Introduction
Developments in the Strait of Hormuz during the 2026 war between Iran, Israel, and the United States may ultimately prove to be among the most consequential events affecting the international maritime order since the end of the Cold War. While much of the international discussion has focused on the legality of Iran’s actions and their implications for global energy markets, Tehran’s actions appear to reflect a broader strategic ambition: the establishment of a permanent mechanism of control over one of the world’s most critical maritime chokepoints and its transformation from an open international waterway into a space subject to effective Iranian oversight.
Iran’s actions should not be understood as an improvised wartime response, but rather as the implementation of a long-standing strategic concept centered on transforming Iran’s unique geography into a source of asymmetric power. From the perspective of the Iranian leadership, the Strait of Hormuz is not merely a global trade artery. It is a strategic asset that enables Tehran to exert pressure on the international community, generate economic and political leverage, and compel adversaries to account for Iranian interests even during periods of intense confrontation.
The most significant innovation in the current crisis is not the disruption of freedom of navigation itself. Iran has threatened such measures for decades. Rather, the novelty lies in Tehran’s apparent effort to institutionalize control through regulatory frameworks, oversight mechanisms, service fees, and administrative institutions, while presenting these measures as a permanent governance arrangement rather than a temporary wartime expedient. If Iran succeeds in consolidating this reality over time, the implications extend far beyond the Persian Gulf, potentially reshaping the relationship between effective control and the legal norms that have underpinned the international maritime order since the Second World War.
Hormuz as a Pillar of Iranian Security Doctrine
Iran’s perception of the Strait of Hormuz as a critical strategic asset is not new. Even before the 1979 Islamic Revolution, the strait was regarded as an area of paramount national importance. Following the revolution, however, it gradually became one of the central pillars of Iranian security doctrine.
Like its limitations in the air domain, Iran lacks the capability to compete directly with the United States and its allies in conventional naval power. Consequently, Tehran developed an asymmetric strategy centered on exploiting the geography of the Persian Gulf. The Strait of Hormuz constitutes a narrow maritime passage located adjacent to Iran’s coastline, enabling the deployment of integrated systems of missiles, naval mines, unmanned surface vessels, and unmanned aerial systems capable of threatening maritime traffic and generating international leverage at relatively low cost.
For years, the threat of closing the strait functioned as Iran’s strategic “last-resort” option—a deterrent designed to discourage actions perceived as existential threats to the regime. The decision to activate this instrument during the 2026 war shows how Tehran assessed the severity of the threat it faced and suggests that the Iranian leadership believed the regime’s survival was genuinely at stake.
Why Did Iran Activate the Hormuz Card Earlier Than Expected?
Prior to the conflict, some Western analysts assessed that Iran would reserve the “Hormuz card” for later stages of a military confrontation. The prevailing assumption was that employing such a measure prematurely would provoke severe international backlash and jeopardize Tehran’s relationships with Persian Gulf Arab states, which it had sought to improve in recent years.
In retrospect, this assessment appears to have rested on only a partial understanding of Iranian decision-making for two principal reasons:
- First, from Tehran’s perspective, the war was not viewed as a limited military operation but rather as a genuine attempt to overthrow the regime. The killing of Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei in the opening phase of the conflict reinforced this perception. When political leaders believe that their survival is directly threatened, traditional escalation calculations are fundamentally altered.
- Second, one of the principal constraints that historically discouraged Iran from employing the Hormuz option was its desire to avoid direct confrontation with Gulf Arab states. These states were among the principal beneficiaries of uninterrupted maritime traffic through the strait, and maintaining stable relations with them carried significant strategic value. During the war, however, Tehran perceived the participation—or assistance—of some Gulf states in the American-Israeli campaign as a form of betrayal. This perception reduced Iranian concerns about the potential diplomatic costs of disruption and removed an important restraint that had previously limited the use of the Strait of Hormuz as a coercive instrument. From Iran’s perspective, if the previous regional order had already collapsed, preserving constraints designed to protect it no longer served a useful purpose.
The Global Importance of the Strait of Hormuz
The significance of the Strait of Hormuz extends far beyond the Persian Gulf. It remains one of the world’s most strategically important maritime chokepoints, through which a substantial share of global oil and liquefied natural gas exports transit.
