One of the US and Israel’s justifications for launching the war on Iran was to ensure the regime in Tehran could never possess nuclear weapons, the ultimate deterrent against external attack. But the main lesson that has been taken from the war, according to some commentators, is that Iran’s own geography already provides it with all the deterrent it needs.

The US-Israeli strikes have inflicted massive damage on Iran’s leadership and have destroyed billions of US dollars worth of military and civilian infrastructure. However, this display of force has proved unable to stop Iran from controlling who enters the Strait of Hormuz, a maritime chokepoint through which around 20% of the world’s oil supply flows.

This has led to the suggestion that Iran could emerge from the conflict with a new blueprint for shielding itself against future threats, regardless of whether it agrees to US demands to dismantle or severely limit its nuclear programme.

Geography is arguably Iran’s greatest strategic asset. The Strait of Hormuz is shallow and narrow, with just two-mile-wide navigable shipping channels. There are also a huge number of coves and inlets along Iran’s southern coastline, providing cover for launching small boats to attack shipping or lay mines, as well as anti-ship missiles and drones.

And there is a vast belt of rugged mountains running from Iran’s north-western border with Turkey all the way down to the Strait of Hormuz. Iran can store, conceal, produce and launch more drones and missiles here than it would ever need to threaten Gulf shipping.

However, Iran’s capacity to close the strait is not new. For decades, Iran has repeatedly threatened to respond to any external attack by closing the strait. It has also, albeit in a more measured way, demonstrated the capability to make the strait commercially unusable.

In response to Donald Trump’s “maximum pressure” policy across both his first and second terms as US president, Iran has harassed shipping with fast boats, rehearsed loading mines on to vessels, test-fired anti-ship ballistic missiles and even seized a British tanker. These are all classic forms of deterrence signalling.

Multiple analysts had warned of the catastrophic economic consequences of full-scale war with Iran precisely because of Iran’s ability to close the Strait of Hormuz. The only person who seems not to have understood this is Trump.

When pressed in March on whether Trump had been briefed before the war that Iran would seek to block Hormuz, his director of national intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard, would not be drawn. But she acknowledged that it “has long been an assessment of the intelligence community that Iran would likely hold the Strait of Hormuz hostage”.

Another challenge to the claim that geography may replace nuclear weapons as Iran’s primary source of deterrence is that its nuclear programme was never a core part of its deterrence. A 2019 report by Chatham House determined that Iran saw its asymmetric capabilities – particularly ballistic missiles and its ability to mobilise its proxy groups in the region – as essential to its national security. Iran’s ability to exercise control of the Strait of Hormuz is another pillar of this strategy.

There is ample reason to believe Iran was engaged in nuclear “hedging” – preserving the option to build a weapon at some point without crossing the line in a verifiable way. But if nuclear deterrence was the core aim, it is unlikely that Iran would have committed to a 2015 nuclear deal that most of the international community argued blocked its path to a bomb.

Regional implications

If a country is attacked, by definition its deterrence has failed. But the perception of restored deterrence can help create conditions for deescalation by justifying an end to the fighting and convincing an adversary that costs can still be imposed. In this sense, Iran’s control of Hormuz may help bring the current war to an end.

Iran’s confidence in having proven its ability to blockade Hormuz may also provide cover for dialling down its nuclear ambiguity posture. And it could compensate for the degradation of its network of proxies that has enabled Iran to project influence across Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, Yemen and Gaza.

The weakening of this so-called “Axis of Resistance” in recent years has reduced (though far from eliminated) Tehran’s ability to raise the regional cost of any direct attack on Iran. And Hezbollah, which is widely considered the strongest group in this proxy network, has paid a high price for defending Iran since the start of the war.

Iran is highly unlikely to abandon its proxies completely. However, it may now conclude that using them as a form of forward deterrence to avoid being directly attacked has manifestly failed and roll back on the strategy. This would be an extremely positive move for regional stability.

Iran’s demonstrated capacity to close the strait is likely to shape the regional order for some time. But Iran is unlikely to be willing to rely on this single pillar of deterrence.

Its sustained missile strikes on neighbouring Gulf states, and damage to critical infrastructure, had already created an appetite for a negotiated end to the conflict among the US’s Arab allies. Trump himself admitted he did not anticipate this reaction.

This makes forcing Iran to suspend its ballistic missile capability extremely difficult in upcoming negotiations, which will leave its neighbours nervous and anxious about their own lack of any deterrence capacities.

This article was originally published by The Conversation; please consider supporting the original publication, and read the original version at the link above.

Hormuz Traffic Ticks Up With More Vessels Outbound

A U.S. Navy destroyer intercepts an Iranian tanker near the Strait of Hormuz (Central Command)
A U.S. Navy destroyer intercepts an Iranian tanker near the Strait of Hormuz (Central Command)

Published Apr 26, 2026 8:34 PM by The Maritime Executive

 

Traffic is picking up again in the Strait of Hormuz, despite dueling blockades by U.S. and Iranian forces, according to maritime security consultancy Windward. 19 vessels made the transit throught the waterway on April 25, most outbound and all of them broadcasting AIS - a possible sign of recovery, at least for one day. The number would have been higher if Iranian shipping interests had been unimpeded, but the U.S. Navy is working on making its naval cordon more efficient, with some success.

