Unable to Reach the Lion, He Turns His Fury on the Sheep
S. Rouzbeh
۲۰۲۶/۰۵/۰۶

An analysis of threats over the Strait of Hormuz as a means of engineering fear, and of how pressure shifts towards weaker targets when direct confrontation is constrained.

Is the threat to close the Strait of Hormuz a real operational plan, or merely a way to generate fear and extract concessions? And why, whenever direct confrontation becomes less possible, does tension shift towards weaker targets?

What has happened in recent days — the shipping route remaining open, US military intervention, the destruction of several speedboats, and then the shift in tension to a target outside the main theatre, in the United Arab Emirates — offers a clear picture of the crisis. Despite the threatening rhetoric, the Strait of Hormuz was not actually closed. Passage was maintained, and trade continued on a limited scale. The gap between threatening words and the capacity to carry them out in full remains.

At this point, one thing must be stated plainly: what Iran has created in Hormuz is less a blockade than the production of fear.

That fear comes from the waterway becoming unsafe, rather than from its actual closure. A few limited actions, from threats to possible mine-laying or scattered manoeuvres, are enough to disrupt the calculations of insurers and shipping companies. Energy markets react to the possibility of danger, not only to danger materialising. Much of the economic effect of closing the strait can thus be reproduced without actually closing it.

But yesterday's events revealed another layer of this behaviour. When this instrument of pressure met a swift, direct response, and the scope for maintaining it at the same level diminished, the tension changed course. The shift away from the main theatre towards another target follows a pattern described even in older literature: avoiding confrontation with superior power and discharging pressure at a lower level. It looks aggressive, but in reality it reveals limits rather than strength.

Analytically, the Hormuz crisis must be understood on three levels:

First, a capacity for asymmetric disruption that can make the route expensive and unsafe, but cannot keep it closed. This is the Revolutionary Guards' government's only card.

Second, the psychological and economic use of that insecurity to influence global markets and exert political pressure.

Third, the displacement of the conflict when pressure fails in its main theatre: the point at which tension spills over from the energy route to other actors.

The world's hesitation, meanwhile, has reasons of its own. As long as major powers can keep the route open and contain the crisis within ‘controlled insecurity’, they avoid entering a wider conflict. But there is a limit. If the cycle repeats — creating insecurity, a limited response, then shifting the tension elsewhere — patience becomes more costly, and the ground is laid for a tougher consensus, other countries' involvement, and international condemnation.

Ultimately, Hormuz is a question of engineering fear, rather than simply closing a strait. Yet, as recent events have shown, this game does not always remain under its initiator's control. How long can this precarious balance be maintained without the crisis changing from an instrument of pressure into a real, uncontrollable confrontation? With a rash move, the Revolutionary Guards' government will soon lose the very ground and bargaining card it could have retained in negotiations and for its survival.

If Iran persists, one of three paths will follow: a gradual retreat in exchange for a symbolic concession, a limited naval confrontation, or the formation of a tougher coalition to reopen the route. The world's hesitation also reflects fear of a larger war, a surge in energy prices, danger to merchant shipping, and the need for full consensus among major energy consumers, particularly in Asia.

Source: https://srouzbeh.com/en/posts/archive-d4788c65-2592-0e19-bdc4-b7ef27749831
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