Tehran’s Strategic Ambition: Sovereignty Over the Strait of Hormuz

 How Iran Hopes To Control The Strait Of Hormuz: It’s Not Just About Fees May 23, 2026 Researcher: Brian Carter, Research Manager

One of Iran’s primary objectives in the current negotiations is to secure its sovereignty over the Strait of Hormuz. This objective is more important for Tehran than securing fees from merchant vessels as they transit the Strait. Many Iranian officials have said that their goal is to ensure Iranian sovereignty over the strait, and this demand has featured prominently in negotiations to end the Iran War. Tehran may be willing to “trade” this objective for major gains on the nuclear program, sanctions relief, the release of frozen funds, or a large-scale US withdrawal from the region. But all of these “trades” are still bad from a US perspective and accomplish other key Iranian strategic objectives. US and world vital interests require denying Iran control of the strait by negotiations or by force.

Iran likely sees two paths to controlling the strait. First, Iranian control could be officially recognized by the United States through an agreement. Other countries would probably oppose such recognition, but changing the new status quo would be extremely challenging. Second, Iran could maintain the current situation by firing missiles or drones (or credibly threatening to do so) at ships that fail to heed Iranian demands related to transiting the strait. Very few countries—and perhaps none—will approve of Iranian threats, but stopping Iranian coercion will require the use of force or an agreement that formally ends Iranian efforts to assert sovereignty over the Strait of Hormuz.

Iran’s scheme to extract large fees for safe transit through the strait will likely fail, absent a major change in the appetite among shipping companies for risking sanctions. But the failure of the fee scheme does not ipso facto result in a failure of Iran’s scheme to control the strait. Many shipping companies are extremely hesitant to pay Iran for transit due to sanctions compliance issues, but even if these ships do not pay Iran, they still cannot pass the strait without serious risk-taking.

To illustrate the point, if a ship wants to pass the strait, it has four basic options:

1. Pay the Iranians.
2. Refuse to pay and not transit the strait.
3. Seek out a government that would work out a bilateral agreement with Iran to enable the vessel’s transit without a fee.
4. “Run the guns” and attempt to transit the strait (an incredibly small number of ships have done this so far).

The first violates sanctions, the third is not viable for many vessels, and the fourth carries extreme risk. Iran may not be able to collect fees, but it will retain its leverage.

Some industry analysts have suggested that Iran does not actually control the Strait of Hormuz at all because any “Iranian vessel” exiting the strait is subject to the US Navy blockade. The US Navy blockade does not negate Iranian control of the Strait of Hormuz because the blockade is against Iranian ports—not against ships that have accepted Iran’s terms for passing the strait as long as they do not travel to or from Iranian ports. The current US blockade thus does not impede de facto Iranian control over the passage of the strait for other countries. Any vessel that uses Iran’s transit scheme but does not leave or enter Iranian ports can still exit, and any vessel that does not use the transit scheme will still get shot at by the Iranians.

For example, Iraq negotiated a tanker’s transit through the Strait of Hormuz with Iran. The tanker did not pay a fee, and though the US Navy stopped it briefly, it was subsequently released because it did not violate the blockade by traveling from an Iranian port. The Iranians may suffer grievous economic damage from the blockade, but the blockade itself is not undermining Iran’s assertion of control over the passage of third-country ships through the strait.

The strait will not “return to normal” without either a deal that ends Iranian control or a US-led military operation that forces the strait open to prevent Iranian control. The third option is recognition of Iranian claims of sovereignty over the strait, which is both unacceptable and fails to accomplish a “return to normal” in the strait. The Iranians could maintain their stranglehold over the Strait of Hormuz for as long as they are willing to attack, harass, and threaten shipping there.

The international community cannot “wait out” Iran’s control over the Strait of Hormuz. The protraction of the current situation, on the contrary, serves Iran’s interests by letting Tehran normalize its de facto control of transit through the strait. The Iranians are likely aware of that fact, which is one of the reasons they are stalling and delaying the negotiations process. The US and the world should not allow Iran to impose a new reality on this critical international waterway. If negotiations do not lead rapidly to an agreement to reopen the strait under the previous, internationally recognized transit scheme, then it will unfortunately be necessary to resort to force.