How Iran turned Strait of Hormuz into potent weapon against US bombardment
By choking the world’s energy artery, Tehran is betting it can endure longer than a far stronger enemy
Long before the US and Israel attacked Iran, the Islamic Republic had devised its own weapon: holding the world’s main oil lifeline hostage to offset its foes’ military superiority, three regional sources familiar with Iranian planning said.
For decades, Iran has signalled that if pushed into a confrontation, it would restrict tanker traffic in the Strait of Hormuz, the chokepoint where its adversaries are most exposed because disruptions there reverberate instantly through global energy markets.
With the Gulf’s main export artery in the crosshairs, Tehran has turned the region’s greatest economic asset into its most powerful deterrent, the sources said.
About a fifth of global oil and liquefied natural gas normally passes through the vital strait, and Iran, which lies on its northern coast, has now effectively closed it. Traffic via the strait has dropped by 97 per cent since the war against Iran began on February 28, according to UN data.
Iran has used similar tactics before. In the “Tanker War” of the 1980-88 Iran-Iraq conflict, attacks on vessels turned the Gulf into one of the world’s most dangerous waterways, forcing Washington to escort tankers through the strait.
But Iran now wields far more potent tools, including large arsenals of cheap missiles and drones capable of threatening shipping across a far wider area. Its attacks this month have shown how quickly Tehran can disrupt traffic through the strait without heavily mining it.