It was always going to be a long shot but as mentioned yesterday, the details of the proposal are not going to be up to Iran’s liking whatsoever. And we’re already getting a quick response as a senior Iran official shoots it down. The headlines are via Reuters:
- Iran has ruled out Oman’s proposal for regional joint management of Strait of Hormuz
- The proposal has no chance of success
- Only Iran and Oman can decide on arrangements for the strait based on respective shares
- Iran rejects any role for other countries to be involved
- The entire inbound route and part of the outbound route through the strait must be under Iranian control
- Oman is a valuable neighbour but 50-50 joint control arrangement will not work
In case you missed it, this was the proposal put out by Oman in trying to get Iran on board yesterday. And as mentioned at the time:
“I can’t imagine Iran accepting these conditions without any give, that especially with the renewed conflict with the US again. As a reminder, the US naval blockade is back in force after the ceasefire deal fell apart. And in case it needs reminding once again, control over the Strait of Hormuz remains Iran’s biggest leverage over the US in the whole conflict. It is literally their ace in the hole in being able to keep things going for this long and also in case nuclear talks hit a snag at some point in the future.”
That is not to say that Iran might not agree to some soft reopening of conditions along the strait as they did during the ceasefire deal. But if one is expecting Iran to voluntarily give up control of the strait and to allow ship traffic to pick up significantly, that simply will not take place.
So long as the US stays in the region and nuclear “talks” are still pending, Iran’s best play is to buy time while preserving the status quo.
This article was written by Justin Low at investinglive.com.
