Hormuz Reopening Looks Unlikely Without a Truce in Iran War

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“We are not a party to the conflict and therefore France will never take part in operations to open or free the Strait of Hormuz in the current context,” Macron said. “Once the situation has calmed down — that is, once the core of the bombardments has ceased — we are ready, together with other nations, to take responsibility for an escort system.”

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Military analysts largely agree that, absent a truce, escorts are risky.

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“The military solution is the least good solution,” said Tom Sharpe, a former UK naval officer who was previously deployed to the Persian Gulf. “It’s more of a political issue.”

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“What Iran is doing now is what we’ve seen the Houthis did in the Red Sea,” he added. “Just a few projectiles and it’s enough to scare ships away.”

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The war is now in its third week, with no sign of easing. Since the first US-Israel attacks on Iran began on Feb. 28, Brent crude oil has surged about 40% to more than $100 a barrel. US gasoline pump prices have climbed, while diesel and jet-fuel supplies have tightened amid attacks on energy infrastructure and the Hormuz disruption.

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Even if the US pulls together a coalition of countries to provide escorts, any impact would be limited. It would be far from a return to normal traffic.

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The strait is narrow — barely 30 miles (48 kilometers) wide at its tightest point — putting shipping lanes within easy reach of missiles, drones and small boats. Insurers and banks are likely to remain wary of routes close to Iran, where sanctions exposure and the risk of attack make voyages difficult to underwrite or finance.

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Trump acknowledged the problem at the weekend. Even though Iran’s military is “already destroyed 100%,” it would be “easy” for Tehran to continue threatening ships with drones, mines and short-range missiles, he said.

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Protection

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“Ships have to be within the weapon-defense zone of a naval vessel to get protection,” said John Bradford, a former US naval officer and a co-founder of the Yokosuka Council on Asia-Pacific Studies. “That would also mean only so many ships can be protected per escort as they move through the tight waterway.”

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With shipping off limits, Saudi Arabia and the UAE are sending some oil through pipelines that bypass Hormuz. But they can’t fully replace what normally moves through the strait.

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Even an end to the war may not reopen the waterway. Iran could continue to disrupt shipping as leverage, sustaining enough intermittent attacks to keep the route too risky for commercial traffic.

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Two senior Iranian officials — Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi and Mohammad-Bagher Ghalibaf, the speaker of parliament — have in the past day suggested the strait won’t return to its pre-war status.

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“We need to design new arrangements for the Strait of Hormuz and the way ships pass through it in the future,” Araghchi said to Al Jazeera. The rules should “guarantee that safe passage through the strait takes place under specific conditions.”

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“As long as there is that implicit threat to shipping — and we’ve already seen more than 10 ships in the region attacked — Iran doesn’t need to close the Strait of Hormuz,” Torbjorn Soltvedt, principal Middle East analyst at Verisk Maplecroft, said on Bloomberg Television. “They just need to present enough of a threat to make travel through it prohibitive or too risky.”

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(Updates with comments, details.)

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