Analysis of: What is the strait of Hormuz and can the US stop Iran from blocking it?
The Guardian | March 13, 2026
TL;DR
US-Iran war exposes how imperial military planners gambled global energy security on regime change, now scrambling as Iran chokes world oil flows. Working people worldwide pay the price through soaring energy costs while capital fights over strategic chokepoints.
Analytical Focus:Contradictions Material Conditions Historical Context
The closure of the Strait of Hormuz represents a dramatic materialization of contradictions long inherent in US imperial strategy in the Persian Gulf. For decades, American military planners understood that attacking Iran would trigger precisely this response—the choking of a passage carrying a quarter of global liquefied natural gas. Yet the Trump administration launched its war apparently without adequate preparation, revealing how ideological commitments to regime change can override rational strategic calculation. Energy Secretary Chris Wright's admission that 'we're simply not ready' for escort operations exposes the gap between imperial ambition and material capability. The economic stakes are staggering and reveal the true base upon which geopolitical conflicts rest. Over 1,000 cargo ships sit blocked, energy prices have soared, and insurance premiums have skyrocketed—costs that will cascade through global supply chains onto working-class consumers worldwide. Iran's strategy of 'widening the geographic scope' and 'increasing global costs' represents a form of asymmetric economic warfare that leverages geography and relatively cheap weapons (drones, mines, small boats) against the most expensive military in human history. The strait's physical constraints—transit lanes just 3-4 miles from Iranian shores, giving ships under two minutes to react to attacks—demonstrate how material geography shapes military and economic possibility. Historically, this echoes the 'tanker war' of the 1980s Iran-Iraq conflict, when Operation Earnest Will required massive international coalition efforts. The current inability to mount similar operations reveals both the isolation of unilateral US action and the degradation of the international order that once facilitated such coalitions. The suggestion that securing the strait might require 'ground troops' points toward potential escalation that would transform a naval blockade into a far bloodier ground war—a trajectory that serves neither Iranian workers nor American ones, but only the interests of those who profit from conflict and control of hydrocarbon flows.
Class Dynamics
Actors: US military-industrial complex, Trump administration officials, Iranian state/clerical regime, Global energy corporations, Shipping/cargo industry, Insurance capital, Working-class energy consumers globally, Gulf state ruling classes
Beneficiaries: Energy corporations profiting from price spikes, Defense contractors supplying ongoing military operations, Insurance industry collecting elevated premiums, Rival energy producers outside the Gulf
Harmed Parties: Global working class facing energy price increases, Shipping workers facing safety risks, Iranian civilian population under attack, American workers whose taxes fund military operations, Gulf populations dependent on export revenues
The crisis reveals a hierarchy where decisions made by a small political-military elite in Washington impose costs on billions of workers globally through energy markets. Iran's state, while opposing US imperialism, represents its own clerical ruling class whose survival—not worker welfare—drives strategic decisions. Capital in the form of energy corporations and insurers adjusts pricing to maintain profits regardless of which workers suffer. The 'national interest' rhetoric deployed by both sides obscures that actual interests diverge sharply along class lines within each nation.
Material Conditions
Economic Factors: Global dependence on Gulf hydrocarbon exports, Quarter of world LNG transits through single chokepoint, Soaring energy prices affecting production costs globally, Insurance market dynamics raising shipping costs, Asymmetric cost of warfare (cheap drones vs. expensive naval assets)
The strait functions as a critical node in global commodity circulation—the realization phase of capital's circuit. Blocking it interrupts not production itself but the transformation of produced commodities into money-capital, creating a crisis of circulation that ripples through the entire system. Energy commodities are particularly strategic because they enter into virtually all other production processes as inputs. Control over energy flows thus represents control over the conditions of production itself, explaining why imperial powers have historically prioritized Middle East intervention.
