Donald Trump’s blockade of Iran, announced after the breakdown of ceasefire negotiations in Pakistan last weekend, has begun, and early reports suggest it is working. But its strategic goal is to bring Iran to a more serious diplomatic position—and success there remains a long shot.
Despite some confusing rhetoric over the weekend, the United States has not actually blockaded the Strait of Hormuz, as such, in really any sense at all. The source of the confusion was the president himself, who announced on Sunday that the “United States Navy . . . will begin the process of BLOCKADING any and all Ships trying to enter, or leave, the Strait of Hormuz.” This announcement didn’t make a great deal of sense. First of all, Iran was already engaged in a de facto blockade of the strait, and had been choking traffic through it to a minimum since early March. Each day it allowed through a handful of ships that were carrying Iranian cargo or, it seems, paying a toll to Iran. It would make sense for America to stop this Iranian-approved traffic—but why announce that we are stopping all the rest of the traffic, from Kuwait or the United Arab Emirates or Saudi Arabia—legal traffic from our partners that also needs to sail through the strait, destined for the world’s markets? Some of these ships were even our own.
Enter U.S. Central Command, the military organization tasked with American operations in the Middle East, which clarified a few hours later that, beginning at 10 a.m. ET on Monday, the U.S. military would blockade “all maritime traffic entering and exiting Iranian ports.” This made a good deal more sense. Iran had taken the world’s economy hostage by blocking lawful commerce out of the strait. Now the U.S., on behalf of the global economy, would even the playing field by starving Iran of the revenue it earns from maritime trade. The blockade would also extend to ships leaving Iranian ports on either side of the strait. (Iran has some significant port facilities on the Gulf of Oman and the Arabian Sea, in addition to within the strait, which is in the Persian Gulf.)
