The United States and Israel waged their war against Iran on the premise that if Iran were ever to obtain a nuclear weapon, it would have the ultimate deterrent against future attacks. It turns out Iran already had a deterrent tool: its own geography.
Iran’s decision to demonstrate its control over navigation through the Strait of Hormuz, the strategic chokepoint through which 20 percent of global oil supplies pass, has inflicted global economic pain, reflected in rising prices for gasoline, fertilizer and other essential goods.
It has also upended war planning in the United States and Israel, forcing officials to devise military options to wrest the strait from Iranian control.
The U.S.-Israeli war has caused significant damage to Iran’s command structure, its larger naval vessels and missile production facilities, but it has done little to constrain Iran’s ability to control the strait.
Thus, Iran may emerge from the conflict with a blueprint for its theocratic system to keep its adversaries at bay, regardless of any restrictions on its nuclear program.
“Everyone now knows that if a conflict breaks out in the future, closing the strait will be the first move in the Iranian playbook. You cannot defeat geography,” said Danny Citrinowicz, former head of the Iran branch in Israeli military intelligence and now a fellow at the Atlantic Council.
In several social media posts on Friday, President Donald Trump said the strait, which he called in one post “the Strait of Iran,” was now “completely open” to navigation. Iran’s foreign minister issued a similar declaration.
But Iran’s Revolutionary Guard said on Saturday that the waterway remained closed, indicating a split between Iran’s military and civilian leadership on the issue during negotiations aimed at ending the war.
While the mere possibility of naval mines is enough to frighten commercial shipping, Iran retains far more precise means of control: attack drones and short-range missiles. U.S. military and intelligence officials estimate that after weeks of war, Iran still possesses about 40 percent of its arsenal of attack drones and more than 60 percent of its missile launchers — more than enough to hold navigation in the Strait of Hormuz hostage in the future.
One of the central goals of the U.S.-led military campaign in Iran has now become reopening the strait, which was open when the war began. This is a risky position for the United States, and its adversaries have taken note.
Dmitry Medvedev, former Russian president and deputy chairman of the country’s Security Council, wrote on social media last week: “It is not clear how the truce between Washington and Tehran will unfold. But one thing is certain — Iran has tested its nuclear weapon. Its name is the Strait of Hormuz. And its potential is inexhaustible.”
Iran’s control of the strait has forced Trump to declare a naval blockade of his own, and this week the U.S. Navy began compelling cargo ships to enter Iranian ports after crossing the waterway.
Iran responded with anger, but also with sarcasm. One Iranian diplomatic mission, which posted biting messages throughout the war, wrote on the social media platform X in response to Trump’s move: “The Strait of Hormuz is not social media. If someone blocks you, you cannot simply block them back.” The dispute over the strait was also the focus of a large number of AI-generated videos depicting U.S. and Israeli officials as Lego characters.
Yet the impact of the U.S. blockade was real. Seaborne trade accounts for about 90 percent of Iran’s economic output — nearly $340 million a day — and that flow has largely stopped in recent days.
Iran considers the blockade an act of war and has threatened to attack it. But it has not done so thus far, and the United States has not tried during the current ceasefire to reduce Iran’s grip on the strait once the conflict finally ends.
Admiral Kevin Donegan, who once commanded the U.S. Navy fleet responsible for the Middle East and is now retired, said during a seminar hosted by the Middle East Institute this week: “The two countries may see that there is a real window for negotiations” and do not want to escalate the conflict now.
Iran has tried to close the Strait of Hormuz before, when it mined it and the Arabian Gulf during the conflict with Iraq in the 1980s. But mine warfare is dangerous, and over the decades Iran has effectively harnessed missile and drone technology to threaten both commercial and military maritime traffic.
While the U.S. and Israeli war has significantly damaged Iran’s weapons manufacturing capacity, Iran has retained enough of its missiles, launchers and loitering attack drones to endanger navigation in the strait.
U.S. intelligence and military estimates differ, but officials said Iran still possesses about 40 percent of its prewar drone arsenal. Those drones have proved to be a powerful deterrent. While they are easy for U.S. warships to shoot down, commercial oil tankers have few means of defense.
Iran also has ample supplies of missiles and missile launchers. At the time of the ceasefire, Iran still had access to about half of its missile launchers. In the days immediately afterward, it recovered about 100 systems that had been buried inside caves and shelters, raising its launcher inventory again to about 60 percent of its prewar level.
Iran is also working to recover its missile supplies, themselves buried under the rubble caused by U.S. attacks on its bunkers and depots. When that work is completed, Iran may regain as much as 70 percent of the arsenal it had before the war, according to some U.S. estimates.
Officials note that statistics on Iran’s weapons stockpiles are not precise. Intelligence assessments provide an overall picture of how much strength Iran still retains.
But while estimates differ over Iran’s missile stockpiles, officials agree that Iran has enough weaponry to halt navigation in the future.
The Iranian government chose not to close the Strait of Hormuz last June, when Israel launched a military campaign later joined by the United States to target deeply buried nuclear sites.
Citrinowicz, the former Israeli official, said that decision may have reflected the cautious approach of Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, who may have been concerned that closing the strait would prompt other countries to join the military campaign against Iran.
Khamenei was killed on the first day of the current war, a move that suggested to Iranian officials that U.S. and Israeli objectives in this conflict were far broader.
“Iran saw the June war as an Israeli war to achieve its own strategic goals. But this is a war for regime change,” Citrinowicz said.
