The Big Picture of the US-Iran War

A Block-Based World and the Permanent Hormuz Crisis 

WeissWord 

 

 

“America’s global primacy is directly dependent on how long and how effectively its power on the Eurasian continent is sustained.” — Zbigniew Brzezinski

Since the outbreak of the US-Iran war, I have analyzed various angles of the conflict in separate posts. However, with new subscribers joining the fold, it is time to connect the dots into one cohesive picture. In this post, I will deconstruct the complexity of this situation as much as the platform allows.

For the United States, Iran is just a single piece of a global puzzle, not the core focus of White House foreign policy. Despite the natural information asymmetry regarding deliberations inside the White House, the Pentagon, and other US agencies, public actions and long-term trends reveal a clear trajectory—one that transcends whoever happens to sit in the Oval Office.

The Chokepoint Gambit: Shutting Down Hormuz

Most global trade moves by water—arguably humanity’s greatest innovation, far outstripping space travel. Consequently, nations always vie for maritime dominance, specifically over naval chokepoints, much like the Roman or Ottoman empires fought over terrestrial bottlenecks. The core principles of geography haven’t changed; the Earth remains the same.

Global maritime trade is massive. Moving goods across thousands of miles carries region-specific risks, requiring large institutions—predominantly European—to insure these cargoes, ships, and crews to the tune of billions of dollars. European insurance entities, chiefly the Protection and Indemnity (P&I) Clubs concentrated in London and Europe (under the umbrella of the International Group of P&I Clubs), wield immense power over global shipping. These clubs insure roughly 90% of global maritime trade against third-party liabilities, pollution, and war risks, relying heavily on intelligence from European security agencies. With the nexus of insurance power anchored in London, MI6 and Lloyd’s are effectively within walking distance.

The US shares its most sensitive intelligence first and foremost with the “Five Eyes” (FVEY) alliance—the world’s closest, oldest, and deepest intelligence partnership, rooted in the WWII-era UKUSA Agreement (comprising the US, UK, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand). Yet, on the eve of the initial strike on February 28, 2026, the US and Israel decided to act on hyper-targeted information—mostly derived from Israeli intelligence—without sharing the timing or scope of the operation with the UK. Official sources in London later confirmed that Britain was caught entirely off guard.

This operational compartmentalization stemmed primarily from Washington’s fear that Prime Minister Keir Starmer might attempt to throw a wrench in the gears or refuse to authorize the use of British bases, such as Diego Garcia or RAF stations in Cyprus and the UK, due to legal and diplomatic constraints. The lack of early warning triggered absolute panic in London.

Within 48 hours of the war’s outbreak, war risk insurance premiums in the Strait of Hormuz skyrocketed four- to six-fold. Lacking American intelligence on subsequent target sets or Iranian capabilities against civilian shipping, underwriters concluded the risk was unquantifiable. By March 5, 2026, leading P&I clubs began announcing blanket cancellations of insurance coverage for any vessel attempting to transit the strait.

No shipping company or tanker owner was willing to risk hundreds of millions of dollars in cargo without liability coverage. Tanker traffic plummeted to near zero, sparking the historic surge in oil and gas prices through March and April. The takeaway? It wasn’t the Iranians who shut down Hormuz; it was the Americans.

Redrawing the Global Energy Map

As surging energy prices dominated headlines and social media, narratives flooded the media claiming the Iranians were closing Hormuz. While the source of these reports remains murky, their intent was clear: pin the blame on Tehran and mobilize global pressure against it. In reality, Iran had zero incentive to close Hormuz. Doing so directly strangles its own exports, decimates its revenues, and alienates its key trade partners like China, Pakistan, and India.

Furthermore, closing Hormuz doesn’t hurt the US. America isn’t dependent on imports transiting the strait. The spike in US consumer fuel prices happened because American energy companies chose to export fuel to highly profitable global markets at the expense of domestic consumers. There wasn’t a global shortage of crude oil, but rather a bottleneck in refined fuels, and Asian importers bore the brunt of the pain.

Amid this crunch, decision-makers in Japan, the Philippines, India, Thailand, and elsewhere scrambled to sign long-term supply contracts with American energy firms, completely reshuffling the global energy deck. Hormuz and the Persian Gulf states suddenly looked volatile and unreliable, while American imports offered a stable alternative. For the White House, a temporary spike in domestic pump prices is a cheap fee to pay for a grand strategy that permanently restructures the energy market. Besides, Washington possesses plenty of fiscal levers to blunt the domestic consumer’s pain.

