Iran’s decision to announce the closure of the Strait of Hormuz on Sunday, along with the terms and conditions published by the Persian Gulf Strait Authority (PGSA), make clear that Tehran intends to continue to use the vital waterway, a person familiar with the matter told The Jerusalem Post on Monday.
Even though US Central Command (CENTCOM) said the waterway had remained opened, according to analytics firm Kpler, traffic plunged following Iran’s announcement that it closed the strait in response to Israeli attacks in Lebanon.
On Saturday, CENTCOM said 55 merchant ships had transited through the Strait of Hormuz, moving more than 17 million barrels of oil to global markets.
Israeli maritime company Windward AI on Sunday said 32 ships had transited Hormuz on Saturday, and 65% of crude oil exports since June 8 have been destined for China.
Three of the vessels were sanctioned massive supertankers, or Very Large Crude Oil Carriers (VLCCs), including one Iranian flagged vessel, operating in the open, Windward reported.
“Throughout the conflict, sanctioned tonnage in this theater operated almost entirely dark,” the report said. “This posture shift – loading in the open – is consistent with a fleet that no longer judges concealment necessary following the US-Iran MoU signed 17 June.”
Iran's tactics are illegal under international law, expert says
In addition to becoming bolder with sanctioned vessels in the maritime territory, Iran’s PGSA has also continued to claim dominion over Hormuz, saying ships must still seek permission from it to cross and disclose information about the ship’s ownership, origins, and cargo.
The PGSA’s “passage rules and regulations” say it “reserves the right to enforce penalties, revoke permissions or take further legal action” if ships fail to comply with PGSA orders, and that the “PGSA reserves the right to introduce insurance fees in the future,” the Post has learned.
Such plans by Iran are illegal under international law, Prof. Michael Clarke, a prominent British defense analyst, academic, and former director-general of the Royal United Services Institute, told the Post.
The right to keep the Strait of Hormuz open is guaranteed by the doctrine of transit passage under the 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea and customary international law. It says transport across the waterway must be unimpeded even during times of conflict.
Iran has attempted to gain international authority of Hormuz by first demanding tolls for crossing and then fees for services rendered by allowing ships to cross the waterway safely, even though it fires at ships and places mines that threaten secure transit.
The US has not confirmed the number of mines laid by Iran. Earlier this month, a White House official told CNBC more than 40 mine-laying vessels had been destroyed.
Clarke said Iran was trying to normalize the need for shipping companies to coordinate with the PGSA before again pushing for the financial boost that control of Hormuz would provide.
According to the 16th annual “Eye on the Market Energy Paper: Fighting Words,” published by J.P. Morgan, Iran stands to gain $70 billion-$90b. in annual revenue from tolls alone.
A fifth of global oil and liquefied natural-gas supplies have been disrupted for more than three months, and US President Donald Trump last week said global oil supplies would run out in four weeks if the strait is not opened.
Clarke said Iran had the potential to gain more from the already overwhelmingly favorable MOU.
The impact of global desperation has meant that Iran is able to hold Israel operations “hostage, creating a pressure campaign motivated by fear of oil scarcity, [and] for Israel to absorb attacks from Hezbollah without responding to the terror group,” he said.
Israel, which was largely excluded from the negotiations over the deal, will now be blamed for every closure of Hormuz, Clarke said.
Trump suggested Sharaa's forces fight Hezbollah, signaling loss of support for Jerusalem
Tensions between Washington and Jerusalem have already been made apparent, with Trump suggesting Syria may be better adept at handling the threat of Hezbollah.
There was a heated exchange between Trump and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Axios reported, adding that Trump demanded Netanyahu refrain from strikes on Hezbollah.
Staff close to Trump told him there was an increasing feeling that Netanyahu has lost control, or that Trump has lost control of Netanyahu, as Jerusalem and Washington have differing interests in the coming actions, Israeli reporter Barak Ravid told CNN.
Clarke said the war against Iran has been largely unpopular in the US, and with federal elections approaching, Trump is interested in ending the war. With national security at risk, and three years of devastating wars against multiple Iranian proxy groups, Netanyahu wants to see the fall of the Islamic regime through renewed conflict, he said.
“The Americans essentially lost the war on the eighth of April with the ceasefire, and we are seeing a progressive surrender,” Clarke said, and Iran’s demands would only increase as Washington’s desperation becomes more apparent.
Having failed to remove the nuclear threat, Washington must now return to the old policy of managing that threat but under significantly worse conditions, he said. The war has led to a strengthened Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps-led regime and a weakened civil society because of its premature ending, he added.
Clarke cited a Foundation for Defense of Democracies estimate that the war has cost Iran $144 billion, half of the country’s annual GDP, and the significant anger held by the Iranian public over the January massacres. The opportunity for regime change had been missed, and the Iranian people’s trust has been lost by the “stupid” promises made by Trump to those taking to the streets at great personal cost, he said.
The ceasefire agreement was the true moment America lost the war against Iran, Clarke said.
“The whole thing is a strategic failure of the first order,” he said, adding that there eventually would be regime change, but it will be a far more violent ordeal than had the relevant powers pursued it now.
According to others, the war was doomed from the beginning
Dr. Daniel Sobelman, a fellow at the Middle East Initiative and an associate professor of international relations at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, said starting the war with Iran had led to the sequence of events that now leaves the fate of Hormuz in question.
The international community has long been aware of Iran’s threat to assert authority or close Hormuz, a move that Iran refrained from out of fear of war with the US, he said. When the war started at the end of February, Tehran was left with no reason not to play its Trump card, he added.
Certain that Trump’s goal was regime change, Tehran was pushed to prove that its “new strategic reality is not going to go anywhere,” Sobelman said.
The US is now faced with accepting the MOU or undertaking a risky operation to militarily open the strait, which would potentially produce an outright military victory for the regime if it fails, he said, and such a “gamble” would potentially affirm an Iranian world order.
“Either way, Iran’s strategic market value has gone up, because the United States, a superpower and a regional power, stormed Iran, tried to topple the regime, and Iran is still standing,” Sobelman said.
Restoring the equilibrium of power might be what is necessary to move forward from the near-constant state of war, he said.
There has been a dramatic change in Israel’s mentality from before the October 7 massacre in 2023, when it was reluctant to combat any threat for fear of starting a war, Sobelman said. Today, the IDF is occupying territory in Lebanon to create a buffer zone against the Hezbollah threat, and the ceasefire deal might be beneficial, depending on what both sides make of it, he said.
After the Yom Kippur War, Israel did not want to return Sinai, but it was Egypt’s seizure of the Israeli side of the Suez Canal that led the countries to finally negotiate and reach a lasting, admittedly cold, peace, Sobelman said.
“The Americans understood that if Israel reached a decisive victory against Egypt, then we’re back at square one, and Israel would never agree to engage in peace talks with the Egyptians,” he said, adding that the situation is now similar.