Willing to go

Weekend escalation shows how far Iran is willing to go to control Hormuz

By Mostafa Salem

Escalation over the weekend between Tehran and Washington underscored that the Strait of Hormuz remains the most precarious issue threatening the ceasefire, as the two rivals clash over competing interpretations of who ultimately governs the vital oil chokepoint.

Traffic at the strait is now effectively partitioned into multiple routes. Iran insists that vessels use its own designated corridor and has fired on ships using other routes, rendering all alternatives unsafe.

Tehran remains unrelenting even after the US military struck Iran in retaliation for the Islamic Republic’s attacks on transiting ships. It is signaling that it will aggressively defend its newly acquired control of the strait, even if that means putting its own infrastructure at risk to preserve its greatest gain from the war.

The weekend’s escalation triggered a sharp drop in the number of ships transiting the strait after more than a week of optimistic traffic recovery in the corridor, observers say.

But as vessels pull back from the other routes, traffic through the Iran-approved route remains steady, shipping experts say.

Despite the setback, maritime experts remain optimistic. They view the return to calm today as a sign that an all-out conflict is still unlikely. Instead, the exchanges appear driven by competing interpretations of control over the Strait.

“The Strait of Hormuz remains the principal flashpoint, but also the principal focus of ongoing negotiations,” Dimitris Maniatis, CEO of maritime risk consultancy Marisks told CNN, adding that Washington and Tehran “demonstrated a willingness to retaliate while simultaneously preserving the diplomatic track.”

As long as dialogue continues, Maniatis assess that there “remains a realistic window of opportunity for commercial transits under carefully managed conditions,” although the “security environment remains fragile and capable of changing with little warning.”