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Strait of Hormuz |
The Strait of Hormuz (Persian: تنگه هرمز - Tangeh-ye Hormoz, Arabic: مضيق هرمز - Madīq Hurmuz) is a narrow, strategically important waterway between the Gulf of Oman in the southeast and the Persian Gulf in the southwest. On the north coast is Iran and on the south coast is the United Arab Emirates and Musandam, an exclave of Oman.
The strait at its narrowest is 34 miles (55 km) wide.1 It is the only sea passage to the open ocean for large areas of the petroleum-exporting Persian Gulf. It is cited that between 20%23 and 40%45 of the world's oil supply passes through the strait, making it one of the world's strategically important chokepoints.
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Ships moving through the Strait follow a Traffic Separation Scheme (TSS), which separates inbound from outbound traffic to reduce the risk of collision. The traffic lane is six miles (10 km) wide, including two two-mile (3 km)-wide traffic lanes, one inbound and one outbound, separated by a two-mile (3 km) wide separation median.
To traverse the Strait, ships pass through the territorial waters of Iran and Oman under the transit passage provisions of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea.1 Although not all countries have ratified the convention,6 most countries, including the U.S.,7 accept these customary navigation rules as codified in the Convention.
The opening to the Persian Gulf was described, but not given a name, in the Periplus of the Erythraean Sea, a 1st-century mariner's guide:
There are two opinions about the etymology of this name. In popular belief the derivation is from the name of the Persian God هرمز Hormoz (a variant of Ahura Mazda). Compare the Pillars of Hercules at the entrance to the Mediterranean. Scholars, historians and linguists derive the name "Ormuz" from the local Persian word هورمغ Hur-mogh meaning datepalm. In the local dialects of Hurmoz and Minab this strait is still called Hurmogh and has the aforementioned meaning.
On 18 April 1988, the U.S. Navy waged a one-day battle against Iranian forces in and around the strait. The battle, dubbed Operation Praying Mantis by the U.S. side, was launched in retaliation for the 14 April mining of the USS Samuel B. Roberts (FFG-58). U.S. forces sank two Iranian warships, Joshan and as many as six armed speedboats in the engagement.
On July 3, 1988, 290 people were killed when an Iran Air Airbus A300 passenger jet was shot down over the strait by the United States Navy guided missile cruiser USS Vincennes. There is still lingering controversy about the event, considered among the most controversial tragedies in aviation history.
On January 10, 2007, the nuclear submarine USS Newport News, traveling submerged, struck M/V Mogamigawa, a 300,000-ton Japanese-flagged very large crude tanker, south of the strait.8
A series of naval stand-offs between Iranian speedboats and US warships in the Strait of Hormuz occurred in December 2007 and January 2008. US officials accused Iran of harassing and provoking their naval vessels; Iranian officials denied these allegations. On January 14, 2008, US naval officials appeared to contradict the Pentagon version of the Jan. 16 event, in which U.S. officials said U.S. vessels were near to firing on approaching Iranian boats. The Navy's regional commander, Vice Admiral Kevin Cosgriff, said the Iranians had "neither anti-ship missiles nor torpedoes" and that he "wouldn't characterize the posture of the US 5th Fleet as afraid of these small boats".9
On June 29, 2008, the commander of Iran's Revolutionary Guard, Ali Mohammed Jafari, stated that if Iran were attacked by Israel or the United States, it would seal off the Strait of Hormuz, thereby wreaking havoc in oil markets. This statement followed other more ambiguous threats from Iran's oil minister and other government officials that a Western attack on Iran would result in oil supply turmoil.
In response, Vice Admiral Kevin Cosgriff, commander of the U.S. 5th Fleet stationed in Bahrain across the Persian Gulf from Iran, warned that such an action by Iran would be considered an act of war, and that the U.S. would not allow Iran to effectively hold hostage nearly a third of the world's oil supply.10
On July 8, 2008, Ali Shirazi, a mid-level clerical aide to Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, was quoted by the student news agency ISNA as saying to Revolutionary Guards, "The Zionist regime is pressuring White House officials to attack Iran. If they commit such a stupidity, Tel Aviv and U.S. shipping in the Persian Gulf will be Iran's first targets and they will be burned."11
One analyst concluded that Iran could seal off or impede traffic in the Strait for a month, and a U.S. attempt to reopen it would likely escalate the conflict. 12
In the last week of July 2008, Operation Brimstone 13 brought dozens of US and foreign navys’ ships together off the US East Coast for joint exercises and practice in littoral operations (such as would be used in the shallow waters off the coast of Iran).
As of August 11, 2008, more than 40 US and allied ships are reported en route to the Straits of Hormuz. One US carrier battle group from Japan will complement two more which are already in the Gulf, for a total of five battle groups, not counting submarines.14
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