SATISH SHARMA - not just Rotigraphy.: Western governments continue to insist, with ritualistic certainty, that the Strait of Hormuz is an “international waterway” that must be reopened "unconditionally". This absolutist posture reveals a profound failure to absorb the central lesson of the recent US

https://x.com/RezaNasri1/status/2045365501140856952

Few points:

1- Western governments continue to insist, with ritualistic certainty, that the Strait of Hormuz is an “international waterway” that must be reopened "unconditionally". This absolutist posture reveals a profound failure to absorb the central lesson of the recent US–Israeli war on Iran: when a so-called international waterway is weaponized to launch an existential armed attack against the coastal state whose territory it crosses, the very concept of “unconditional” access becomes legally and morally indefensible.

2- The war has irrevocably altered legal interpretations and the strategic landscape. For the first time in modern history, a major international strait was used not merely for commerce or neutral navigation, but as the primary maritime corridor for a coordinated campaign of aggression - including strikes, logistics, blockades, and overflights aimed at destroying a coastal state’s sovereignty, infrastructure, and leadership. American and Israeli forces treated the Strait as a de facto launchpad and supply line for operations that, under any reading of the UN Charter, constituted an unlawful use of force.  

In that context, Iran’s decision to regulate and, where necessary, restrict passage to belligerent-linked vessels was not an arbitrary closure. It was a proportionate exercise of the inherent right of self-defence under Article 51, fully consistent with the coastal state’s sovereign authority over its territorial waters.

3- A decisive factor that further strips the Strait of Hormuz of the very characteristics and rights otherwise attributed to international waterways is the dense network of US military bases stationed in the littoral Arab states encircling the Persian Gulf. 

These installations—in Bahrain, Qatar, the UAE, Saudi Arabia, and Kuwait—serve no commercial or neutral purpose. They exist explicitly to project power against Iran, to threaten its vital interests, and to enable the very existential military operations witnessed in the recent war. Forward-deployed US aircraft, warships, missile systems, and logistics hubs turn the entire Gulf region—including the Strait itself—into an armed forward-operating zone directed at a single coastal state.  

Under international law, an international strait derives its special transit-passage status from its role as a neutral corridor connecting two bodies of high seas or EEZ, used for peaceful international navigation. When one side of that corridor is transformed into a permanent military platform aimed at the destruction of the opposite coastal state, the waterway ceases to function as a “normal” international strait. It becomes instead an extension of a hostile military perimeter. 

The presence of these bases fundamentally alters the legal character of the Strait. Unless and until these US military bases are completely removed from the littoral states of the Persian Gulf - and eventually replaced by a local collective security regime that ensures Iran and other every litoral states' security - the Strait of Hormuz cannot be treated as a standard international waterway entitled to unconditional transit passage.

The Western response has been to double down on the fiction of unconditional transit passage. But the recent conflict has exposed the fatal weakness in this outdated and inapplicable doctrine they so aggressively promote.

4- The war therefore demands a fundamental shift in how Western states and the international community conceptualize “international waterways.” Unconditional reopening is no longer credible. Conditions must now be devised and codified to prevent the future misuse of such straits as conduits for existential threats. Such safeguards would not “close” international straits but would preserve the legitimate right of peaceful navigation while closing the loophole that allows aggressors to exploit them.

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Kaja Kallas

@kajakallas

17h

Under international law, transit through waterways like the Strait of Hormuz must remain open and free of charge. This is what leaders made clear in their call on reopening the Strait today.

Any pay-for-passage scheme will set a dangerous precedent for global maritime routes.