Alastair Crooke
Should Iran be able to maintain its choke-hold on the Hormuz, the geo-politics of Asia would be recast in a new strategic reality.
As we're now in the fourth week of war, where next?
Firstly, although Iran has been subjected to intensive bombardment, the latter's military effectiveness is far from evident. Iran's ability to strike back at U.S. and Israeli interests in Gulf States continues with increasing power; its leadership operates effectively in its deliberately-chosen opaque mode (called mosaic); and Iran persists with regular missile and drone volleys, whilst incrementally elevating the sophistication of its missile barrage. Popular support for the Iranian State is consolidated.
The U.S. and Israeli barrages are causing heavy damage to Iran, but there is little evidence that these strikes have found - or destroyed - Iran's dispersed and deeply buried missile 'cities' spread across the extent of the country. The evidence suggests rather, that in failing to destroy Iran's hidden military infrastructure, the U.S. and Israel has turned its attention to civil targets aimed at demoralising the people - as we have seen deployed in the Lebanese and Palestinian arena.
Yet what seems incontrovertible is that Iran has a carefully thought-through strategy that is unfolding in distinct phases. Trump however, is without a plan. It changes daily. Israel does have a plan, which consists inassasinating as many of the Iranian leadership as their U.S.-provided AI can detect. Beyond that, Israel's design is for Iran to be dismembered; divided into ethnic and sectarian statelets; and reduced to weak anarchy (on the Syrian model).
For now, the U.S. stated objectives show up as punctuated threats of escalation ranging from attacks on economic infrastructure (South Pars gas facilities) to two meaningful hits in the very near vicinity to Iranian nuclear sites (Nantaz and the joint Iranian-Russian operated Bushehr nuclear plant). Presumably these near missile strikes are intended as 'messages' to imply the possibility of a U.S. or Israeli escalation to the nuclear level. (Iran, however, responded in kind with a missile strike on Dimona town - in close proximity to Israel's Dimona nuclear facility).
After the Dimona strikes that caused heavy damage, Iran made a significant and pointed statement: It claimed it had achieved "missile dominance". This assertion was based on the fact that Israel had been unable to launch any air defence interceptors in the face of Iran's strike against one of its most heavily guarded strategic state sites.
Mohammad Ghalibaf, Speaker of Iran's Parliament and military leader, warned that the war has entered "a new phase":
"Israel's skies are defenseless... It seems the time has come to implement the next phase of our pre-designed plans...".
There is little doubt, according to military commentator Will Schryver, that U.S. magazine depth (the U.S.' storage sites) is approaching exhaustion and sortie generation has collapsed due to maintenance backlog and logistical sustainment incapacity. U.S. manned aircraft still do not penetrate deeply into Iranian airspace. Iran however, claims that their own magazine depth is plentiful.
Trump in the last days has upped the ante - giving Iran an ultimatum: 'Open Hormuz within 48 hours or your civilian power plants will be progressively destroyed - starting with the biggest first'. (Iran's biggest plant happens to be the joint Iranian-Russian operated Bushehr plant). It seems that Trump still looks to a quick Iranian capitulation. However, Iran has already rejected the ultimatum and has responded with one of its own.
Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei's ultimatum to Trump
In a tightly structured 12-minute address, Ayatollah Imam Sayyed Mojtaba Khamenei moved from familiar rhetoric into something far more consequential. The opening half of his address followed the expected script, but as reported by Lebanese commentator Marwa Osman:
"[M]idway through, the tone shifted from retrospective to strategic. Sayyed Khamenei outlined three concrete demands, each with a defined timeline: A rapid U.S. military withdrawal from the Middle East: a full rollback of sanctions within 60 days, and long-term financial compensation for economic damages".
"Then came the ultimatum: Fail to comply, and Iran escalates, economically, militarily, and potentially nuclearly. Not hypothetically, but operationally: Closing the Strait of Hormuz, formalizing defence ties with Russia and China, and moving from ambiguity to declared nuclear deterrence".
The timing of external reactions was just as telling. Within hours, both Beijing and Moscow issued statements aligning in a carefully worded, yet unmistakable way, with the new Supreme Leader's framing, suggesting coordination.
The war is entering a new phase. Trump has an eye on how the war is and will 'play' at home in the run-up to the November mid-term elections. U.S. minds on how, or whether, to vote tend to be made by September/October. His team is searching wildly to find the exit from the war that, by the summer, might project a plausible 'win' for Trump - if such a thing is even possible.
Simplicius suggests "that Trump's potential coming attacks against Iran's energy grid is to be a destabilizing and distracting effect meant to allow U.S. Marines and 82nd Airborne to take Kharg Island, or other Iranian islands."Senior official"sources continue to claim that the boots-on-ground operation is still highly probable".
Iran evidently is ready to match Trump on the escalatory ladder. Iran's leadership style plainly has changed with the new Supreme Leader: He is no longer interested in incremental 'toing and froing'. Iran's leadership is going for decisive outcomes that will change the West Asian geo-strategic landscape.
And Iran believes that Hormuz represents the leverage with which to do this.
Iran has established a select and safe shipping corridor for approved and IRGC vetted vessels to transit the Hormuz Strait - provided that the cargo is paid in Yuan and subject to a fee. It is estimated that Iran potentially could earn $800 billion a year in fees from such a Suez Canal-type regulatory regime.
This, in theory, allows the energy market to be supplied, but with the proviso that Iran would simply close the Strait completely were Trump to implement his ultimatum.
Professor Michael Hudson notes that Iran's new demands are so "far-reaching that they seem unthinkable to the West: That Arab OPEC countries must end their close economic ties to the United States, starting with the U.S. data centres operated by Amazon, Microsoft and Google... And that they [must] divest their existing petrodollar holdings that have subsidised the U.S. balance of payments since the 1974 [petrodollar] agreements".
"The recycling of petrodollars has been the basis of America's financialization and weaponization of the world's oil trade, and its imperial strategy of isolating countries that resist adherence to the U.S. ruler-based order (no real rules, but simply U.S. ad hoc demands)", as Prof Hudson puts it.
An Iranian choke-hold over Hormuz - plus the Houthi's control over the Red Sea - could wrest domination over energy and its pricing from the U.S. - and, absent the petrodollar inflow to Wall Street, pull the plug on U.S. financialised global domination.
What is at issue here is not just Iran's aspiration to eject the U.S. military from the Middle East, but also a geopolitical transformation as GCC and Asian states (such as Japan and South Korea) are compelled by necessity to become 'client nations' of Iran to gain access to the Hormuz waterway. And because only Iran would be able to guarantee safe passage.
Effectively, should Iran be able to maintain its choke-hold on the Hormuz, the geo-politics of Asia would be recast in a new strategic reality.