Who Owns the Water - Hormuz After America

Description

When 140 ships vanished from the Strait of Hormuz within days, it wasn't warfare that shut the route down — it was the insurance market. This episode traces the collapse of the Islamabad memorandum between the US and Iran, the asymmetric American escalation that followed, and how Iran has since stood up its own governing body, the Persian Gulf Strait Authority, charging tolls of up to $2 million per transit — settled in Chinese yuan to sidestep US sanctions. We examine Oman's role as broker between Tehran and Washington, the parallels to Danish mediation diplomacy during the Oslo process, and the legal questions UNCLOS raises when a strait starts behaving like a border. Is this the birth of a new regional security order, or the first sign of a privatized ocean?More content on Substack and Instagram.