The Islamic Republic’s decision to announce the closure of the Strait of Hormuz on Sunday, along with the terms and conditions published by the Persian Gulf Strait Authority (PGSA), makes clear that Tehran intends to continue to use the vital waterway, an expert told The Jerusalem Post on Monday.
Though US Central Command asserted the waterway remained opened, shortly after Iran’s announcement that it closed the strait in response to Israeli attacks in Lebanon, data from analytics firm Kpler revealed that traffic plunged following the Iranian announcement.
CENTCOM claimed on Saturday that 55 merchant ships transited through Hormuz, moving more than 17 million barrels of oil to global markets, though the Israeli maritime company Windward AI published on Sunday that the day prior had seen only 32 ships transit and 65% of crude oil exports since June 8 have been destined for China.
Three of the vessels were sanctioned Very Large Crude Oil Carriers, including one Iranian-flagged vessel, operating in the open, windward noted.
“Throughout the conflict, sanctioned tonnage in this theater operated almost entirely dark. This posture shift — loading in the open — is consistent with a fleet that no longer judges concealment necessary following the US-Iran MoU signed 17 June,” the Israeli company suggested.
Iran's tactics are illegal under international law, expert says
In addition to becoming bolder with sanctioned vessels in the maritime territory, the Islamic Republic’s PGSA has also continued to assert dominion over Hormuz, asserting that ships must still seek permission from Iran to cross and disclose information about the ship’s ownership, origins and cargo.
The Post was also able to confirm that the PGSA’s “Passage rules and regulations” asserts that the Iranian group “reserves the right to enforce penalties, revoke permissions or take further legal action” if ships fail to comply with PGSA orders and that the “PGSA reserves the right to introduce insurance fees in the future.”
Professor Michael Clarke, a prominent British defense analyst, academic, and former Director-General of the Royal United Services Institute, explained to The Post that such plans by Iran are illegal under international law.
The right to keep the Strait of Hormuz open is guaranteed by the doctrine of transit passage under the 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) and customary international law, and asserts that transport across the waterway be unimpeded even during times of conflict.
The Islamic Republic has attempted to gain international authority of Hormuz, first demanding tolls for crossing and then fees for services rendered by allowing ships to cross the waterway safely, though it is the Islamic Republic’s firing at ships and placement of mines that threatened secure transit.
The United States has not confirmed the number of mines laid by Iran, though a Whitehouse official confirmed to CNBC earlier this month that more than 40 minelaying vessels had been destroyed.
Clarke suggested that Iran was trying to “normalize” the need for shipping companies to coordinate with PGSA as a matter of necessity before again pushing for the financial boost that control of Hormuz would provide.
According to the 16th annual Eye on the Market Energy Paper: Fighting Words, published by J.P. Morgan, Iran stands to gain between USD 70-90 billion in annual revenue from tolls alone. With a fifth of global oil and liquefied natural gas supplies now disrupted for over three months, and US President Donald Trump claiming last week that global oil supplies will run out in four weeks if the strait is not opened, Clarke noted that Iran had the potential to gain more from the already overwhelmingly favorable MoU.
The impact of global desperation has meant that Iran is able to hold Israel operations “hostage,” creating a pressure campaign, motivated by fear of oil scarcity, for Israel to absorb attacks from Hezbollah without responding to the terror group,” Clarke highlighted.
Israel, who was not a party to the US agreement and was indeed largely excluded from the processes, will now be blamed for every closure of Hormuz, he explained.
Trump suggested Sharaa's forces fight Hezbollah, signaling loss of support for Jerusalem
Tensions between Washington and Jerusalem have already been made apparent, with Trump suggesting Syria may be better adept at handling the threat of Hezbollah and a heated exchange between the US leader and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Axios reported that Trump demanded Netanyahu back off on the strikes on Hezbollah, telling him he was “f***ing crazy,” Netanyahu would be in prison had Trump not intervened and that Israel is widely hated because of him.
Israeli reporter Barak Ravid told CNN that staff close to Trump told him there was an increasing feeling that Netanyahu has lost control, or that Trump has lost control of Netanyahu, as Jerusalem and Washington have differing interests in the coming actions.
As noted by Clarke, the war against Iran has been largely unpopular in the United States and with US federal elections approaching, Trump is interested in ending the war. With national security at risk, and three years of devastating wars against multiple Iranian proxy groups, Netanyahu wants to see the fall of the Islamic regime through renewed conflict.
“The Americans essentially lost the war on the 8th of April with the ceasefire and we are seeing a progressive surrender,” Clarke asserted, adding that Iran’s demands would only grow taller as Washington’s desperation becomes more apparent.
Having failed to remove the nuclear threat, Washington must now return to the old policy of managing that threat but under significantly worse conditions, he added, claiming that the war has only led to a strengthened IRGC-led regime and a weakened civil society because of its premature ending.
Citing the Foundation for Defense of Democracies estimate that the war cost Iran $144 billion, half of the country’s annual GDP, and the significant anger held by the Iranian public over the January massacres, Clarke conceded when asked that the opportunity for regime change had been missed and that the Iranian people’s trust had been lost by the “stupid” promises made by the US president to those taking to the streets at great personal cost.
“The whole thing is a strategic failure of the first order,” he concluded, adding that he predicted regime change would still eventually come but it would be a far more violent ordeal than had the relevant powers pursued the end of the Islamic regime now.
According to others, the war was doomed from the beginning
Though Clarke felt that the ceasefire agreement was the true moment America lost the war against Iran, Dr. Daniel Sobelman, a fellow with the Middle East Initiative and an associate professor of international relations at Hebrew University, believed it was the opening move to initiate war with Iran that started the sequence of events that now leaves the fate of Hormuz in question.
The international community has long been aware of Iran’s threat to assert authority or close Hormuz, a move that Iran refrained from out of fear of war with the US, he argued. When the war started at the end of February, Tehran was left with no reason not to play its Trump card.
Certain that Trump’s goal was regime change in Iran, Sobelman said that Tehran was pushed to prove that its “new strategic reality is not going to go anywhere.”
The US is now faced with accepting the MoU or undertaking a risky operation to militarily open the strait, a risky operation that would potentially produce an outright military victory for the regime if it fails, he highlighted. Such a “gamble” would potentially affirm an Iranian world order.
“Either way, Iran's strategic market value has gone up, because the United States, a superpower and a regional power, stormed Iran, tried to topple the regime, and Iran is still standing,” he outlined.
Though the MoU has been difficult to swallow for Jerusalem, and considered a catastrophe by a large number of experts cited in the Post, Sobelman suggested that restoring the equilibrium of power might be what's necessary to move forward from the near-constant state of war.
Reflecting on the dramatic change in Israel’s mentality from before October 7, when the country was reluctant to combat any threat for fear of starting a war, to now where IDF forces are occupying territory in Lebanon to create a buffer zone against the Hezbollah threat, Sobelman argued the deal might be beneficial depending on what both sides make of it.
He exampled that after the Yom Kippur war success, Israel didn’t want to return Sinai, but it was Egyptian’s seizure of the Israeli side of the Suez Canal that led the countries to finally negotiate and reach a lasting, admittedly cold, peace.
“The Americans understood that if Israel reached a decisive victory against Egypt, then we're back at square one, and Israel would never agree to engage in peace talks with the Egyptians,” he noted, suggesting it was a similar situation now.