Tehran is not merely trying to reopen a waterway. It is trying to prove that the regime can turn regional disruption into political leverage.
For weeks, Washington appeared to believe that the end of the Iran war might be relatively simple.
Open the Strait of Hormuz.
Restore commercial shipping.
Keep Iran from rebuilding a nuclear weapon.
Declare the military objectives accomplished.
Then go home.
Iran has other plans.
Tehran has now made clear that reopening Hormuz comes with a price: an end to the American naval blockade, the withdrawal of U.S. forces, sanctions relief, access to frozen Iranian assets, compensation for wartime losses and an end to American military pressure against Iran’s regional allies.
And on Tuesday, Iran’s newly appointed secretary of the Supreme National Security Council, Mohsen Rezaei, said the strait would remain closed until Washington met Tehran’s conditions.
That should change how Washington—and Israel—understands this conflict.
Iran is not negotiating merely over shipping.
It is negotiating over whether the Islamic Republic can convert its ability to disrupt global commerce into a permanent instrument of political power.
Hormuz Has Become Iran’s Bargaining Chip
The Strait of Hormuz is one of the most consequential geographic chokepoints on Earth.
But its strategic value to Iran goes beyond the oil that passes through it.
The strait gives Tehran leverage over countries that possess vastly greater economic and military resources.
Iran does not need to defeat the United States to create pressure.
It does not need to destroy every tanker.
It does not even need to maintain a perfectly sealed blockade.
It only needs to make shipping dangerous enough that companies, insurers and governments begin calculating the cost of doing business.
That is what makes the Iranian strategy so effective.
The economic damage begins before the missiles hit.
And Iran understands this.
The Latest Demands Reveal the Strategy
Look carefully at what Tehran is asking for.
Iran wants the United States to end military operations in the region.
It wants American forces withdrawn.
It wants sanctions lifted.
It wants frozen assets released.
It wants compensation.
It wants military pressure on Iranian allies to stop.
And it wants Hormuz reopened.
These demands are not unrelated.
They are a package.
Iran is effectively saying that access to one of the world’s most important commercial waterways should be exchanged for concessions affecting America’s entire Middle East strategy.
That is an extraordinary proposition.
It should also be rejected as a principle.
International shipping cannot become a bargaining chip that one government can repeatedly deploy whenever it wants diplomatic concessions.
If Iran succeeds, the lesson will not remain confined to this war.
The lesson will be that strategic chokepoints can be weaponized to force stronger powers to negotiate on unfavorable terms.
Israel Has Seen the Larger Iranian Strategy
For Israel, this should sound familiar.
Iran has spent decades building a strategy based upon asymmetric leverage.
It does not need to defeat Israel conventionally.
It needs to create enough threats in enough places that Israel and its allies are constantly forced to respond.
Hezbollah threatens from Lebanon.
Iran-backed militias operate elsewhere in the region.
The Houthis have demonstrated their ability to threaten international shipping.
Iran itself possesses missiles capable of striking Israel and American forces.
The nuclear program provides the potential for an even more dangerous strategic shield.
Hormuz adds another layer.
Instead of threatening only Israel, Iran can threaten the economic stability of the entire region.
This is why the strait should not be treated as a separate technical problem.
It is another component of Tehran’s broader strategy of coercion.
Iran Wants the World to Believe It Cannot Be Defeated
There is also a psychological component.
Iran has suffered enormous damage during this war.
Its military infrastructure has been struck.
Its nuclear facilities have been targeted.
Its leadership has been disrupted.
Its regional network has suffered losses.
For Tehran’s hard-liners, simply accepting a settlement that looks like surrender would carry enormous domestic consequences.
The regime therefore needs to demonstrate that Iran still possesses leverage.
Hormuz provides that leverage.
The message is:
You may have destroyed our facilities.
You may have damaged our military.
But you still need us to open the world’s energy corridor.
That is the narrative Tehran wants to establish.
Israel should be careful not to help create it.
A Reopened Strait Is Not Necessarily a Strategic Victory
There is an important distinction between opening Hormuz and defeating the strategy that closed it.
A temporary reopening would restore shipping.
That is good.
Lower oil prices would help.
That is good.
Reduced pressure on the global economy would help.
That is good.
But none of those outcomes automatically mean that Iran has abandoned the strategy that created the crisis.
If Tehran can reopen the strait today, receive sanctions relief and access to frozen assets, rebuild its military capabilities tomorrow, and close the waterway again during the next confrontation, then the United States has not solved the problem.
It has established a precedent.
Iran would have learned that closing Hormuz works.
That Is Where Israel’s Security Comes In
Israel’s concern should not be whether Washington can produce a diplomatic headline.
It should be whether the agreement makes the next Iranian war less likely.
That requires asking harder questions.
What happens to Iran’s nuclear infrastructure?
What happens to its missile program?
What happens to the Revolutionary Guard?
What happens to Hezbollah?
What happens to the Houthis?
What happens to Iran-backed militias?
What happens to the weapons flowing to them?
