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Reopening the Strait of Hormuz could take months and require underwater robots, laser-equipped helicopters, and elite Navy divers, according to experts and a newly updated congressional report.
The threat of Iranian drones and mines have brought shipping through the vital chokepoint to a halt — cutting off 27% of the world’s maritime oil and gas.
Analysts believe the US has the tools and capacity to clear the Strait despite Iran’s tactics, through high-tech hardware and what could be dangerous maneuvers.
If Iran mines the Strait, divers in some cases would have to undertake the “time-consuming and dangerous task” of carefully placing charges to blow them up individually, a 2025 Congressional Research Service report found. Underwater robots also would come into play, it said.
Iran has one of the largest mine inventories in the world, said Dr. Steven Wills of the Center ror Maritime Strategy.
“Any ship can deploy a mine – a fishing boat can deploy a mine . . . it only takes a couple of mines to pose a threat.” Sometimes three or four “in the right place to utterly screw up an operation.”
A 2025 Defense Intelligence Agency analysis concluded Iran has 6,000 of the deadly munitions. It uses hidden ports to hide small, speedy boats.
Then there are the threats from the air — cruise missiles and drones, some of which might go undetected. Iranian ports have been “pasted pretty hard,” he said. “But there’s still the potential to have those cruise missile units out there, and who knows how many drones.”
Successful US attacks on Iran’s biggest naval targets — like the sinking of the Shahid Soleimani in the Indian Ocean by submarine — have yet to eliminate the threat, with the military saying it has sunk 50 ships but Defense intelligence estimating a fleet of 200 in 2019.
Reopening the Strait could take “days, weeks, or perhaps months,” according to the report, depending on the effectiveness of Iran’s aggressive tactics. The economic fallout could be unlike anything the world has ever seen, congressional analysts said.
President Trump said the US Navy could escort ships through the Strait and issued grave threats to Iran closes it. But its new Supreme leader, Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei, vowed Thursday to do just that.
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth told reporters Friday that America and its allies should not fret. “We have been dealing with it, and don’t need to worry about it,” he said, shooting down reports that the Iranians already laid mines.
He announced Wednesday the destruction of 10 “inactive” Iranian mine ships — shortly before reports that seven commercial ships loitering near the Strait had been struck.
The same missiles and drones Iran has used to menace its Arab neighbors can harass shipping – one reason oil has surged above $100 per barrel.
“A prolonged disruption of Middle East oil trade would create oil market conditions for which there is no historical precedent,” according to a 19-page Congressional Research Service report issued last week.
No escorts have yet taken place in the current conflict, following a public relations blunder where Energy Secretary Chris Wright’s X account had wrongly claimed the Navy escorted a tanker through the Strait. Wills said the Navy would need to use destroyers to conduct the escorts
For mariners, mines are a particularly terrifying prospect — militarily and psychologically.
“Mines have sunk or damaged more US warships since the end of World War II than any other weapon system – bar none,” Wills said, including during the Tanker War of the 1980s.
The military’s Bahrain-based Task Force 52 is focused on the problem. Iran’s stockpile of World War II-era spiked mines, floating mines attached to a tether, and others that lurk on the bottom.
The Navy has a quartet of Littoral Combat Ships, designed to run close to shore, in the region, Wills noted. Some carry helicopters equipped with a special laser mine detection systems. They can also take out individual mines with small explosives or unmanned ships.
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