The fourth week of war between Iran and the US/Israeli coalition reaches a critical juncture tonight as Donald Trump’s 48-hour ultimatum to Tehran expires, with the US president threatening to “obliterate” Iranian power plants unless the Strait of Hormuz is fully reopened — a demand Iran has met with a counter-threat of complete, indefinite closure.

Iran’s position, as articulated by its representative to the International Maritime Organisation IMO, Ali Mousavi in an interview with local media over the weekend was that the strait remains open to all shipping except vessels linked to what Tehran describes as “Iran’s enemies.”

The Red Sea crisis has served as a testing ground for the current Hormuz crisis.

That carve-out has in practice rendered the waterway commercially impassable for the bulk of international trade. Tehran has since hardened that stance further in response to Trump’s power plant threat, raising the spectre of a full and indefinite closure.

As if one blocked strait were not enough, a second critical maritime chokepoint is now under fresh threat. The US-led Combined Maritime Forces, which protects shipping traffic across the Middle East, has warned that new Houthi threats against the Bab el-Mandeb Strait represent a “heightened risk” for maritime traffic. The Yemen-based militant group, which has been waging a campaign against commercial shipping for much of the past 900 days, has issued statements threatening to deny access to the waterway linking the Red Sea to the Gulf of Aden.

Danish container shipping consultancy Sea-Intelligence has warned against the assumption that the Hormuz disruption will prove temporary — drawing an explicit parallel with the Red Sea crisis that erupted in late 2023.

“When the Red Sea crisis erupted in late 2023, the initial reaction by most observers was also to expect it to be temporary,” Sea-Intelligence noted in its latest weekly report. “And here we are, more than two years later, with the Red Sea crisis still at a level where a substantial part of container vessels cannot pass through the Red Sea.”

The firm goes further, suggesting the Red Sea campaign may have served as a deliberate testing ground for the current Hormuz strategy. “We should also remember that the Houthis were backed by Iran, and hence it should be contemplated that the Red Sea crisis has served as a testing ground for the current Hormuz crisis,” it posited.

Sea-Intelligence raised the possibility that, if a more permanent state of disruption takes hold, transit access through Hormuz could become effectively tiered — available to vessels from nations not deemed hostile by Tehran, potentially accompanied by toll fees for passage, a development already reported in at least one case.

“Making a transit too risky is clearly a strong strategic tool for Iran — just as the Houthis discovered their threats in the Red Sea gave them much more influence than they ever had before,” the firm observed.

Source: Splash24/7