Iran ‘Blew the Hell Out of Bahrain’ — And Trump’s Gulf Strategy With It

Iran previewed its playbook in last June’s memorandum of understanding that was supposed to end the war. That deal committed Iran to restoring safe passage in Hormuz, but only for “commercial vessels.” Not a word about restoring free movement for U.S. warships in the Gulf. It was a stunning omission, especially given the Navy’s historical role as guarantor of the free flow of oil through Hormuz.

Though the MOU quickly collapsed, Iran had nevertheless established a deeply problematic precedent: that commercial shipping and U.S. naval access are separable questions. It will almost certainly demand maintaining that separation in any future arrangement to end the war. And it will bank on influential forces eager to restore commerce through Hormuz — energy markets, U.S. allies, and Americans demanding lower gas prices — to pressure the Trump administration to also accept the tankers vs warships distinction.

How would the United States respond to an Iranian offer to reopen Hormuz so long as the U.S. Navy remains out? Acceptance would be seen as a devastating defeat that forced the world’s most formidable maritime power to retreat from waters it dominated for decades.

But insisting on the reestablishment of the prewar status quo, with American destroyers plying the Gulf within eyeshot of Iran, carries its own substantial risks. It’s one thing if it can be secured through the administration’s current effort to strangle Iran economically via a naval blockade and sanctions. It’s quite another if it can only be won by the Navy fighting its way back into the Gulf and imposing its will on an Iranian leadership that not only appears determined to resist but remains capable of doing so.

The Navy effectively left the Gulf at the war’s start and hasn’t been back since, precisely because the risks of getting within range of Iranian missiles have been deemed prohibitively high. The job the U.S. military has recently done to loosen Iran’s chokehold on Hormuz and get more oil out has been extraordinary, but far from a classic naval “escort” mission.

Instead, the operational burden has fallen to aerial and unmanned assets — fighter jets, autonomous vehicles, helicopters, anti-missile systems — to establish a protective dome over commercial ships as they surreptitiously sail through Hormuz at night, absent a naval convoy. The heart of the Navy, its capital ships, has been left enforcing the blockade from hundreds of miles outside Hormuz, maintaining a cautious distance from threatening Iranian fire.

Between abandonment and the status quo ante, there may be a third option that reconceives what a naval headquarters entails and is better suited to 21st-century warfare. Rather than large ships manned by thousands of sailors, maybe it means a new and newly hardened command and control center at NSA-Bahrain that oversees offensive, defensive, and intelligence operations conducted by thousands of cheap drones operating above, on, and beneath the Gulf’s waters.

Hormuz’s future has become a key benchmark by which the U.S. war against Iran will be judged. But it’s imperative that U.S. officials understand the full magnitude of what’s at stake. The issue is not simply whether one of the global economy’s most vital chokepoints will be open to free commerce. It will also be whether the most powerful navy on Earth can again operate effectively in waters where it ruled supreme for decades. The answer, whatever it is, will echo far beyond the Gulf.