Resources at Stake: Oil and LNG reserves of Gulf states, Control of strategic maritime passage, Iranian oil export capacity, Military assets of all parties, Global energy price stability
Historical Context
Precedents: 1987 Operation Earnest Will during Iran-Iraq tanker war, Houthi targeting of Red Sea shipping, Historical mining campaigns in naval warfare, US interventions for oil access (1953 Iran coup, Gulf Wars)
This crisis fits the pattern of imperial overextension that has characterized declining hegemonic powers historically. The US constructed its post-WWII dominance partly through control of Middle Eastern oil flows, but maintaining that control requires ever-greater military commitments as local resistance and rival powers challenge American primacy. The inability to assemble an international coalition—noted by analysts stating neither France, the US, nor 'anybody' can secure the strait—reflects the erosion of US hegemonic capacity to organize collective imperial action, a hallmark of hegemonic decline identified by world-systems theorists.
Contradictions
Primary: The fundamental contradiction lies between the imperial drive to eliminate resistant regimes and the material impossibility of controlling the consequences. US planners knew Iran could close Hormuz but attacked anyway, prioritizing regime change over energy security—revealing how ideological imperatives can override rational calculation of material interests even within the ruling class.
Secondary: Contradiction between 'destroying Iran's military' and needing naval assets for escort operations, Contradiction between unilateral action and need for international coalition, Iran's contradiction between needing oil exports and using strait closure as weapon, Contradiction between 'national security' framing and actual harm to domestic working class through energy prices
These contradictions may resolve through several paths: protracted war of attrition that devastates both societies while energy prices remain elevated; diplomatic settlement that leaves underlying tensions unresolved; or escalation to ground invasion that would dramatically raise costs and risks. None of these paths serve working-class interests on any side. The deeper contradiction—between capitalist dependence on hydrocarbon flows and the violence required to secure them—points toward the systemic unsustainability of fossil-fuel-based accumulation.
Global Interconnections
The Hormuz crisis illuminates how global capitalism's energy metabolism creates structural vulnerabilities that become sites of geopolitical conflict. The concentration of hydrocarbon flows through narrow chokepoints—Hormuz, Suez, Malacca—represents a spatial fix to capital accumulation that simultaneously creates strategic pressure points. When these are contested, the costs cascade globally through commodity prices, affecting workers from European factories to African households dependent on fuel imports. This also reveals the interconnection between financial and military power. Insurance markets, shipping rates, and energy futures respond instantly to military developments, creating a feedback loop where financial actors profit from the very instability that harms productive economies. The 'global costs' Iran seeks to impose flow through these financial channels, demonstrating how contemporary imperialism operates through the intersection of military force and financialized commodity markets. Core-periphery dynamics are evident: Gulf states remain dependent on exporting raw materials to core economies, while the US seeks to maintain the dollar-denominated oil trade that underpins its financial hegemony.
Conclusion
The Hormuz crisis offers a stark lesson in the costs of imperial adventurism borne by working people globally while strategic decisions remain concentrated in ruling-class hands. As energy prices rise and the specter of ground war looms, workers in all countries share a common interest in opposing militarism that serves neither their security nor prosperity—only the accumulation imperatives of capital and the geopolitical ambitions of states. Building international working-class solidarity against war, while demanding democratic control over energy systems and foreign policy, represents the only path beyond the recurring cycle of imperial violence and economic crisis that defines the fossil-fuel era of capitalism.
Suggested Reading
- Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism by V.I. Lenin (1917) Lenin's analysis of how capitalist powers compete for control of raw materials and strategic territories directly illuminates the US drive to dominate Persian Gulf energy flows.
- The New Imperialism by David Harvey (2003) Harvey's concept of 'accumulation by dispossession' and analysis of oil's role in contemporary imperialism provides essential framework for understanding the material stakes in Hormuz.
- The Shock Doctrine by Naomi Klein (2007) Klein's documentation of how crises—including wars—are leveraged to impose economic transformations helps explain who benefits from the instability this conflict creates.