The Strait of Hormuz remains the knot that military force has not untied. Months into the war with Iran, the military picture looks different from the political one. The United States and its allies have, by one American military observer's account, achieved substantial results in destroying Iran's military capabilities. Its naval and air forces have taken heavy blows; its air defenses, missile plants, and drone factories have been hit. But the question is this: does military success necessarily lead to political and strategic success?
The observer sees this as the fundamental problem. A great many targets can be destroyed, and still the desired outcome does not follow. The American objective is not confined to weakening Iran militarily; it extends to compelling it to change its behavior, abandon its nuclear ambitions, and stop threatening shipping in the Strait of Hormuz. And here Hormuz emerges as the hardest knot in the war.
The strait is not merely a sea lane that can be forced open and then kept open. Geography gives Iran an advantage difficult to discount. The passage is narrow, the water shallow in places, the traffic congested, while the Iranian coastline and the mountains behind it offer positions from which to launch missiles or drones, or to strike ships directly.
For this reason, my interlocutor argues, complete control of the strait is very nearly impossible. American forces can protect the overwhelming majority of transiting vessels - perhaps preventing 98 percent of attacks - but the problem lies in the remainder. That share may look negligible in military terms; economically it is very large.
Insurance companies do not see the matter the way military commanders do. Protecting 98 ships out of every 100 may count as a major military success, but the prospect of two being hit is enough to drive up insurance rates, or to push shipping companies to avoid the area altogether. This is why Iran, even after losing much of its military capability, can still affect the movement of global trade.
Iran does not need full control of the strait, nor does it need to sink dozens of ships. It is enough that it remain able to threaten a ship now and then, so that the fear remains.
Bases, missile launchers, and command centers can be destroyed, but it is hard to monitor every point along the Iranian coast, or to stop every small boat, drone, or missile from reaching its target. From here the Strait of Hormuz turns from a military problem into an international economic and political one.
There is also a difference in the very nature of the American and Israeli objectives. Israel views Iran as a long-term threat, and its approach therefore rests on striking Iranian capabilities each time they are rebuilt; destroying facilities today does not keep Iran from trying to rebuild them tomorrow.
The United States wants a different outcome. Washington wants to reduce its military presence in the Middle East and give itself more fully to competing with China in Asia. It therefore needs an Iran weak enough that American forces are not drawn back into a new war. But the military operations may have made that goal harder to reach.
The strikes that targeted the Iranian leadership have weakened its decision-making centers. That, however, creates another problem: with whom is one to negotiate? Who inside Iran can take a decision to halt attacks on shipping and guarantee that it is carried out?
Here the paradox appears. Military force can weaken the other side, but weakening it too far may make negotiating with it more difficult. If no leadership remains capable of imposing its decision, it becomes hard to use military pressure to extract political concessions.
The war exacts a price from American forces as well. Military observers warn that the intensity of the air and naval operations has exceeded the levels those forces can sustain over long periods. Aircraft need maintenance, ships need repair, and munitions need replacing. The operations may tell on the readiness of the air force and the navy in the years ahead, particularly if a heavy presence around the Gulf and the Strait of Hormuz continues to be required.
Against that, the war has shown the capacity of American forces to carry out complex operations, among them the rescue of a crew member from an American aircraft shot down over Iran. The operation required coordinating aircraft, helicopters, and ground forces in an extremely dangerous area, and its success mattered both militarily and politically: an American serviceman taken captive and paraded on Iranian television could have become a lever of pressure on Washington.
None of this changes the larger question: how does the war end?
After all the strikes and losses, Iran remains able to turn geography to its advantage. The Strait of Hormuz embodies the dilemma: the US can destroy ships, aircraft, and missiles, but it cannot change where Iran sits on the map.
Tehran therefore does not need to win militarily in the conventional sense. It is enough to retain a limited ability to threaten shipping - enough to keep insurance rates high, shipping companies anxious, and the global economy under pressure.
Seen this way, the battle of Hormuz looks different from the rest of the war. My interlocutor says military success is measured by the number of targets destroyed, and strategic success by what happens afterward. So far, American observers see the gap between the two as still wide. Force has succeeded in destroying a great deal, but it has yet to find the way to convert that military superiority into a clear end to the war - so long as Iran can keep the Strait of Hormuz a pressure point too costly to ignore.
