Hormuz, Tehran’s Other Atomic Bomb

“Woe to you, O land whose king is a child.”  (Ecclesiastes 10:16–18)

“We have plenty of oil. We don’t need the Gulf… Those who need that oil can go get it themselves… We’ve been protecting them for free for years. But when we need them, there’s no one there… We don’t need the Europeans anyway… Open that damn strait, you bunch of lunatics!… There’s a lot of money to be made with Iran. We’ll do a joint venture with them on HORMUZ…”

The ceasefire agreement provides for the “full, immediate and safe reopening of the Strait of Hormuz”…

A brief look back at a disaster of historic proportions

The American-Israeli air war against the regime in Tehran began on February 28, with four legitimate objectives, but mentioned in turn and in the greatest confusion: to stop the nuclear program, stop the missiles, stop support for proxies, and help the Iranian people overthrow the regime.

Forty days later, and forty billion dollars sunk into the most sophisticated weapons systems, none of these objectives has been achieved. Despite the tactical prowess of American and Israeli pilots, despite their 13,000 strikes, despite the systematic decapitation of the regime, the destruction of its navy, its air force, its command centers, and an economy in ruins, the regime still stands.

Better still: it now presents itself, not without reason, as the victor.

“Hello Victory! Today a new page of history opens,” proclaimed Mohammad Reza Aref, Iran’s First Vice President, upon the announcement of the ceasefire.

And he added: “The era of Iran has just begun.”

All of this for one simple reason: inadvertently, one might say, Trump quite literally handed the Strait of Hormuz on a silver platter to his Iranian adversary.

Yet the possible closure of the strait had been raised by the CIA and the Pentagon before the American president during the preparatory meetings for Operation “Epic Fury.” But Trump brushed it aside.

On the Iranian side, the option of closing Hormuz had also been considered in the past, including during the Twelve-Day War in June 2025. But at the time, the mullahs’ regime had not dared.

The “privatization” of the strait: a global hostage-taking

Trump’s war decapitated the mullahs and transferred power to a younger, even more fanatical generation of Revolutionary Guards. They are now fighting for their survival—and their wealth—and have nothing left to lose. Hence the scorched-earth strategy, the repeated attacks on the Arab oil monarchies, and above all the “privatization” of the Strait of Hormuz, equivalent to a gigantic hostage-taking: that of the global economy as a whole.

From the Philippines to Bangladesh, from Japan to American motorists to Breton fishermen: the jugular of the global economy is now in the hands of a dictatorial Iranian regime whose true leaders no one knows precisely.

In law, the “nationalization” of the strait is naturally contrary to the principle of free navigation enshrined in international conventions on the law of the sea. Equally illegal is the Iranian regime’s claim to impose a transit fee of one dollar per barrel of oil, which Tehran generously offers to share with Oman, the other state bordering the strait.

But the facts are there: the Guards control the strait, both thanks to their numerous light patrol boats armed with missiles and drones, thanks to the threat of mines (as during the tanker war in the 1980s), but above all thanks to anti-ship missiles and drones concealed all along the Iranian coast.

These realities explain why, despite Trump’s proclamations, the strait is still not reopened the day after the ceasefire; why the imposing naval armada of the U.S. Navy present in the region is prudently keeping its distance from the strait; why Europeans refuse to enter it except within the framework of a peace agreement, after the end of the conflict; why 900 tankers and other commercial vessels are stuck there; why insurance premiums have literally exploded (from 0.1% to 3.75% of cargo value); and why, above all, despite American and European sanctions against the Revolutionary Guards, many operators prefer to pay—discreetly and via cryptocurrency—the $2 million demanded by the Iranians…

Meanwhile, the price of a barrel has soared…

Three bad options

Thanks to this war conducted without the slightest prior strategic analysis, driven solely by the hubris of a king whom no one dares to contradict, the Iranians now find themselves in a position of strength, able to blackmail the entire planet far more effectively than they could have done with nuclear missiles!

A fiasco that recalls, a thousandfold, the Franco-British misadventure at Suez seventy years ago, and that underscores the urgency of negotiating an international treaty inspired by the Montreux Convention (1936) on the Bosphorus. But that treaty was the result of a world war won by the Allies, and above all of the dismantling of the Ottoman Empire, which the French and British had failed to defeat when, in 1915–1916, they attempted to force the Dardanelles Strait.

Yet, far from toppling the regime in Tehran, the current Iran war will only have strengthened it.

Trump, today, has only three bad options: an unlikely diplomatic agreement with Tehran (which has just failed in Islamabad); submission while proclaiming victory; or seizing the strait by force—and, in the meantime, closing it to Iranian tankers and to vessels (Chinese, above all) that would agree to pay the transit fee demanded by Tehran.

Blockade upon blockade, then. A new phase of escalation is beginning, one that puts the global economy as a whole at stake, and China in particular, which absorbs 90% of Iranian oil.

Pierre Lellouche — April 10, 2026