This dependence means that any alteration in the status of the strait carries global consequences, most notably in the Taiwan Strait. Disruptions affect not only Gulf producers and energy markets but also shipping costs, maritime insurance premiums, supply chains, inflation, and broader global economic stability.
In this sense, Iran’s ability to influence conditions in the strait provides it with a level of strategic leverage disproportionate to its overall economic and military power. Even when Tehran struggles to compete with its adversaries in other domains, it retains the capacity to impose substantial costs on the entire international system.
From Closure to Control: Iran’s Strategic Shift
The most important development in the Strait of Hormuz crisis may not be the disruption of maritime traffic itself, but rather Iran’s effort to reorder global freedom of navigation.
Tehran does not portray itself as having closed the strait. On the contrary, Iranian officials argue that the waterway remains open and that Iran is merely implementing oversight and security measures consistent with international law and necessary for maritime safety.
This distinction is not merely semantic. It allows Iran to claim that it is not denying freedom of navigation but rather regulating activity within a sensitive maritime environment. In practice, however, the result is that Iran seeks to determine who may transit, under what conditions, under what supervision, and at what cost.
The gap between Iran’s formal narrative and the operational reality lies at the heart of the crisis. The more successfully Tehran consolidates its ability to define the terms of passage, the less important legal debates may become relative to strategic realities on the ground.
The June 2026 U.S.-Iran MoU will further accelerate this transition. Whereas previous Iranian efforts relied primarily on unilateral measures and coercive leverage, Paragraph 5 of the agreement introduces a diplomatic track focused on the future administration and maritime services of the Strait of Hormuz. From Tehran’s perspective, this may represent an opportunity to transform de facto control into a subject of international negotiation and secure partial recognition of functions that Iran has sought to exercise during the conflict.
The Legal Debate: Freedom of Navigation Versus Effective Control
International maritime law grants the Strait of Hormuz the status of an international transit passage. The principle of transit passage is designed to ensure that states cannot obstruct continuous and expeditious navigation through waterways of global significance.
The current crisis, however, highlights the limitations of international law when confronted by effective control.
Iran seeks an alternative narrative. Rather than charging unlawful transit fees, Iranian officials argue that they are providing services. Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi has emphasized that payments are not required for passage itself but rather for monitoring, safety, and maritime traffic management services.
Similarly, Deputy Foreign Minister for Legal and International Affairs Kazem Gharibabadi has argued that payment for Iranian services is economically preferable to the costs associated with delays, waiting periods, increased insurance premiums, and security risks. He has further suggested that Iran is establishing a framework compatible with international law and that the arrangement is intended to be permanent rather than temporary.
These arguments underscore Iran’s effort to transition from a strategy based primarily on coercion to one rooted in governance. Tehran is attempting not only to exercise power but also to establish legitimacy for its control.
The Persian Gulf Strait Authority: An Institution Designed to Outlast the War
The establishment of the Persian Gulf Strait Authority (PGSA) in May 2026 may represent the clearest indication that Iran seeks to institutionalize its gains.
Historically, states seeking to preserve territorial or regulatory changes have rarely relied solely on military means. Instead, they create institutions, authorities, and administrative structures designed to transform temporary realities into enduring facts.
In the present case, the new authority serves a dual purpose. Domestically, it portrays the regime as an effective provider of sovereignty and order. Internationally, it provides a bureaucratic and legal framework for Iranian control over the strait.
The U.S. response—including sanctions, warnings to international firms, and measures linked to the authority’s connections with the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC)—suggests that Washington understands the broader significance of the initiative. From the American perspective, practical engagement with the authority would amount to de facto recognition of the new reality Iran seeks to establish.
The MoU raises an additional question regarding the future role of institutions such as the PGSA. If negotiations concerning maritime services and administration advance, Tehran may seek to position existing Iranian institutions as the natural implementing mechanisms for any future arrangements. Such an outcome would represent a significant step toward transforming wartime institutions into internationally acknowledged administrative actors.
Where Did the West Miscalculate?
The crisis raises difficult questions regarding Western intelligence assessments and strategic planning.
