Can the Strait of Hormuz be reopened without the permission of the Islamic Republic? Flopping Aces noted on X that forcing the strait open was once considered by many to be infeasible. “Critics insisted it could not be done. A single surviving Iranian drone, they said, would keep the Strait of Hormuz closed. Convoys would fail. Insurance markets would freeze. Oil would spike, and the pressure campaign would collapse under its own contradictions.”
In fact, on April 2, 2026, French President Emmanuel Macron publicly declared, presumably on the advice of the French admiralty, that it would be unrealistic to launch a military operation to force open the Strait of Hormuz, after President Donald Trump challenged U.S. allies to work toward reopening it. Macron said:
"Some people defend the idea of freeing the Strait of Hormuz by force via a military operation, a position sometimes expressed by the United States, although it has varied," Macron told reporters during a trip to South Korea. "This was never the option we have supported because it is unrealistic," he said. "It would take forever, and would expose all those who go through the Strait to risks from the guardians of the revolution but also ballistic missiles," he said.
So advised, the UK, France, and their partners built plans for a multinational defensive mission (including minehunters, escorts, etc.) to be deployed “when conditions permit” — i.e., after a stable ceasefire or political understanding had been reached — rather than as a means of compelling the strait's reopening. “Rather than shaping the negotiations themselves, these countries are preparing to restore confidence among shipowners, insurers, and Gulf partners through mine-clearing operations, naval escorts, and maritime surveillance once the security situation allows.”
Iran itself was convinced that its hold on the Strait of Hormuz was unshakable and that navies could only rail impotently at its impregnable fortifications. Drawing directly on the lessons of the 1980s Tanker War with Iraq, it had created a mosquito force of small, numerous, expendable platforms trained to advance with suicidal determination. Backing them up were layers of anti-ship missiles ranging from shore-based systems (mobile launchers, some in hardened “missile cities” or tunnels) to similar weapons mounted on small boats. These vessels and their land-based counterparts could zip along Iran’s long coastline, using islands and mountains for concealment and mobility. And if that were not daunting enough, Iran could also wield the threat of naval mines. Although no ships have reported striking a mine, even the threat or limited deployment of mines would raise insurance rates and require time-consuming countermeasures. One could be forgiven for thinking, like Macron, that the Islamic Republic had firmly corked the Strait of Hormuz.
Then a curious thing happened. “Energy Secretary Chris Wright claimed last week that the United States helped move 15 million barrels of oil through the Strait of Hormuz on Tuesday. He also claimed that the average daily oil exports were more than eight million barrels over a seven-day period.”
So how did the impossible happen? Like all impregnable lines in the long and doleful history of warfare, if you looked hard enough there was a way through. The general process for circumventing Tehran’s control of the strait was described by Axios.
The U.S. military has quietly established a shipping corridor in and out of the Strait of Hormuz to transport millions of barrels of oil each day… The task force … creates a daily list of ships coming out of the Gulf through the Strait of Hormuz and into the Arabian Sea, as well as a list of rented empty tankers that travel from the Arabian Sea, through the strait and into the ports of Gulf countries to pick up more oil.
Each night, the ships are scheduled to move in one big outbound line during a certain time slot and one big inbound line during a separate time slot.
The ships then transit through the southern channel based on U.S. military guidance. The U.S. Air Force has fighter jets that protect against Iranian cruise missiles and drones.
CNN explains the key step. First, the ships intending to run past the Iranians disappear – and then reappear on the other side of the Iranian positions. “On the afternoon of July 25, the Greek-owned supertanker Kiku docked at Qatar’s Mesaieed oil export terminal …four days later, loaded with crude oil … on July 31, shortly after 2 pm just off the coast of Dubai, the Kiku vanished.”
The vessel had switched off its AIS transponder, a marine radio device that broadcasts a ship’s identity, speed, course and position. To tracking services that monitor worldwide maritime traffic, it was as if the Kiku simply disappeared.Suddenly, at 10 am on August 1, the Kiku’s signal reappeared – on the other side of the Strait of Hormuz … “dark,” US-military-escorted nighttime transits across the strait.
Part of U.S. protection consists of knocking out the Iranian radars that might spot the ships. Without radar and with the ships traveling by night, the convoy system can exploit the vastness of the sea relative to the size of a ship or group of ships. A convoy’s signature grows far more slowly than the number of ships it contains—smoke from 64 ships is visible at roughly three to four times the range of smoke from a single ship, not 64 times. Counterintuitively, a convoy of dark ships is only a little easier to spot than a dark ship sailing independently. With U.S. drones, aircraft, and helicopters neutralizing the Iranian mosquito fleet and U.S. underwater drones apparently taking care of the mines on the Omani side, what was once impossible has become merely difficult.
Saudi Arabia has rerouted about five million barrels of oil per day through its East-West pipeline to its port of Yanbu on the Red Sea. “Production has ramped up around the world to compensate, too. Brazil, Guyana and Venezuela have combined to add more than 1 million barrels per day of extra production. The United States has added hundreds of thousands more barrels daily to the market.” Tanker Trackers documented what is becoming a typical day in the Gulf: “A busy day in the Gulf of Oman, where there are at least fifteen sets of STS transfer sessions taking place. We count 25 million barrels of crude oil; plus some refined products. The oil originates from almost every country in the region, minus Iran.” Iran, which counted on being the gatekeeper, is itself shut out.
The script has flipped. Macron’s assessment proved true but only in reverse. “Iran's oil shipments to Asian buyers have nearly dried up, pushing the price of Iranian crude to its highest levels in years as US prepares to announce fresh measures aimed at isolating Tehran and those trading with it.” The reversal is reluctantly acknowledged. The director of the Middle East program at Defense Priorities, writing in the New York Times, concedes that Iran can no longer completely block the Strait of Hormuz – but only due to the exertions of the U.S. “The war with Iran has revealed two things: Iran cannot completely close the Strait of Hormuz, and the United States cannot completely open it.”
However, the point is that the U.S. can open it enough while starving the ayatollahs. Accepting the obvious refutation of conventional wisdom, another piece in the NYT now warns that, unless Washington is prepared to be magnanimous, a desperate Islamic Republic may strike out wildly and heedlessly. “By all accounts, Iran’s economy is in truly terrible shape…The Trump administration is not wrong to think that Iran’s economic situation is dire. But it’s counting on Iranian authorities responding to more pressure by negotiating; they might well respond by escalating the conflict.”
But that will only earn them more enemies. I think the U.S. is now at the point where it is becoming decisively dominant over the Islamic Republic. The challenge is how to employ that growing power to lessen the hold of the villains over the innocent publics and, with it, to create the building blocks of new modes of peace and stability. We are still at the beginning, and it is important to build a consensus so that the growing opportunity will not be squandered or thrown away. Whatever happens, the result has been an immense reversal of fortune for Iran—and European maritime calculation.
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