Abhijit Bhattacharyya | As US, Iran Seek Peace, Open Hormuz Holds Key
Thus, the single most contentious factor of “freedom of navigation” through the Hormuz Strait raised new hope. None-theless, one can only be cautiously optimistic as enormous damage has already been done
Amid mixed and confusing signals from the belligerents, the United States and Iran, the blockade of the Hormuz Strait was first withdrawn, as announced by US President Donald Trump and Tehran, and then, in less than 24 hours, was re-imposed by Iran over the US blockade of its ports. This bewildering development, however, signals Tehran’s moral victory. For both the US and Israel, Iran was no Gaza, Venezuela, Panama, Yugoslavia or a small, powerless Asian/African country. Iran is a self-made power with four allies: Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Yemen, along with Hezbollah, Houthi, Hamas warriors; and now Hormuz as a catalyst. It’s true the US and Israel have unlimited resources and powerful warheads, but the potential catastrophe that might be inflicted by Iran’s geography would have led to disaster for the West too.
After the first round of US-Iran dialogue in Islamabad proved futile, Washington bowed to the inevitable and agreed to further talks in the coming week as it found it had virtually no diplomatic support from either Europe or Asia. Inside the US as well, President Donald Trump is facing fierce opposition from all quarters, including his MAGA base and cheerleaders.
Inflation, a stock market reverse, rising food, fuel and fertiliser costs and ascendant Democrats overwhelmed Mr Trump’s key backers, including the profit-crazy military-industrial complex.
What the future holds is still unclear, mainly because of the mercurial nature of President Trump and his “blow hot-blow cold” tantrums and violent mood swings. Therefore, one has to tread with caution. In case the ceasefire ends without being extended and there is a resumption of hostilities in West Asia, it will be an unmitigated disaster for the entire world’s economy, not least for India.
Thus, the single most contentious factor of “freedom of navigation” through the Hormuz Strait raised new hope. None-theless, one can only be cautiously optimistic as enormous damage has already been done.
The Hormuz crisis was a surprise and shock to the world. No one visualised such disruption when the US and Israel started pounding and pulverising Iran on February 28. When President Trump threatened to wipe out Tehran’s “entire civilisation” and bomb it back to the Stone Age, he was hoping for a grand victory for the West and Iran’s “imminent surrender”. Much like in Venezuela early-January, when American forces kidnapped President Nicolas Maduro and effected “regime change” in Caracas. But Iran, as mentioned earlier, was no Venezuela.
This “regime change” approach is consistent with the strategy of successive US administrations since the Second World War, creating a state of fear, tension and turmoil worldwide, as the US took over the job of policing the world from Britain's Royal Navy after 1945. Today, it is time to take stock of this legacy to avoid a repeat of Hormuz 2026.
Despite intervening in almost every post-1945 global conflict, the US always faced reverses, noted the eminent American scholar Harlan K. Ullman in his masterly Anatomy of Failure: Why America Loses Every War It Starts. Dr Ullman asks an uncomfortable question: “Why, since the end of World War II, has the US either lost every war it started or failed in every military intervention?”
Dr Ullman's facts and arguments were so irrefutable that Gen. Colin Powell, the retired Chair-man of Joint Chiefs of Staff and former secretary of state, suggested: “This book should be read by all practitioners and serious students of national security as a guide for avoiding failures and miscalculations.” However, the unprovoked February 2026 joint US-Israel air assault on Iran once again signalled the same “failures and miscalculations in using American military power”.
America’s military-industrial complex, which functions almost like a “state within a state”, tasted blood after the First World War, with the Navy becoming “first among equals” due to its global power projection, taking its cue from British imperialists, who subdued every continent through sea power. As Japan surrendered before Gen. Douglas MacArthur aboard the USS Missouri in Tokyo Bay, September 1945, its capitulation led to rise of the US Navy, replacing the Royal Navy ensign.
However, America’s monumental blunders soon began with the Korean War that bogged it down for three-years (1950-53), leading to an infamous exit. For over 75 years, America’s failure to understand geography always failed its armed forces. After Korea, there was Vietnam, where it was similarly unable to tackle non-white Asia, and had to face humiliation and loss of face. As it had joined forces with Britain, France and Russia to defeat Nazi Germany in 1945, America switched to a coalition strategy and fought the 1991 Gulf war through a UN mandate and led nearly 40 nations in a campaign to eject Saddam Hussein from Kuwait. In 1999, the US led 13 Nato nations to break sovereign Yugoslavia into pieces. Later, a four-nation alliance of the US, the UK, Australia and Poland, aided by 30 nations in a “coalition of the willing”, helped to pulverize Iraq and murder its leader Saddam Hussein 2006.
The apogee of a US-led coalition’s foreign aggression was in October 2001 in Afghanistan, following Osama bin Laden’s 9/11 attacks on the US, despite the fact that Afghanistan itself didn’t pose any direct threat to America. But the world looked very different to the neo-conservative advisers of President George W. Bush, and 40 countries, under “Captain America’, formed the “International Security Assistance Force”, which fought an inglorious war in the poverty-stricken, landlocked terrain of Afghanistan, a geography of 30 million, and historically a “graveyard of empires”, from where the US had to beat another ignominious retreat on August 15, 2021, after a 20-year ruthless, and fruitless, display of modern weapons pitted against fearsome warriors clad in torn apparel. The global nuclear superpower was forced to reverse course as it could not tackle the guerrilla fighters of Kabul.
The see-saw over the Hormuz Strait is almost like a vindication of the prescient observations of Dr Harlan Ullman. One must not forget, though, that President Trump is still demanding a US military budget of $1.5 trillion, which according to Military Balance 2026 stands at $921 billion in 2025. The war in Iran is nevertheless a warning to Washington and its allies. Despite being the pre-eminent naval power since 1941-Pearl Harbour, and ending with Hiroshima in August 1945, the Hormuz Strait in 2026 by itself is huge challenge to the invading ships of a global superpower. What was inflicted on Iran from the air is unlikely to be repeated in the constricted terrain and shallow, squeezed sea lanes of the narrow Persian Gulf waterway. Like Vietnam and Afghanistan in the past, will the Persian pride of Tehran deliver a new warning to the West?
The writer is an alumnus of the National Defence College, New Delhi. The views expressed here are personal