- First, Western policymakers appear to have underestimated Iran’s willingness to employ the Hormuz option at an early stage of the war. The opening strikes, including the elimination of Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and much of the senior leadership, may have created a perception among surviving regime officials that they faced an existential struggle.
- Second, there may have been excessive confidence that the prospect of international condemnation would deter Iran from undertaking dramatic actions.
- Third, it remains unclear whether sufficient efforts were undertaken to prevent the deployment of mines, unmanned vessels, and other systems that ultimately enabled Iran to establish effective control over parts of the maritime environment. Although President Donald Trump repeatedly declared that the Iranian navy had been destroyed, such claims, even if true, appear increasingly inconsistent with Iran’s demonstrated ability to continue disrupting maritime traffic.
- Moreover, the experience accumulated in the Red Sea should have served as a warning. Houthi operations demonstrated that even a non-state actor can impose substantial costs on global maritime commerce. Despite this experience, lessons from the Red Sea appear not to have been fully applied to the Hormuz theater.
- Finally, Washington seems to have expected stronger participation from allies and partners in efforts to restore freedom of navigation. It is plausible that American planning assumptions included European participation in any maritime security operation.
- U.S. officials have also expressed frustration with Oman’s conciliatory approach toward Tehran. Reports suggest that this frustration has led to increasingly sharp diplomatic pressure, including direct military threat, on Muscat. Washington demands, without positive result, that the Sultanate take a clearer position in the confrontation.
Iran’s Broader Strategic Objectives
Iran’s goals appear to extend well beyond management of the immediate crisis:
Economic Objectives
A regime operating under long-term sanctions has strong incentives to identify alternative sources of revenue. Licensing systems, oversight mechanisms, and maritime service fees could provide a significant long-term income stream. Iranian official media have increasingly portrayed such arrangements as potential solutions to the country’s economic difficulties.
Political Objectives
Control over the strait allows Iran to portray itself as the dominant regional power and to emphasize the dependence of Gulf states and the wider international community on Iranian capabilities. Some Iranian commentators have already described the country as the “fourth most important power in the world” based largely on its position in Hormuz.
At the same time, Iran is pursuing broader efforts to consolidate regional influence, including demands regarding Lebanon and threats to leverage Houthi capabilities in the Bab El-Mandeb Strait. These efforts reflect a wider attempt to transform Iran’s network of regional proxies into an acknowledged and institutionalized sphere of influence.
Diplomatic Objectives
Tehran has linked the future of the Strait of Hormuz arrangement to broader demands, including sanctions relief, reconstruction assistance, wartime compensation, and recognition of its regional role. The June 2026 MoU demonstrates the extent to which Hormuz has evolved from a military pressure point into a central diplomatic bargaining instrument. Several of the agreement’s core provisions—including sanctions relief, economic reconstruction, and negotiations over maritime administration—are directly connected to leverage generated through events in the Strait.
Structural Objectives
Perhaps most important, Iran seeks to establish a precedent whereby effective control can gradually generate legitimacy despite unresolved legal disputes. Tehran appears to be betting that Gulf states and the broader international community will ultimately find appeasement less costly than sustained confrontation.
Implications for the World Order
If Iran’s approach succeeds, the consequences could extend far beyond the Persian Gulf.
- The MoU may create a precedent in which disputes over freedom of navigation are addressed not solely through military deterrence and international law, but also through negotiated governance arrangements involving coastal states. Critics may view such an approach as legitimizing coercive gains, while supporters may argue that it reflects geopolitical realities created by effective control on the ground. Either interpretation would have global implications.
- Many states are likely to accelerate investments in alternative transportation corridors and pipeline networks designed to bypass the Strait of Hormuz. The United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia already possess viable options for developing infrastructure that reduces dependence on the strait, and other Gulf states may seek to integrate into such systems.
- Investment in the protection of strategic infrastructure, ports, and trade routes is likely to increase substantially. Iranian actions have demonstrated a willingness to target national infrastructure regardless of its direct role in military operations, highlighting vulnerabilities that many states can no longer ignore.
- The success of the Iranian model could encourage other actors to pursue similar approaches. Russia might seek to invoke analogous arguments in the Northern Sea Route, while China could potentially apply comparable logic in disputed maritime areas of East Asia. In this sense, precedents established in Hormuz would resonate far beyond the Middle East.
