Hormuz is a major tactical asset for Tehran—but mistaking it for a secure strategic victory could invite a far larger war.
“As a result of the 38-day war, we achieved a major strategic gain.” This was a key part of Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi’s remarks in an interview with documentary filmmaker Javad Mogouei. By “strategic gain,” Araghchi meant asserting control over the Strait of Hormuz and possessing an exceptionally effective instrument for holding the Arab states, the wider Middle East, and the global economy by the throat.
Araghchi and other Iranian officials are not entirely wrong when they say that the Islamic Republic emerged from the 38-day war with a major gain. At least from Tehran’s perspective, the war was not only about the killing of Ali Khamenei and other senior state figures, or the damage inflicted on the Mobarakeh Steel Complex, petrochemical facilities, South Pars, and the Islamic Republic’s security apparatus. Tehran saw the war as an arena in which the Islamic Republic reminded the world that if Iran’s security is undermined, the world can say goodbye to energy security.
Javad Zarif made the same argument in an article published in Foreign Affairs on Monday, July 20, 2026: if Iran is strangled, it will, regardless of the cost, close the world’s chokepoint. That chokepoint is the Strait of Hormuz.
But is that the whole story? Does Tehran’s reading of the present situation also explain what comes next? It is highly significant that, during the war and despite the killing of the architect of its security system, Iran managed to turn the Strait of Hormuz from an old and hypothetical threat into an active asset in the confrontation. But has this asset moved beyond the tactical level and become strategic? This is a decisive question.
If Tehran genuinely regards its current position in the Strait of Hormuz as a “strategic gain,” it means it believes that, in almost every conceivable scenario, the opposing side can no longer take this card out of Iran’s hands. From this perspective, the new round of U.S. attacks and the collapse of the Islamabad Memorandum do not represent the beginning of a new phase of war, but the final struggles of an opponent that will sooner or later have to accept that the Strait of Hormuz has become part of the Islamic Republic’s consolidated power.
We do not know whether Tehran truly understands its position in this way. Nor do we know to what extent Abbas Araghchi and other Islamic Republic officials are bluffing when they call Hormuz a “strategic gain,” and to what extent they are reflecting an interpretation that has taken hold inside the system.
One of the hardest tasks in the world is to distinguish among bravado, analysis, and self-deception in the Islamic Republic. Official statements rarely reflect the whole reality. Sometimes officials say something to frighten the enemy, and the statement has some basis in fact. Sometimes they adopt a position to reassure their own forces. And sometimes they repeat something unreal so often that they eventually come to believe it themselves.
Under ordinary circumstances, ambiguity or the inversion of meaning may not have life-or-death consequences. Under present conditions, however, whether the Islamic Republic understands the outcome of the 38-day war and its control over the Strait of Hormuz as a “tactical gain” or a “strategic gain” may determine the fate of 90 million Iranians.
The difference between a tactical and a strategic gain must therefore be clarified. A tactical gain is a success that shifts the balance in an actor’s favor at a particular moment, in a specific confrontation, or during one phase of a conflict. Turning Hormuz into the heart of the war—by driving up oil prices, disrupting shipping, forcing the United States into emergency negotiations, frightening the Gulf states, or compelling global markets to recalculate the risks associated with Iran—served precisely this function.
A strategic gain, however, goes further. A gain becomes strategic when it can endure over time, credibly and fundamentally alter the opponent’s behavior, consolidate the political position of the actor that possesses it, and ultimately produce a new order.
Put simply, a tactical gain means winning a round or the first half of a game; a strategic gain means changing the rules of the game in your own favor.
From this perspective, the Strait of Hormuz is, for the moment, a major tactical gain and a potential strategic horizon for the Islamic Republic—not necessarily a consolidated strategic gain. So far, Tehran has shown that even after suffering military and economic blows, it has neither buckled nor raised its hands in surrender, and that it still possesses something the world cannot ignore.
This is no small achievement in a confrontation with the United States. It can presumably be credited to Ali Khamenei and to a system that took seriously its plans for resilience in an “apocalyptic battle” and prepared the necessary foundations.
