Cargo ships sail in the Arabian Gulf towards Strait of Hormuz, March 19.The Associated Press
Rashid Husain Syed is a Toronto-based journalist, consultant and energy analyst.
The Iran war ceasefire announced on Tuesday paved the way for a temporary cessation of U.S.-Israeli strikes on Iran in exchange for the reopening of the Strait of Hormuz. Agreeing to the truce, mediated by Pakistan, Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said that during the two weeks Iran would guarantee safe passage to maritime traffic through the strait, “under Iranian military management.”
That is a seismic change.
Iran has not surrendered to the combined military might of the United States and Israel. It was not obliterated, and there has been no regime change in Tehran. That has been Iran’s success.
Moreover, it appears that Iran would have some control over the Strait of Hormuz going forward.
This could prove to be contentious between Gulf Arab countries and Iran. Pakistan may well have to play a crucial balancing act and ensure that the concerns of Gulf Arab countries are taken into consideration.
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But make no mistake: The war has changed the complexion of the global energy equation, with Iran emerging as the new pivot in the emerging new order.
Voices within the U.S. are aware of the changing geopolitical dynamics in the region. Democratic Senator Chris Murphy leapt on comments from Iran about controlling the shipments through the strait, telling CNN, “Who knows if any of that is true, but if this agreement gives Iran the right to control the strait, that is cataclysmic for the world.”
“It is just stunning that that’s where we have gotten to, that Donald Trump took a military action that has apparently, at least for the time being, given Iran control over a critical waterway that they did not have control over before the war began. What an error, what a miscalculation.”
Many other similar voices are being echoed in Washington.
Veteran U.S. diplomat Chas Freeman believes that due to the war, the regional order is being rearranged. Referring to a statement by President Trump that “we cannot open the Strait of Hormuz by force,” he told an interviewer: “You need to figure out how to get your cargo through. Well, there’s a way to do that, and that is to do an agreement with Iran. It means, in effect, first of all, the Gulf Arabs [will] have no alternative but to negotiate with Iran because they cannot survive indefinitely with the Strait of Hormuz closed to their exports.”
He says that Iran has already gained two things in this war.
One is that “the world has accepted Iran’s de facto control of the Strait of Hormuz. This has fundamentally altered regional geopolitics. It leaves the nations of the region with no alternative but to work out a modus vivendi to preserve regional peace.”
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The second is that as we go into the U.S. midterm elections, the embargo on Iranian [oil] exports has effectively been lifted.
And, when the U.S. and Iran meet in Islamabad on Friday, Iran will talk from a position of strength. While announcing the talks, Iranian state media insisted that negotiations with the U.S. would be held in the Pakistani capital to finalize the details of an agreement, with the aim of “confirming Iran’s battlefield achievements.”
Rules of the game have changed, and Iran’s eminence in the altered geopolitical realities cannot be “obliterated” or sidelined. From regional oil-rich Arab states to Washington, everyone will need to accede to the altered regional power and political realities. The first victim of this new, emerging geopolitical order would be the existing global energy dynamics.
The war has brought to the limelight another very core issue, that of the reliability of the Arab oil-rich states as dependable suppliers. Can the world depend on them for an uninterrupted supply of oil and gas? This remains a big if – at least for some time to come. Iran will now be a big part of this equation.