Soran Mansournia writes:

The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) does not need aircraft carriers, command of the sea or even a total blockade to threaten the global energy supply. In the Strait of Hormuz, it relies on something older, cheaper and, in some ways, more effective: the weaponization of geography. The corps does not need to destroy fleets or physically block every vessel to produce systemic disruption. It only needs to raise the risk of transit high enough that normal commercial operations begin to break down.

That is what the latest phase of the crisis in Iran reveals. Rather than imposing a uniform closure, the IRGC is using Hormuz as a selectively managed instrument of pressure, signaling which vessels may pass, which may not and at what economic cost.

Recent reporting by various news agencies indicates that Iranian authorities have signaled readiness to let Japanese-linked vessels transit Hormuz, while Indian liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) carriers were among the few ships permitted through earlier in the crisis. At the same time, emergency war risk coverage has been introduced to support ships attempting to navigate the strait. Hormuz is no longer merely a threatened choke point; it is already operating as a mechanism of differentiated access, commercial fear and geopolitical leverage.

That matters because it suggests Iran is not pursuing a purely uniform closure of Hormuz, but a politically selective one. In the words of Ali Mousavi, Iran’s representative to the United Nations’ maritime agency, the strait remains open to all shipping except vessels linked to “Iran’s enemies.” The pattern points to a strategy that keeps overall traffic constrained enough to sustain pressure on shipping and energy markets, while allowing limited flexibility toward vessels linked to countries still seen as diplomatically useful.

The passage of Indian LPG carriers, together with limited accommodation toward Japanese-linked shipping, suggests a differentiated regime of access rather than a fully indiscriminate shutdown. It also indicates that whatever mine threat exists in Hormuz has not made the entire corridor uniformly impassable. Had the navigational lanes been comprehensively and randomly seeded, such selective transit would have been far harder to manage. What emerges instead is a method of calibrated disruption: enough uncertainty to unsettle commercial confidence, but enough control to preserve political signaling and strategic leverage. [Continue reading…]