Imagine a country that has for years been pushed out of the formal oil market, the global banking system, and much of international political life, suddenly returning—through the Strait of Hormuz—to the center of global strategic calculations while under relentless U.S. and Israeli bombardment and after the killing of its leader.
The Islamic Republic’s gain from the 38-day war is that it told the world: I may not be able to sell my own oil freely, but I can hold the world’s oil shipments hostage as well. I may not be able to earn revenue through normal channels, but I can raise the cost of passage through vital routes. In other words, Iran has so far succeeded in linking geography to the “war economy.”
For this reason, one can say that as a result of the 38-day war, the Strait of Hormuz has simultaneously assumed the functions of three Iranian ministries: defense, foreign affairs, and the economy.
In the role of the Ministry of Defense, the Strait of Hormuz generates an asymmetric threat. Iran may not have the upper hand in a conventional war against the United States and Israel, but by threatening to close the strait it can shift the battlefield from Iranian airspace to the global energy market.
In the role of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the situation in Hormuz forces the world to talk. Whenever formal diplomatic channels close, attacks on oil tankers become the new subject of negotiation.
In the role of the Ministry of Economy, the Strait of Hormuz brings costs, tolls, insurance, oil, and security into the calculations of the regime’s survival. The treasury may be empty, but the strait can function as an emergency fund for the present and a development fund for the future.
Yet assigning all three responsibilities to a single strait is as dangerous as it is tempting. No rational political system in a country of Iran’s size and geopolitical position should entrust its defense, foreign affairs, and economy to one waterway—even if that waterway is the Strait of Hormuz, through which one-fifth of the world’s energy passes.
Such concentration creates power, but it also creates extreme vulnerability. If all the Islamic Republic’s cards are concentrated at one point, that point becomes the opposing side’s principal target.
The United States, Israel, and their Arab allies may disagree on a hundred issues. But if they conclude that the Islamic Republic’s survival rests on turning the Strait of Hormuz into a “strategic asset,” then intervention in the strait may shift from a secondary and costly option to a primary mission pursued regardless of ordinary cost-benefit calculations.
It may therefore be necessary to view the present situation from the perspective of the other actors.
For the United States, Hormuz is not merely a question of oil tankers passing through the strait. It is a question of the prestige of the Washington-led maritime order. If Iran can tell the world, “Safe passage through the Strait of Hormuz is impossible without my consent,” the United States faces a symbolic retreat.
For decades, Washington has presented itself as the guarantor of freedom of navigation, energy security, and order in the Persian Gulf. Accepting Iran’s role in Hormuz—if that role is established outside the framework preferred by the United States—would mean that an enemy intended to be contained had become an unavoidable partner in the future order.
For Washington, this is not merely a security problem. It is a crisis of “imperial prestige” ahead of its looming confrontation with the “yellow Chinese dragon.” This also helps explain Donald Trump’s proposal several weeks ago that the United States and Iran become partners in administering the Strait of Hormuz—an offer Iran laughed off and rejected.
For Israel, the future of the Strait of Hormuz and its risks take a different form. Israel may be able to reach and strike Iranian military facilities, political leaders, commanders, nuclear sites, or proxy networks, but the Strait of Hormuz is neither a favorable nor a readily accessible arena for Israel’s confrontation with Iran.
By playing the Hormuz card, Iran is attempting to turn any future conflict with Israel into a global issue. If Tel Aviv strikes Tehran in the future, the response would no longer be limited to missiles, drones, or an “Operation True Promise.” Under such conditions, every Israeli strike on Iranian interests would mean gambling with oil prices, shipping insurance, global energy security, and the stability of the Gulf states.
Iran wants to make the war larger than Israel. This is precisely what makes the current situation in the Strait of Hormuz dangerous for Israel: it shifts the battlefield away from the terrain in which Israel is most skilled and toward a domain over which it has no direct control.
The Arab states of the Gulf also face a double bind. They fear Iran’s growing power in the Strait of Hormuz, but they also fear a major war intended to wrest the strait from Iran’s control.
For years, they have tried to separate their image from oil, military bases, and war. From Dubai to Doha and Riyadh, they have staged previews of a future built on investment, tourism, global sporting events, technology, and artificial intelligence.
