The escalation of US armed action against Iran, coupled with the sharp weakening of pro-Iranian groups across the region under parallel Israeli operations, has pushed Tehran to abandon its policy of strategic patience. In its place, according to a former ambassador to Tehran, Aleksandr Maryasov, Iran has adopted a tactic of direct asymmetric strikes on US military infrastructure in the Middle East.

To undercut Washington's role as a security umbrella for its regional allies, Iran has struck not only American bases in those countries but also their own economic and infrastructure targets, blows the United States has been unable to prevent, in the author's account. The most effective and unexpected of Tehran's moves, he argues, has been the closure of the Strait of Hormuz to commercial shipping, triggering a crisis on international oil and gas markets and a jump in energy prices. In effect, the author writes, Iran has set a geopolitical trap that will be hard to defuse without meeting a series of Iranian demands.

Iran long responded relatively mildly to American and Israeli provocations, and even to limited military actions, wary of escalation and counting on retaliation from its proxy groups: Hamas, Lebanon's Hezbollah and Iraqi Shia armed formations, according to Maryasov.

Maryasov contends that a shift by the United States and Israel to direct, large-scale aggression, the killing of several military and political leaders including Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, and heavy bombardment of civilian as well as military infrastructure, with extensive destruction and loss of life, forced a fundamental hardening of Iran's military and political doctrine.

Despite months of bombardment across almost the entire country, Maryasov writes, the United States failed to secure a military victory or Iran's capitulation, and was unprepared for an asymmetric but effective response of missile and drone strikes on American bases in the region believed to have been supported by Russia. 

Closing the Hormuz 

Alongside widening its target list to the assets of Washington's regional allies, Tehran moved to close the Strait of Hormuz as a lever to force the United States to accept a set of military, political and financial demands, the author writes. Among them: an end to hostilities and guarantees against future attack, the lifting of a blockade of Iranian ports and the withdrawal of US forces from around Iranian territory, the removal or easing of sanctions, compensation for damage inflicted on Iran through a dedicated fund, and the release of frozen Iranian assets.

These terms, Maryasov says, were set out in an Iranian-American memorandum of understanding that Washington, as soon became clear, had no intention of honouring. As an alternative to financial help, he writes, Tehran envisages charging for passage through the strait in the form of navigation and other services.

A bill before the Iranian parliament would set the terms on which Tehran regulates transit through the strait, spelling out arrangements for safe passage and the financial and other measures Iran would take to control it, according to the article. Iran has not ratified the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea but observes its provisions; the author writes that Tehran has invoked a clause allowing a coastal state to act where a threat arises to its peace, order or security.

Iran responded firmly to vessels attempting unauthorised passage, firing on them and mining sea lanes, Maryasov writes. The result, in his telling, was a build-up of ships at the entrances to the Persian Gulf, a sharp rise in insurance premiums, owners abandoning the route, and, in turn, higher oil and gas prices and a search for alternative supply paths. US attempts to reopen the strait, including naval escorts, failed, and Washington imposed a blockade of Iranian ports.

Omani compromise

Iran proposed to Oman a joint paid transit-control system, the author writes. Muscat countered with a two-corridor plan: a southern route through Omani waters, open freely on pre-war terms, and a northern route through Iranian waters requiring Tehran's prior permission but no fee. Tehran rejected it.

After intensive talks, the two sides agreed parameters for temporary transit, with a charge levied not for passage itself but for navigation services, split evenly between them, according to the article. Iran's deputy foreign minister, Kazem Gharibabadi, is cited as saying both the northern route through Iranian waters and the southern route through Omani waters would close, replaced by a single lane entering through Iranian waters and exiting partly through Iranian and then Omani waters, an arrangement that in effect hands Iran control of the route.

The author cites the former secretary of Iran's Supreme National Security Council, named in the original as Mohammad Zolghadr, as saying the Iran-Oman agreement would take effect only once the United States met its obligations under the June memorandum. Iran, he adds, urged Saudi Arabia, the UAE and other Gulf states to dissuade Washington from resuming military action or face fresh and more destructive strikes.

Pipelines, chokepoints and a long crisis

Washington opposes any form of Iranian control over the strait, the author writes, threatening renewed strikes while signalling that once Tehran lifts its blockade it would grant sanctions exceptions, including allowing Iran to sell its oil legally.

Should the crisis drag on, Maryasov writes, Saudi Arabia and the UAE plan to raise flows through existing pipelines to Red Sea and Gulf of Oman ports respectively and to build new ones. Those pipelines carry about 9mn barrels per day, against the 20mn b/d that passed through Hormuz before its closure. Qatar, Kuwait and Bahrain lack such bypass infrastructure and would need to negotiate new lines with Riyadh and Abu Dhabi, while any such infrastructure could itself become a target of Iranian bombardment if fighting continues. Iraq, he notes, is weighing a Lebanese proposal for pipelines across Syria and Lebanon to the Mediterranean.

Yemen's Houthis, loyal to Iran, have declared a naval blockade of Saudi Arabia and are already closing the Bab el-Mandeb strait to Saudi vessels, which the author says automatically dims transit prospects through the Suez Canal as well. Finding and building new routes around Hormuz would take time and large sums, and their security would remain in question.

Iran's transit fees, Maryasov suggests, could prompt other states controlling maritime straits to introduce charges of their own on various pretexts; he points to an April 2026 proposal by Indonesia's finance minister for a joint Indonesian-Malaysian-Singaporean payment point in the Strait of Malacca. Were the blockade to continue and bypass routes to falter, he writes, shipowners might approach Tehran directly for permission to transit on Iranian terms.

The calculation in Tehran

Tehran is betting that a deepening crisis on world oil and gas markets will push European and Asian consumers of Middle Eastern hydrocarbons to press Washington harder for a resolution, the author writes. It is also counting, he says, on President Donald Trump having to weigh volatile fuel prices, the growing unpopularity of the war among Americans, and mounting criticism from Democrats and a rising number of Republicans, all of which could bear on the coming US midterm elections.

The US administration's military strategy has run into a dead end, Maryasov concludes. The chaotic alternation of strikes and ceasefires has done nothing to shift Iran's firmly stated resolve to pursue its aims, and the Hormuz trap, at least for now, provides the conditions to do so.

Aleksandr Maryasov is a former Russian ambassador to Iran. This article is adapted from a commentary published by the Valdai Discussion Club. The views expressed are the author's own.