The struggle for control over the Strait of Hormuz... and the expected scenarios

Both Tehran and Washington have methods and tools to reinforce and support their narratives, especially the military tools available to both parties.

The United States uses its power to secure navigation in the Strait, while Tehran also uses its power to threaten navigation there, in an attempt to keep the Strait card as a key leverage in the conflict or in the context of seeking an agreement that meets its conditions, according to daily Iranian statements.

However, the scene in the Strait seems volatile in answering the question, "Who has the upper hand over the Strait of Hormuz?" with increasing indicators in recent weeks that this strategic card has begun to slip from Iran's hand in favor of tightening American control over it, thereby attempting to remove it from circulation and the Iranian agenda, reducing its importance in the context of the conflict and costs, and weakening Tehran's ceilings in the event of pursuing any negotiation path to reach an agreement to end the war with the United States of America.

International parties monitoring navigation in the Strait indicated that conditions have returned almost to normal, with about 16 million barrels of oil passing through daily in recent weeks, which are rates and figures close to their average before the outbreak of the war. This seems to have prompted Washington to reprogram its priorities with Iran by placing the nuclear file back at the top of the agenda, since the Strait of Hormuz card has been weakened on the Iranian agenda by renewed American control, while seeking to maintain this by thwarting Iranian attempts to significantly re-influence navigation in the Strait.

The past few days have seen a return to Iranian escalation in the Strait in an attempt to reverse the equation, as Tehran claimed it had not lost control of the Strait. The Iranian Revolutionary Guard increased the pace of attacks on ships and oil tankers entering and exiting the Strait at a very sensitive time for the US President, with the US midterm congressional elections approaching on the third of next month. He is seeking a victory for his Republican Party in these elections and to maintain the majority in Congress, while Tehran is trying to spoil all of that through escalation and attempting to raise global oil and fuel prices, and the negative impact of that on the American consumer in particular.

Accordingly, the battle for the upper hand between Washington and Tehran will intensify and witness a major escalation that could spiral out of control at any time with a US military strike on Iran, even though President Trump has returned to announce that he will not launch such a strike at this time. He is an unpredictable president who previously ordered strikes on Iran in recent months, contrary to what he had announced just before those strikes.

The battle for the upper hand over the Strait of Hormuz awaits multiple scenarios, including a strike before or after the midterm elections, and perhaps reaching a US-Iranian agreement at the brink of the abyss.