Dangerous phase

Why in the News

United States forces have struck five Iranian oil tankers in Gulf waters, citing Iranian attacks on U.S. warships in the region. Iran has answered with a ballistic missile attack on the Muwaffaq Salti U.S. air base in Jordan, and has promised a stronger response to every further U.S. strike. It has also declared a new restricted zone in the Strait of Hormuz, warning commercial ships against crossing it under American naval escort. The U.S. had until recently used intense military strikes and economic strangulation as separate tools, and is now applying both at once. The pressure has produced escalation instead of concessions, and the conflict has widened to Jordan, Saudi Arabia and the Red Sea.

What has changed in the U.S. approach to Iran?

1. Two instruments applied together: Military strikes and economic strangulation were used separately in the recent past to force Iran to surrender. They are now being used simultaneously as maximum pressure on Tehran.
2. The blockade has closed the revenue line: The U.S. naval blockade has largely prevented Iran from exporting its oil.
3. Escorted convoys have blunted the chokepoint: American naval escort for a limited number of ships out of the Strait of Hormuz has reduced the effect of Iran’s chokehold on global energy prices.

Why has maximum pressure not produced concessions?

1. Iran escalated rather than conceded: Iran attacked American warships outside the Persian Gulf in the knowledge that a stronger U.S. military response would follow.
2. A reading of American domestic politics: Iran sees a window in the weeks before the U.S. midterm elections. The U.S. President remains politically weak at home.
3. Strike capability has been rebuilt: The missile attack on U.S. bases in Jordan indicates capabilities that the U.S. President had claimed were destroyed.

How far has the conflict spread beyond Iran and the U.S.?

1. Saudi Arabia has been drawn in: Yemen’s Houthis, closely aligned with Tehran, launched an attack on Saudi Arabia and wounded dozens. Riyadh has vowed a response.
2. A second maritime front: The Houthis control northern Yemen and parts of its Red Sea coast, and have enforced a naval blockade of Saudi Arabia’s western ports.
3. A ground offensive inside Yemen: The Houthis have launched an offensive against the forces of Yemen’s Saudi-backed government in Taiz and Mocha.
4. Two waterways at risk at once: The Strait of Hormuz and the Red Sea, the trade channel between Europe and Asia, are both flashpoints. The conflict now runs horizontally from Tehran to Jordan and from Riyadh to Bab-el-Mandeb.

Challenges to a maximum pressure strategy

1. Coercion without an exit ramp invites escalation: A campaign that offers no negotiated off-ramp leaves the target with escalation as its only remaining lever. Eg. The U.S. left the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), the 2015 nuclear agreement, in 2018 and reimposed sanctions, and Iran began exceeding the agreement’s enrichment limits from 2019.
   The Fix: Attach a stated and verifiable de-escalation offer to each coercive step, so compliance carries a defined and reversible reward.
2. Energy prices transmit the conflict to uninvolved economies: A threat to a shipping chokepoint raises freight, war-risk insurance and crude costs for states with no part in the dispute. Eg. Attacks on shipping in the Red Sea from late 2023 pushed carriers to route around the Cape of Good Hope, adding roughly two weeks to Asia to Europe voyages.
   The Fix: Hold deeper strategic petroleum reserves and pre-contract alternative routings, so a closure is absorbed over months rather than priced within days.
3. Aligned armed groups let the target strike elsewhere: Sanctions imposed on a state do not reach the armed groups that act with it. Eg. The September 2019 attack on Saudi Aramco’s Abqaiq and Khurais facilities halted about half of Saudi crude output for a period.
   The Fix: Combine weapons transfer interdiction with a regional maritime security arrangement that includes the Gulf states, rather than an escort force drawn only from Western navies.
4. Inspection access closes before the fighting does: Coercion removes the monitoring that would verify any later agreement. Eg. Iran stopped implementing the Additional Protocol, its expanded inspection arrangement with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), in February 2021.
   The Fix: Ring-fence safeguards access from the coercive track, so inspections continue whatever the state of the political negotiation.

Conclusion

Neither side is placed to step back. Washington has committed to military and economic coercion at the same time and has no concession to show for it. Tehran has answered each strike with a wider one and gains from escalating during a period of unsettled American politics. The marker to watch is whether the new restricted zone is enforced against an escorted convoy, since that is the point at which a shipping war becomes a general one.

Back2Basics: Strait of Hormuz

1. Location: A narrow sea passage between Iran to the north and Oman and the United Arab Emirates to the south, linking the Persian Gulf with the Gulf of Oman and the Arabian Sea.
2. Dimensions: Roughly 33 km wide at its narrowest point, with the designated shipping lanes about 3 km wide in each direction.
3. Traffic: Close to a fifth of global petroleum liquids consumption moves through it, along with most of Qatar’s seaborne liquefied natural gas.
4. Bypass routes: Saudi Arabia’s East-West pipeline to the Red Sea and the United Arab Emirates’ Habshan to Fujairah pipeline are the only routes that move Gulf crude to open sea without crossing the strait.

Matching Previous Year Question

“[2026] Ships from which of the following countries have to cross the Strait of Hormuz to reach out to the Indian Ocean? 1. Bahrain 2. Syria 3. Qatar 4. Egypt (a) 1 and 2 (b) 1 and 3 (c) 2 and 3 (d) 3 and 4 ANSWER: (b)”