The most noteworthy crossing was the megayacht Nord, linked to Russia's wealthiest businessman, the sanctioned steel and mining magnate Alexey Mordashov. Iran has a friendly relationship with Moscow, based on defense ties, and has an incentive to allow Russian traffic to use the strait. Nord is immediately recognizable: she is an iconic Lurssen yacht, ranking among the largest in the world, and has a distinctive and imposing appearance designed to "cause strong emotions in every observer." The 460-foot yacht passed through the Iranian side of the waterway at about 0900 local time Saturday, and she is now in port at Muscat, Oman.  

Other noteworthy transits included the sanctioned tankers Oceanjet and Lumina Ocean, both linked to Iran's petroleum industry. Other Iranian or Iranian-chartered vessels were not so lucky: 37 vessels have been intercepted and redirected since the start of the blockade, and three more have been seized. TankerTrackers.com assesses that $380 million worth of crude is in U.S. custody and under way for the United States, and another $1 billion in oil is back in Iran aboard tankers that were turned around by the blockade. The U.S. Treasury has assisted the campaign, placing sanctions on at least one vessel - the LPG carrier LPG Sevan - the day before it was interdicted and sent back to Iran under escort. 

Full restoration of normal traffic levels will require a durable conclusion to the conflict, followed by a mine countermeasures effort to remove the naval mines that Iran has deposited near the strait's designated sea lanes. In a press conference Friday, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said that "we are confident in our ability" to clear mines from the waterway. He said that U.S. forces are already working on that task - but he acknowledged that the mines are a danger, and that the risks of transiting the strait are higher now than would be desired. 

While waiting for the risk to abate, about 20,000 seafarers are trapped aboard the vessels that were caught inside the Gulf when the conflict began. The ordeal has been challenging for these crewmembers, who have had to endure uncertainty, food rationing, communications blackouts and the risk of attack. In a video message released Friday, IMO Secretary General Arsenio Dominguez said that his agency will redouble its efforts to make sure that seafarers are put first.


Report: Removing Mines From Strait of Hormuz Could Take Six Months

An IRGC minelaying boat. Iran possessed thousands of mines before the war, some deployable from civilian small craft (IRGC)
An IRGC minelaying boat. Iran possessed thousands of mines before the war, some deployable from civilian small craft (IRGC)

Published Apr 22, 2026 11:03 PM by The Maritime Executive

 

Reopening the Strait of Hormuz is a top-of-mind objective for the White House, but it may take more than a deal with Iran to get the situation back to normal in the waterway, according to the Washington Post. The Pentagon's internal assessment is that it could take six months to complete minesweeping operations in the strait after hostilities have ceased, the Post's Dan Lamothe reports - even with the advanced minesweeping and minehunting equipment embarked on three Independence-class littoral combat ships deployed in the region. The timeline would extend the lingering energy-price effects of the conflict out until the midterm elections, an undesirable outcome for the administration. 

Based on accounts from three officials, the House Armed Services Committee was briefed on the status of the Strait of Hormuz shutdown on Tuesday. At the briefing, a senior official from the Pentagon told lawmakers that it could be half a year before all the mines are removed - far longer than any other official estimate. The administration has not issued a direct denial, according to the Post.

The six month time estimate is based on the total number of mines that are believe to be currently in the strait, estimated at 20 individual devices; but the number needing clearance depends on the evolution of the conflict. Iran retains access to military and civilian small craft, and has the ability to emplace more mines if desired. The size of its surviving stockpile is not publicly known, but it numbered in the thousands before the war - suggesting that the difficulty of the problem could rise if Iran chooses. 

The location of the mines is not definitively known, but Iran has published a "danger zone" chart warning shipping to stay out of the area of the traffic separation scheme (TSS) in the center of the strait. Many ships have transited through Omani waters at the southern edge of this designated "danger zone" without encountering mines, including a convoy of MSC boxships on Monday night. On the north side of the waterway, dozens of ships have passed without incident through Iran's territorial waters near the islands of Larak, Qeshm and Hormuz. Iran's own tankers periodically evade the American blockade using this territorial-seas route, albeit in small numbers, according to the FT and TankerTrackers.com. No mine strikes have yet been reported on any of these routes. 

The timeline for demining will be of concern to many other stakeholders, since the waterway ordinarily handles about 20 percent of all global crude oil trade. Asia's energy economy, geared to rely on Arabian crude oil grades, has been particularly affected. On Monday, Chinese leader Xi Jinping called for the strait to be reopened, an implicit criticism of China-aligned Iran and the first such statement he has released. “The Strait of Hormuz should remain open to normal navigation, which is in the common interest of regional countries and the international community,” Xi said in comments carried by state media.