Who blinks first: What Iran's Strait of Hormuz strategy reveals about its war goals

[littlemissmartypants]

Attacks on ships in Hormuz and strikes across the region expose Tehran's strategy of gradual escalation and long war, testing US, Israeli and Gulf resolve.
If you ask Iran, the Strait of Hormuz has not been closed. You just have to do it Tehran's way.

Aleksandar Brezar
Published on 18/03/2026 - 15:00 GMT+1

Iran now channels 'verified' shipping through a path well inside Iranian territorial waters north of Larak island and away from the international corridors in Omani waters," Farzin Nadimi, a senior fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, described the arrangement to Euronews.

Since the outbreak of the Iran war, Tehran has used coercion — be it threats or outright force — to redirect cargo ships attempting to pass through the bottleneck passage connecting the Persian Gulf to the Arabian Sea into Iranian territorial waters, where Iran can impose its own rules.

If you want to pass through the narrow waterway, there are three options.

Some tankers are still coming through with their tracking transponders switched off, navigating dark. Tehran has allowed a few others to pass, including Chinese-, Turkish-, Indian- and Pakistani-flagged vessels.

More

https://www.euronews.com/2026/03/18/who-blinks-first-what-irans-strait-of-hormuz-strategy-reveals-about-its-war-goals

[OC375]

1. At some point, the area will be closed for warfare operations

I don't think Tehran gets to keep it open on their terms as long as they like.

[D_Master81]

2. Iran has no reason to

Unless we all out defeat them there is ZERO chance they open it. Iran has no reason to trust us after 2 attacks in a year. So they are out for max pain against the US. The real question is do other countries blink and take up Iran on their demand for trading in Yuan instead of the dollar? That is where the real danger for the US lies. The world moving off the dollar would devastate us far beyond high gas prices.

[Igel]

3. " So they are out for max pain against the US. "

No. Flat out no.

If they want to hurt the US--largely self-sufficient for petroleum and methane, why punish other countries.

Yes, they focus on some countries. Some have safe-passage agreements for ships (hard to say if they hold true, given lack of transponder activation). But it's not just "against the US." So your generalization fails.

Who's hit? "Bad" Muslims on the "wrong side". Jews/Israel (no diff in most Islamist rhetoric, Shi'ite or Sunni).

You know Bush2's "you're with us or against us" and the hate/ridicule it got here? It's baa-aa--aa-ck!

Qatar seriously helped, with Iran, Hamas? Oops, not this time. Let's kill civilians and hurt civilian infrastracture. Allah ... hu akbar!

Some pundit , going from village to village/outlet to outlet, said obviously the "umma" meant no Muslim would attack a Muslim. Umm ... yeah. I guess. Because that was a cray-cray claim.

S'what? Pakistan/Afghanistan? Iran/Iraq? Yemen civil war?

So Iran v UAE, Iran v SA, Houthi v SA, Iran v Dubai? They can't happen? Ever?

No, wait. Could it be the old Shi'ite v Sunni divide? Mo, no! Can't be. But ... Wait. That was the aftermath of the Iraq war. And the basis for ISIS v Assad. Yet a respected itinerant Hindu 'scholar' said otherwise? And we wanted it to be so?

Saw a nice graph today. NPR said day after day that Iran was "escalating" attacks. Missiles, drones, deaths. More destruction today than yesterday! More yesterday than two, then 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 ...days ago! Oh. Noes!

The nice bar chart was by country. For each country, after over two weeks of 'escalation' the attacks were < 10% of day two's attacks.

The "escalation" may have been by target--"on day 10 they took out 10 missile defense sites, on day 22 part of a refinery!"--but that's a very squishy definition, devised minute by minute, of 'escalation'. I'd say that on day 22 they had reduced efficacy. Sharply reduced. Because they're going after easier, non-military, meaning civilian targets. As Iran becomes more Putinesque, well, they improve their stature?

Surely not.