On a “regulatory” map of the Strait of Hormuz published on X, Iran claimed control of part of the territorial waters of the United Arab Emirates and the Sultanate of Oman. Beyond the current war, this initiative is only the final episode in a long continuum of border disputes in the Gulf.
Is the Hormuz crisis basically just the umpteenth manifestation, not to say the culmination, of a geopolitics entirely shaped by inherited borders? Note that Iran occupies a pivotal geography between the Iranian plateau, the Arab world, the Caucasus and Central Asia, and that its modern borders are the product of a process of territorial contraction which has left this state conscious of its “peripheral” position. Since the 20thᵉ century, the border disputes which involve it are concentrated around three key areas. The first is the Arab-Persian Gulf, in particular the islands disputed with the United Arab Emirates of Abu Moussa, Little and Great Tomb. Until 2026, this dispute had not degenerated into open conflict, but it had already largely shed light on the reciprocal mistrust between Persian Iran and the Arab monarchies of the Gulf.
A second dispute, by far the heaviest, brought Iran and Iraq face to face for decades over the question of Shatt al‒Arabic. A 1937 treaty had fixed the border on the Iranian bank by granting Baghdad almost complete control over the river, which later pushed the Shah to unilaterally denounce this agreement and send his ships to escort the oil tankers in the famous estuary. L‘Iraq protests but does not put réact militarily at the time. Then in 1975, in the context of the Algiers Accords, Saddam Hussein reluctantly accepted a thalweg border (a line that follows the lowest part of a river bed) in exchange for an end to Iranian support for the Kurdish insurgency. However, strong resentment would soon prompt Iraq to in turn denounce this compromise and go to war against its neighbor in 1980, shortly after the establishment of the Shiite Islamist regime. This conflict, one of the deadliest in the Middle East, ended without any major modification of the borders. After 1990, they were stabilized.ées, but only in appearance. Following the overthrow of the Iraqi tyrant in the spring of 2003, Iran became the decisive player in the local political game and took advantage of its influence to make its border a base for projecting the Shiite militias which are historically affiliated with it.
From then on, the dispute between the two countries is no longer of a legal or classic nature, but hybrid, in the sense that the revolutionary guards are using it to better interfere in the internal affairs of Iraq. At the same time, tensions were redirected towards the Gulf and more specifically towards the sea, with an increase in incidents from the 2000s – interceptions of ships, seizures of oil tankers, attacks attributed to armed groups supported by Iran, Western retaliations. discover an Iranian strategy which disavows the maritime order desired by American hegemony and which until then has rarely been questioned.
The Hormuz crisis is part of this double trajectory of power projection and confrontation, revealing a new dimension: the endogenous fragmentation of Islamist power under the effects of Israeli-American strikes has turned a border dispute into a crisis of global governance. Was this predictable? The Strait of Hormuz is, let us remember, one of the most strategic maritime passages in the world, vital for the entire economy with 20 % you pétrole which transits there. However, its geography – a 55 km bottleneck, of which only 10 km is navigable – exposes it to all threats. Iran controls the northern shore, pursuing a triple approach based on asymmetric deterrence (use of missiles, drones and speedboats), unilateral obstruction of the strait, the disastrous consequences of which we can see, and pressure on energy flows with a view to overcoming its recent losses. and to influence the regional balance of power.
This perspective did not start with the last war. It has strengthened from 2023 following the brutal war between Israel and Hamas in Gaza, and Houthi attacks in the Red Sea. It has not yet been called into question, as shown by an Iranian military apparatus which has not only survived its military setbacks, but even more so imposed its law by force. From this point of view, the “War of Hormuz” is a crisis of sovereignty both external and internal, to the extent that the deep state resulting from the Islamic Republic operates as an autonomous actor, including with a chain of command which has been partially broken, and makes its policy A real struggle between factions. The question is therefore not “ who countersTOHormuz ? » today, but rather “who countersTOthe l‘Iran? Let us point out that the multidimensional crisis is playing out beyond the seas. Each transaction linked to the passage of the strait represents a financial and legal risk which affects shipowners, insurers, banks and payment circuits without distinction.
On the European side, this impasse comes after it was engaged in a standoff with Tehran over the repression of its population and over the nuclear issue. Faced with war, the EU is faced with a major dilemma: to maintain, on the one hand, normative pressure on the issue of human rights and enriched uranium by using sanctions, and to avoid, on the other hand, a new escalation which would further threaten its security. Certainly indirectly, Europe is also a prisoner of these old border disputes which it has long fueled throughout the Middle East and which oscillate between continuities and ruptures. Iran’s strategic depth relies on the exploitation of these land and maritime borders originally drawn by others. As for the dislocation at work, it refers to a fractured power whose military wing acts in perfect contradiction with its supposed diplomacy, which did not mark past conflicts. Unlike older disputes, Iran also mobilizes the civilizational narrative of a quasi-apocalyptic confrontation with the West in order to legitimize a war of wear and tear devoid of any real prospect of negotiation as it stands.
Myriam Benraad
Honorary Professor at the University of Exeter