And what happens if Tehran decides that another closure of Hormuz is necessary to achieve its objectives?
A settlement that answers only the shipping question is not a settlement of the Iranian threat.
It is a pause.
The Nuclear Question Cannot Be Bargained Away
This is particularly important because there is a growing temptation to separate the nuclear issue from Hormuz.
The argument is understandable.
If Iran’s nuclear facilities have been badly damaged, perhaps Washington can focus on shipping and move on.
But nuclear capability is not merely a collection of buildings.
Scientific knowledge survives.
Personnel survive.
Documents survive.
Equipment can be replaced.
Facilities can be reconstructed.
A regime determined to obtain a nuclear weapon can attempt to rebuild clandestinely.
That means the absence of an immediately functioning enrichment facility does not eliminate the strategic problem.
For Israel, this is not theoretical.
Israel has lived for decades under the possibility that Iran could cross the nuclear threshold.
The war may have changed the timeline.
It has not changed the fundamental question.
Iran Should Not Be Paid for Holding the World Hostage
There is an especially dangerous principle embedded in Tehran’s demands.
Iran wants compensation for the consequences of a war it entered while using its military capabilities to attack Israel, American interests and regional targets.
It wants sanctions relief.
It wants frozen assets.
It wants the blockade lifted.
And it wants these concessions connected to reopening Hormuz.
The United States should be extremely careful.
Humanitarian considerations and legitimate economic arrangements are one thing.
Rewarding coercion is another.
If Iran discovers that attacking commercial shipping produces billions of dollars in economic relief, then the international community will have created an incentive for the next attack.
The same logic applies to Israel.
A terrorist or authoritarian regime should not be taught that aggression eventually becomes an asset on the negotiating table.
The Gulf States Are Watching
Iran’s Arab neighbors understand this better than most.
Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Kuwait, Qatar and Oman all have a direct interest in what happens in Hormuz.
Their economies depend upon secure energy infrastructure and maritime commerce.
They have also experienced Iranian missile and drone attacks during this war.
The Gulf states therefore face the same strategic question as Israel:
Can Iran be deterred from using military force to dictate the terms of regional commerce?
That question provides an opportunity.
Israel and the Arab states do not have to agree on every political issue.
They do not have to share the same views about the Palestinian conflict.
But they have a powerful common interest in preventing Iran from becoming the region’s economic and military gatekeeper.
That common interest was one of the foundations of the Abraham Accords.
It remains one of the strongest arguments for expanding regional security cooperation.
Washington Should Measure Victory Differently
President Trump has every reason to want an end to the war.
Americans want lower energy prices.
American businesses want stable markets.
American soldiers should not remain indefinitely in another Middle Eastern conflict.
And diplomacy should always be explored when it can produce a durable security arrangement.
But victory should not be measured by how quickly Washington can declare the war finished.
It should be measured by whether Iran’s ability to restart the same crisis has been reduced.
If the strait opens but Iran retains the ability to close it again at will, the problem remains.
If sanctions disappear while Iran rebuilds its military, the problem remains.
If the nuclear program quietly returns, the problem remains.
If Iran’s proxies recover, the problem remains.
And if Tehran emerges believing that its strategy worked, the next confrontation will be harder.
The Real Question Is Who Learned the Lesson
Every war teaches both sides something.
Iran is learning whether America can be pressured by energy prices.
Washington is learning how much leverage Iran can obtain from a chokepoint.
The Gulf states are learning how vulnerable their economies remain.
And Israel is learning something it has understood for decades:
Iran does not need to win every battle to advance its strategy.
It only needs its enemies to believe that confronting it costs more than accommodating it.
That is the lesson Israel should resist.
The objective cannot simply be to make Hormuz open.
It must be to ensure that Iran can never again credibly threaten to close it as a means of extracting political concessions.
The objective cannot simply be to damage Iran’s nuclear facilities.
It must be to prevent Iran from rebuilding the capability to threaten Israel with nuclear weapons.
The objective cannot simply be to weaken Iranian proxies.
It must be to prevent Tehran from rebuilding the network that allows it to wage war through others.
Look at What Tehran Is Doing
Iran says Hormuz will remain closed unless Washington accepts its conditions.
The United States says it will not accept Iranian control over the waterway.
Oil prices are rising as hopes for a deal weaken.
Shipping remains disrupted.
And negotiations continue while the military confrontation has not truly ended.
That tells us everything we need to know.
Iran is not negotiating because it has abandoned confrontation.
It is negotiating because confrontation has produced leverage.
That distinction matters.
Diplomacy can end a war.
But diplomacy that rewards the mechanism Iran used to wage the war can also teach Tehran how to fight the next one.
Israel should therefore welcome a genuinely enforceable agreement that restores freedom of navigation and prevents Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon.
But Israel should reject the illusion that reopening Hormuz, by itself, constitutes strategic victory.
Because the ultimate question is not whether the ships sail again.
It is whether Iran still believes it can stop them.
And if Tehran believes it can, the next crisis is already being prepared.