This structural disruption aligns perfectly with long-term US foreign policy. Look at the historical playbook: fierce opposition to Nord Stream 1 (a European partnership split between Russia, Germany, France, and the Netherlands); opposition to Nord Stream 2 (a Russian-German venture); sanctions on Russian LNG; sanctions on the Yamal project to prevent Russia from becoming a global LNG superpower; and the sabotage of Nord Stream during the Russia-Ukraine war in September 2022. In November 2022, the White House published its National Security Strategy, explicitly stating:

“We want the most robust, productive, and innovative energy sector in the world — one that is capable of not only powering American economic growth, but also being a leading export industry for America in its own right.”

Is it pure coincidence that one of the world’s primary energy export arteries—Hormuz—is locked in a protracted, US-managed crisis, while the United States has emerged as the world’s largest energy exporter?

The Ultimate Naval Paywall

For a global superpower like the US, maintaining a massive, dominant navy is non-negotiable. It is the primary instrument through which Washington dictates global politics, commerce, and economics, allowing it to intervene anywhere on earth. Hence the endless chess match over chokepoints like the Panama Canal, Greenland, Hormuz, Malacca, and Gibraltar.

The US Navy is what gives the US Dollar its unyielding dominance in China, Russia, Iran, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, and Japan. It’s not the ruble or the renminbi running the world; everything trades in dollars because there is simply no alternative to the American fleet. To preserve this status, the White House actively works to dismantle the leverage held by European commercial entities.

Washington’s calculated silence when insurance policies were canceled at the onset of the conflict was deliberate. It allowed the US to step in and provide alternative insurance coverage—but only to the players it favored. The US offered select tanker owners, both domestic and allied, “Special War Risk” policies backed directly by the US Federal balance sheet. Washington effectively told London that it would not allow British insurance clerks to dictate the flow of global energy or the success of an American military campaign.

Additionally, European nations levy heavy taxes on American shipping companies operating in Europe because they don’t meet European fuel consumption standards, driving up American freight rates and favoring European shipping lines. In response, the US slaps steep tariffs on European firms that build ships in China. By destabilizing the maritime insurance architecture, the US is engineering absolute hegemony over global shipping. Washington is leveraging a physical military confrontation with Iran to dismantle centuries of European financial and industrial maritime dominance, replacing it with total American supremacy.

The Forever Crisis and the “Humanitarian Credit Card”

In May, US President Donald Trump met with Chinese President Xi Jinping, shifting the entire dynamic of the war. While the exact details of that meeting remain under wraps, it immediately catalyzed Pakistan-mediated cease-fire talks between the US and Iran, culminating in a 60-day Memorandum of Understanding (MOU).

Under this agreement, Iran was forced to accept unprecedented restrictions on the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC). This included pulling IRGC fast-attack boats back from forward bases along the Hormuz coastline and strategic islands like Qeshm and Abu Musa, returning them to home ports like Bandar Abbas.

Crucially, Iran is barred from receiving cash or foreign currency like dollars or euros directly for its oil. All oil revenues—including authorized quotas to China or frozen assets like the $6 billion in Qatar—are deposited directly into escrow accounts in third-party nations, primarily Qatar and Oman, under the draconian supervision of the US Treasury. Iran cannot withdraw these funds to finance its national budget, pay IRGC salaries, or procure military hardware. The money functions strictly as a credit line for international suppliers, limited exclusively to essential humanitarian goods.

The US essentially handed Iran a humanitarian credit card. Iran can pump oil, but in return, it only gets vetted cargo ships full of wheat and medicine, while the physical cash stays safely out of the IRGC’s reach.

Predictably, this has triggered intense internal friction within the Iranian regime between pragmatists supporting the deal and hardline factions. Any frustrated IRGC operative can launch a drone or threaten a tanker to generate media noise and regional panic, driving insurance premiums back up. The American-enforced closure of Hormuz has demonstrated to tens of thousands in the region that disabling the global energy flow is remarkably easy.

However, these hardliners are shooting themselves in the foot. Asian consumer nations are rapidly realizing that viable alternatives exist in the Americas and Africa. Consequently, the long-term stability of the Persian Gulf is shattered. Without rapid economic diversification, the Arab Gulf states—Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Qatar, and others—face a massive economic reckoning that will reverberate across the entire Arab world.

Ultimately, the Hormuz crisis suits Washington perfectly. The US holds a virtual monopoly on helium exports—critical for the global semiconductor industry—giving it immense geopolitical leverage over Asian manufacturing giants, particularly China’s chip sector. Will China try to build its own supply chain independence? Absolutely. But that takes time.

The US is playing for absolute hegemony across industry, technology, and AI, and it achieves this by seizing control of the physical foundations of the material economy. Because the American establishment—regardless of who sits in the Oval Office—views the rise of China as an existential threat to national security, its global maneuvers are engineered to secure asymmetric advantages ahead of a potential conflict. The Hormuz crisis is not an isolated flashpoint; it is a critical piece of the global puzzle in a new era where the world is fracturing into competing blocks.