{"id":64554,"date":"2026-07-09T15:51:22","date_gmt":"2026-07-09T15:51:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dailyspokesman.net\/live\/?p=64554"},"modified":"2026-07-09T15:51:22","modified_gmt":"2026-07-09T15:51:22","slug":"how-america-backstabbed-iran-at-hormuz-part-i","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dailyspokesman.net\/live\/2026\/07\/09\/how-america-backstabbed-iran-at-hormuz-part-i\/","title":{"rendered":"How America Backstabbed Iran at Hormuz (Part-I)"},"content":{"rendered":"

Qamar Bashir<\/strong><\/p>\n

Washington used the MoU to secure the reopening of Hormuz, then moved to neutralise Iran\u2019s leverage, bypass its authority and impose American power on a waterway that does not belong to the United States.<\/p>\n

The renewed confrontation over the Strait of Hormuz did not erupt in a political vacuum. Nor can it honestly be explained by repeating the convenient narrative that Iran suddenly attacked commercial vessels and the United States merely responded in defence of freedom of navigation.<\/p>\n

Such an explanation begins the story at the moment most favourable to Washington and ignores the chain of military, diplomatic and strategic developments that preceded the explosions.<\/p>\n

The real story begins with the Memorandum of Understanding between the United States and Iran. Iran entered the understanding after suffering enormous military damage from American and Israeli attacks on its military infrastructure, air defences, command structures and strategic installations.<\/p>\n

Yet one powerful instrument remained in Tehran\u2019s hands: its geographical and strategic influence over the Strait of Hormuz, one of the world\u2019s most important energy arteries.<\/p>\n

Hormuz was Iran\u2019s surviving strategic leverage. Iran did not invent the geography, and the United States did not build the Strait. The narrow waterway lies between Iran and Oman, the two littoral states whose coastlines physically embrace the passage through which a substantial share of the world\u2019s traded oil and gas traditionally moves. The United States, by contrast, is thousands of miles away and possesses no coastline on the Strait.<\/p>\n

This geographical fact is essential because Washington increasingly behaves as if military superiority creates maritime ownership. It does not. International law recognises navigational rights through straits used for international passage, but freedom of navigation is not synonymous with American administration.<\/p>\n

A right of passage does not give a distant military power sovereign authority to redesign a waterway, impose its preferred management system or establish a parallel transit regime under the protection of warships.<\/p>\n

This is precisely where the deception surrounding the MoU becomes visible. Article 5 was central to the interim understanding, under which Iran committed itself to facilitating safe commercial passage through Hormuz for 60 days without charging vessels.<\/p>\n

The objective was clear: remove the immediate danger to international shipping, reduce military tensions and create sufficient diplomatic space for negotiations over a permanent settlement.<\/p>\n

Iran repeatedly made its longer-term position clear. The future management of the Strait would be discussed with Oman and other concerned Gulf states, with Tehran envisaging a maritime mechanism reflecting the rights and responsibilities of the coastal and regional countries.<\/p>\n

One may disagree with Iran\u2019s proposed fees, reject unilateral tolls or demand international guarantees against discriminatory passage, but these were precisely the disputes that negotiations were supposed to resolve.<\/p>\n

Negotiation, however, must mean negotiation. It cannot mean persuading one party to temporarily surrender its strongest leverage and then using the breathing space created by that concession to destroy the very leverage awaiting negotiation. From Tehran\u2019s perspective, this is exactly what Washington attempted to do under the shadow of the MoU.<\/p>\n

Even before the MoU was finalised, President Donald Trump publicly claimed that the United States had quietly moved an enormous quantity of oil\u2014100 million barrels, according to his own assertion\u2014through Hormuz.<\/p>\n

The accuracy and logistics of that claim were questioned, but its political meaning was more important than the number. The American president was boasting that Washington had moved vast oil supplies through the world\u2019s most sensitive maritime chokepoint without Iran being able to prevent it.<\/p>\n

To Tehran, such a declaration could hardly inspire confidence in American intentions. Diplomacy was being discussed at the negotiating table while, according to Trump\u2019s own boast, strategic facts were being created on the water. Yet Iran still entered the MoU, agreed to temporary free commercial passage and allowed negotiations to proceed towards the more difficult question of Hormuz\u2019s future management.<\/p>\n

Then Washington moved towards an alternative passage closer to the Omani side of the Strait. This became the decisive mistake or, from Tehran\u2019s perspective, the decisive betrayal.<\/p>\n

The IRGC had already issued a map identifying an Iranian-approved navigation route, while Iran repeatedly maintained that a future Hormuz management system should be negotiated principally with Oman and other relevant Gulf states.<\/p>\n

If the United States genuinely believed Iran\u2019s proposed route was unsafe, discriminatory or inconsistent with international navigation rights, Washington had every opportunity to raise those objections during negotiations.<\/p>\n

It could have demanded a single internationally published navigation map, proposed joint Iran-Oman coordination, requested international maritime observers or insisted that no tolls be imposed during the interim period. It could also have sought independent verification of mines and other navigational hazards.<\/p>\n

What Washington did not need to do was support a rival passage that, in practice, could bypass the Iranian mechanism under an American military umbrella. Yet this is precisely how Tehran interpreted the U.S.-Omani arrangement.<\/p>\n

The strategic consequence was obvious: if commercial ships could safely travel through an American-protected corridor closer to Oman, shipping companies would have little reason to negotiate with Iran or recognise Tehran\u2019s desired role in the future management of Hormuz.<\/p>\n

The MoU had secured Iranian restraint, but the alternative route threatened to transform that temporary restraint into a permanent strategic defeat. Washington appeared to be taking the benefit of the agreement while hollowing out Iran\u2019s bargaining position. To Tehran, this was not genuine diplomacy but a carefully designed attempt to neutralise Iran\u2019s last significant leverage without compensating it through a negotiated settlement.<\/p>\n

Iranian suspicion was further intensified because influential voices in the United States were openly discussing Hormuz in the language of control, seizure and financial gain. President Trump himself spoke of the Strait in openly transactional terms, while Republican hardliners including Senators Ted Cruz and Lindsey Graham adopted increasingly uncompromising positions towards Iran and the settlement. American political debate increasingly treated Hormuz not merely as an international navigation issue but as a strategic space in which U.S. military power should determine the outcome. To be continued\u2026<\/i><\/em><\/p>\n

The writer is Press Secretary to the President (Rtd),Former Press Minister, Embassy of Pakistan to France,Former Press Attach\u00e9 to Malaysia\u00a0and Former MD, SRBC.He is living in\u00a0Michigan, USA<\/h4>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Qamar Bashir Washington used the MoU to secure the reopening of Hormuz, then moved to neutralise Iran\u2019s leverage, bypass its authority and impose American power on a waterway that does not belong to the United States. The renewed confrontation over the Strait of Hormuz did not erupt in a political vacuum. Nor can it honestly […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":33798,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[1312,39],"class_list":["post-64554","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-editorial-articles","tag-how-america-backstabbed-iran-at-hormuz-part-i","tag-qamar-bashir"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyspokesman.net\/live\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/64554","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyspokesman.net\/live\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyspokesman.net\/live\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyspokesman.net\/live\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyspokesman.net\/live\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=64554"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dailyspokesman.net\/live\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/64554\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":64555,"href":"https:\/\/dailyspokesman.net\/live\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/64554\/revisions\/64555"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyspokesman.net\/live\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/33798"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyspokesman.net\/live\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=64554"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyspokesman.net\/live\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=64554"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyspokesman.net\/live\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=64554"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}