not to heed their opinions or consult them before undertaking military action.
These are not the only claims made by critics about the Strait of Hormuz, but they are a representative sample of the most commonplace arguments you see in media and online. And they’re all completely wrong, often deliberately so. Reader, make of that what you will. Rational Policy is free today. But if you enjoyed this post, you can tell Rational Policy that their writing is valuable by pledging a future subscription. You won't be charged unless they enable payments.
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