Viewed from this perspective, the debate over Hormuz is not merely about the Persian Gulf. It concerns a more fundamental question: whether effective control and coercive power can ultimately supersede established principles of freedom of navigation.
Conclusion
The 2026 Hormuz crisis represents more than another confrontation between Iran and its adversaries. It constitutes an unusually ambitious effort to transform a long-standing strategic threat into an institutionalized and durable system of control.
Iran is not merely attempting to disrupt maritime traffic. It is seeking to redefine the conditions under which navigation occurs. To achieve this objective, Tehran is combining military power, legal arguments, regulatory mechanisms, and administrative institutions into a comprehensive strategy of maritime governance.
The ultimate success of this effort will not be determined solely by whether vessels continue to transit the strait. The deeper question is whether the international community will, in practice, accept a situation in which passage through one of the world’s most important waterways becomes contingent upon authorization, supervision, and services provided by a single state whose claim rests primarily on its capacity and willingness to exercise force.
The longer the current situation persists without an effective effort to restore the previous status quo, the greater the likelihood that a temporary arrangement will evolve into a permanent reality. If that occurs, the Strait of Hormuz may ultimately be remembered not merely as the site of a regional crisis, but as a turning point in the evolution of the international maritime order in the twenty-first century.
The June 2026 U.S.-Iran MoU does not resolve this debate. However, it demonstrates that issues once considered temporary wartime measures have become subjects of formal international negotiation. The agreement’s references to maritime services, de-mining responsibilities, and future administration of the Strait suggest that the international community may increasingly confront a difficult choice between restoring the prewar status quo and accommodating new arrangements shaped by Iranian influence in Hormuz.
The central question is therefore no longer whether Iran violated existing norms. Rather, it is whether Tehran has demonstrated that, in the contemporary international system, effective control can ultimately generate new norms of its own.
Update: The US-Iran MoU and the Strait of Hormuz
On June 17, 2026, the United States and the Islamic Republic of Iran signed the Islamabad Memorandum of Understanding (MoU), establishing a framework for ending hostilities, restoring maritime traffic through the Strait of Hormuz, and launching negotiations toward a final agreement. Paragraphs 4 and 5 of the MoU will help destroy the freedom of international navigation on which untrammeled global seaborne commerce depends.
Paragraph 4 provides that the United States will remove its naval blockade and other impediments affecting Iran and ultimately withdraw forces from the vicinity of Iran following a final agreement. Paragraph 5 commits Iran to facilitate the safe passage of commercial vessels through the Strait of Hormuz and grants Tehran responsibility for demining operations and the restoration of maritime traffic. Most significantly, Paragraph 5 states that Iran will conduct discussions with Oman and other Persian Gulf littoral states regarding the future administration and maritime services in the Strait of Hormuz.
These provisions do not invalidate the central argument of this paper. Rather, they reinforce it. The paper argues that Iran’s strategic objective extends beyond temporary disruption of maritime traffic and seeks to establish a durable governance framework in the Strait of Hormuz. Paragraph 5’s language is particularly noteworthy because it introduces the concept of future administration and maritime services in the Strait as a subject for formal diplomatic negotiation. While the MoU does not explicitly recognize Iranian sovereignty over the Strait or authorize restrictions on freedom of navigation, it may nevertheless provide Iran with an opportunity to advance elements of the governance model discussed in this paper through diplomatic rather than purely coercive means.
The MoU therefore represents a potentially important transition point: from a wartime effort to establish effective control in Hormuz toward an attempt to secure political legitimacy and international acceptance for aspects of that control through a negotiated process.
Seth Cropsey is the founder and president of Yorktown Institute.
Dr. Avi Davidi is a Senior Fellow at the Jerusalem Institute for Strategy and Security (JISS). A specialist in Iran and U.S.-Israel-Iran relations, he brings nearly four decades of experience in government, strategic intelligence, and national security, including service as Iran Director at Israel’s Ministry of Strategic Affairs.
This article was originally published by The Yorktown Institute
JISS Policy Papers are published through the generosity of the Greg Rosshandler Family.
