Washington DC — Nearly five months after the United States and Israel launched their war on Iran, and the subsequent deal pausing it, the Strait of Hormuz — a critical chokepoint for roughly 20 percent of global energy supplies — once again remains effectively closed by a dual Iranian and US blockade, prolonging energy shortages and deepening fears of a global economic crisis.
Before February 28 this year, the narrow waterway linking the Gulf to the Arabian Sea operated without restriction, allowing daily oil exports from Gulf producers to flow freely to international markets.
Following the initial joint US-Israeli strikes that triggered a major regional war impacting nearly all GCC countries and beyond, Iran effectively shut the strait in response.
Almost a month into the war, mediator Pakistan’s Defence Minister Khawaja M. Asif publicly questioned the shifting aims of the warring parties. In a social media post, he wrote that “the goal of the war seems to have shifted to opening the Strait of Hormuz, which was open before the war.”
Today, more than 140 days since the US and Israeli attacks and the signing of a Pakistan-mediated Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) intended to end the fighting, the strait has still not reopened to normal commercial shipping. Instead, the US and Iran have resumed direct tit-for-tat strikes and the full resumption of war appears highly likely.
According to Iranian media reports, US forces have struck railways, airports, desalination plants and bridges inside Iran. In retaliation, Iran says it has been carrying out strikes in Gulf states, including Qatar, Kuwait, Bahrain, and Jordan, hitting American military bases and desalination plants.
Iran escalated the situation by suspending its commitments to the MoU, stating that it was preoccupied with defending the country against US attacks.
Foreign policy analysts monitoring developments believe that a resumption of fighting following the signing of the MoU was inevitable and merely a question of timing.
“The return of armed conflict was to be expected, given the two sides’ differing goals regarding the Strait of Hormuz. The June MoU had major ambiguity, so in the absence of a common vision it couldn’t withstand the pressures put on it,” Alan Eyre, a former senior US diplomat, tells TRT World.
Eyre, a core member of the US nuclear negotiating team from its launch in 2010 through the signing of the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) with Iran under the Obama administration, says it is clear that everyone involved in the peace efforts “feels disappointed for one reason or another.“
Related
Clause 5 of MoU
The 14-point deal, often referred to as the Islamabad MoU, was a framework agreement aimed at ending the US-Iran conflict. It included an immediate truce, the lifting of the US naval blockade on Iranian ports, the reopening of the Strait of Hormuz by Iran, the release of frozen Iranian assets, oil export relief, and a 60-day window to negotiate a final deal on Iran nuclear programme, the end of Western sanctions, and related matters.
It also created a $300 billion reconstruction and development initiative for Iran.
Pakistan served as the mediator and witness.
But now the deal is unravelling.
It all began on June 25, when an Iranian projectile struck a cargo ship in the Strait of Hormuz, igniting a powder-keg of hostilities.
The preliminary deal had called for Hormuz to be fully reopened, although it also included language indicating that Tehran would manage maritime traffic.
Tehran interprets the agreement as granting it the right to control the Strait of Hormuz. It regards the alternative shipping route used by vessels — and supported by the US — as a violation of the accord. As a result, Iran considers tankers and other ships that use these alternate routes to be legitimate targets, since the MoU does not specify which route vessels must follow through the strait.
Tehran points at clause 5 of the MoU to back its arguments and actions. The clause states: “Upon the signing of this MOU, the Islamic Republic of Iran will make arrangements using its best efforts for the safe passage of commercial vessels with no charge, for 60 days only, from the Persian Gulf to the Sea of Oman and vice versa. The traffic of commercial vessels will immediately start, and considering the need for removing the technical and military obstacles, and demining by the Islamic Republic of Iran will be instated within 30 days. The Islamic Republic of Iran will conduct a dialogue with the Sultanate of Oman to define the future administration and maritime services in the Strait of Hormuz in discussion with other Persian Gulf littoral states in line with the applicable international law and the sovereign rights of coastal states of the Strait of Hormuz.”
However, the US disputes Iran’s interpretation of the MoU, arguing that Tehran is directly violating the agreement by disrupting shipping in the Strait of Hormuz.
“The language in the MoU has been interpreted very differently by Washington and Tehran, but in any case, Iran is illegally asserting the right to control passage through waters on both sides of the Strait,” former US Ambassador Barbara A. Leaf tells TRT World.
Ambassador Leaf, an Assistant Secretary of State during the Biden administration and now senior international policy advisor at Washington-based law firm Arnold and Porter, describes the current standoff between the US and Iran as a “controlled military escalation” that, according to her, was triggered by Tehran after it attacked ships in Omani sovereign waters and claimed the right to control passage through any part of the Strait of Hormuz, including Oman’s territorial waters.
Speaking at an online event “From Deal to Ordeal: The US and Iran”, organised by the International Crisis Group earlier this week, prominent Middle East scholar Vali Nasr argued that Iran’s recent moves to assert control over the Strait of Hormuz stem less from internal divisions and more from a conviction that Washington never intended to honour the MoU.
Nasr, who is also a Professor of International Affairs at Johns Hopkins University, argued that Iran appears to have concluded early on that the MOU was “too good to be true”, suggesting Tehran viewed the agreement as a tactical pause by the US to regroup rather than a genuine step toward a broader deal.
“When the memorandum was signed, I think what [others] said [was] that it was too good to be true,“ Nasr stated. “In other words, the US gave up too much, and I think Iran’s reading of it was that there was no real pathway to something bigger out of the memorandum.“
Nasr also noted that Iranian officials had expected a new round of conflict involving Israel, the US, or both to begin around October. Instead, developments moved much faster. He pointed to several early signals that convinced Tehran the US was not committed to a diplomatic track and was instead using the MOU to shift the balance of power.
