Hundreds of oil tankers are anchored at both ends of the Strait of Hormuz. Iran effectively blockaded the country in response to attacks by the United States and Israel.
As soaring oil prices rattled the global economy, President Trump pledged to reopen shipping routes “one way or another.” But experts warn that it will be difficult to fully restore traffic in the strait without a deal with Iran or a risky, long-term occupation.
Here’s why:
Geography is strategy
The strait is narrow and shallow, forcing ships to reach within a few miles of Iran’s mountainous coast, an environment in which Iran favors asymmetric warfare tactics that use small, widely dispersed weapons that are difficult for enemies to completely eliminate.
“The Iranians have been thinking a lot about how to leverage geography to their advantage,” said Caitlin Talmadge, a professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology who studies Gulf security issues.
The weapons may be relatively small, but the Iranians can hide them in cliffs, caves and tunnels and then deploy them at close range along the coastline.
“The proximity to Iran and the width of the strait is what makes it difficult for Iran,” said Jennifer Parker, a former naval officer now at the Australian National University’s National Security School.
A ship under attack in a waterway does not have much time to take action.
“The time from detection is very limited,” Mr. Parker said. “Then, if you try to take out the missile or drone, the response time could be several minutes, depending on their speed.”
hidden firepower
President Trump sent mixed messages Monday about how he hopes to reopen the strait, including a suggestion that he could jointly control the strait with Iran’s supreme leader. But most of the options the United States is considering involve military forces.
The first step in opening the straits by military force would be to deprive Iran of its ability to attack ships. As many as 17 ships have been attacked since the war began in late February, according to maritime data company Kpler.
So far, thousands of U.S. and Israeli attacks on Iranian military facilities have failed to stop the threat. It may not be possible to find and destroy every last location where Iran’s weapons are stored or deployed.
“There are a lot of places you could put a missile battery,” said Mark F. Cancian, a senior advisor at the Center for Strategic and International Studies and a retired Marine Corps colonel. “And because missile batteries are mobile, they are difficult to find and target.”
President Trump requested naval escorts for commercial oil tankers passing through the strait. Mr. Cancian said this would be a large-scale military operation.
“It will include ships escorting oil tankers,” he said. “There will be minesweepers to clear laid mines. There will be aircraft overhead to intercept drones and attack missile batteries on the coast.”
Sending warships to defend against drone and missile attacks carries its own risks.
“The destroyer’s defense systems were actually designed for a different purpose than close-quarters sword fighting in the Channel,” said Eugene Gholz, an associate professor of political science at the University of Notre Dame. “Every part of the destroyer is sensitive to attack.”
But the biggest threat may be mines.
“If there was a serious, credible threat that there were landmines in the water, that would completely change the situation,” said Jonathan Schroden, an irregular warfare expert at CNA, a nonpartisan defense research organization. “No navy would want to deploy a capital ship in a waterway that is potentially or actually being mined.”
Clearing the mines could take weeks, putting American sailors directly at risk. Slow-moving teams must protect themselves, including air cover.
site hazards
Marines are flocking to the area, and experts say the Pentagon could use them to launch airstrikes or conduct ground operations to build air defense systems for convoys.
Experts say that given the size of Iran’s own ground forces, the Marines could limit an invasion to the Strait Islands and avoid attempts to seize territory on the Iranian mainland.
Nonetheless, the risk of loss to the United States may cause President Trump to shy away from that option.
“If the ground troops were killed or captured, it would completely change the situation,” said Mr. Parker, a former naval officer.
limits to success
Even with a large-scale military operation, it only takes one attack to rebuild trust.
Currently, most tanker operators are not willing to risk passage through the Strait. There are about 500 oil tankers in the Persian Gulf west of the strait, most of which are stationary, according to S&P Global Market Intelligence.
To allow the vessel to transport oil again, the ship’s owners and the companies that insure the vessel must be confident that the escort will provide sufficient protection.
Even with a squadron aboard and a large defensive convoy operation underway, a military convoy can only protect a few ships at a time. In February, before the war, about 80 oil tankers and gas ships passed through the Strait of Hormuz per day.
“The important thing is to convince shipping companies and insurance markets that the risk is low enough to be worth crossing the Channel,” said Kevin Rowlands, a naval expert at the Royal United Services Institute, a research group in London.
A large-scale, sophisticated escort effort could be a drain on U.S. forces. Escort convoys could divert valuable military units from U.S.-Israeli air operations and interfere with the protection of other forces in the region.
And because Iran has attacked ships in both the Persian Gulf and the Gulf of Oman, ships still need protection after passing through the strait, necessitating longer efforts to protect military assets.
“As long as the Iranian threat remains in the strait, I think it will have an impact on transportation,” Mr. Talmadge said. “For things to truly return to normal, a diplomatic and political solution is needed.”
