Iran Emerges as Gulf Gatekeeper: Tehran–Muscat Unveil Interim Hormuz Corridor After U.S.–Israeli Defeat

Great-power control of key sea lanes has unraveled before: Britain’s humiliation in the 1956 Suez Crisis and its 1968 ‘East of Suez’ withdrawal foreshadowed Imperial decline; similarly, Russia’s 1914 closure of the Dardanelles choked Central Powers’ access to grain, reshaping WWI strategy. Iran’s post-war ascendancy fits a century-long pattern of regional powers filling vacuums left by overstretched empires. The interim Hormuz corridor signals a systemic shift from U.S. hegemonic guarantees toward multipolar, littoral management of chokepoints, accelerated by Washington’s sanctions fatigue and domestic cost constraints. Over a 100-year horizon, the real significance may be less about today’s oil flows—which the global energy transition will eventually diminish—and more about precedent: coastal states wielding economic leverage through institutional, not purely military, control of maritime arteries, rewriting norms set since the 1945 U.S. naval order.