Yet the Strait of Hormuz repeatedly reminds them that geography’s sharp sword still hangs over their towers, racetracks, stadiums, museums, and smart cities. The post-oil future imagined by the Arab states south of the Persian Gulf remains inseparable from Hormuz and from the oil and goods that pass through it.
Yet taking the Hormuz card out of Iran’s hands is no simple matter. Alternative energy routes, pipelines, strategic reserves, military escorts, maritime coalitions, and diplomatic pressure are all possible, but none diminishes the strait’s fundamental importance.
Geography cannot be bypassed through declarations, threats, or coercion. U.S. airstrikes can destroy part of Iran’s capacity, but they cannot move Iran away from the strait. A naval blockade can raise Tehran’s costs, but it also sends a fever through global markets. Sanctions have limited effect against the Strait of Hormuz, and if the strait is closed, sanctions will not reopen it.
It is precisely the limitations of these softer and limited-force options that bring more dangerous scenarios onto the table. If the United States, Israel, and their regional allies conclude that Iran is genuinely turning the Strait of Hormuz into a consolidated strategic asset, they may decide that limited attacks are insufficient.
In that case, discussions in Washington, Tel Aviv, Riyadh, and Brussels could shift toward full-scale war or some form of limited ground campaign—a war intended not merely to damage Iran’s missile or nuclear capabilities, but to comprehensively break its capacity to control the environment surrounding the Strait of Hormuz.
The United States has already shown Iran a preview of such a scenario. It could involve attacks broader and more devastating than the current strikes on coastal infrastructure, islands, Revolutionary Guards bases, missile systems, and naval command networks, followed by the opening of a ground campaign.
Some in Washington already interpret the present situation in these terms and speak of a limited ground operation. But the theater of such a war with Iran would be so vast, and its components so complex, that from the very second a ground war began, the hope that it could remain “limited” would look more like wishful thinking.
The present situation therefore contains a profound contradiction. The more Iran presents the Strait of Hormuz as its “strategic asset”—without having acquired the means commensurate with such a claim—the more the opposing side will be tempted to remove that asset from its hands.
And the more the opposing side attacks to neutralize the Hormuz card, the more Iran can say: You see? Hormuz really is the heart of the war, and through it we hold the enemy by the throat.
In this way, the strait that was supposed to guarantee the Islamic Republic’s survival may instead become a bloodstained invitation to the next major war.
A genuine strategic gain for the Islamic Republic would emerge only if it could transform the Strait of Hormuz from an “asymmetric threat” into an instrument of “symmetric order.” That would mean not merely frightening the world, but persuading it that Iran’s stability is part of the strait’s stability.
This would require bargaining, guarantees, de-escalation, and some form of new security architecture. Yet this is precisely where the Islamic Republic faces its deepest problem. It is adept at creating crises but has almost always been incapable of transforming crisis into order. Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, and Yemen all provide examples.
A threat may bring the opposing side to the negotiating table, but it cannot keep the window for negotiations open forever.
Common sense therefore suggests that the Islamic Republic should, for now, regard the Strait of Hormuz not as a complete strategic gain, but as a major tactical gain with the potential to become strategic.
Through Hormuz, the Islamic Republic has opened a horizon before itself: one from which it can say that eliminating, containing, or ignoring it carries a high cost for the world. But there is a great distance between opening a horizon and reaching a destination, and the path is strewn with thorns.
The Islamic Republic must not forget that the road toward its desired destination is extraordinarily difficult and mined at every step. What are those mines? War, naval blockade, miscalculation, economic erosion, regional pressure, and the possible launch of an attack designed precisely to destroy this strategic horizon.
Can the Islamic Republic use the Strait of Hormuz to build a bridge toward its long-term survival and a new order in the Middle East? Or is what it now calls a “strategic gain” merely a ladder that makes its eventual fall more devastating with every rung it climbs?
The answer remains unclear. The Strait of Hormuz has brought Tehran back to the center of global calculations, but it cannot build a future for Tehran on its own.
If the Islamic Republic fails to understand the difference between tactics and strategy, it may mistake an advantage in the first half of the game for final victory. The price of such an error would be a war whose end no one can foresee.
