Washington Shattered the Free Sea - And Now Demands It Back

Iran and America's ally Oman are advancing plans to charge ships for transiting the Strait of Hormuz, despite the openly declared opposition of the United States. That is according to an Iranian official and four diplomats familiar with the matter. If implemented, the proposal would mark a profound break with the prewar order and demonstrate just how dramatically the American and Israeli decision to attack Iran on February 28 has transformed the Middle East in ways few anticipated.

Before the war, the Strait of Hormuz was an international waterway shared by Iran and Oman, where ships carrying Persian Gulf oil and natural gas to the rest of the world passed freely without charge. During the fighting, Iran sealed off the strait, the narrow artery of global commerce, sending energy prices soaring. Since then, Iranian officials have repeatedly declared their intention to monetize the passage. Oman recently submitted a formal proposal to the United States and several other Western allies under which shipping companies would pay fees for using the strait. American negotiators have received the proposal and intend to discuss their concerns with Oman. According to the document, the payments would be voluntary contributions rather than mandatory tolls. The Iranian official, however, says the payments would be compulsory. The entire dispute rests on the difference between voluntary and mandatory. All of the officials and diplomats cited here spoke on condition of anonymity because the negotiations involve highly sensitive diplomacy.

The proposal is modeled in part on the arrangement in the Straits of Malacca and Singapore, where a private foundation collects voluntary contributions to support maritime safety. Conditions on the water itself remain precarious. The central shipping lane, traditionally used by commercial vessels, is now considered dangerous because of naval mines, forcing ships to reroute either south through Omani waters or north along the Iranian coast.

A framework agreement signed by the United States and Iran this month to end the war also addresses the strait. It guarantees commercial vessels free passage without charge, but only for sixty days while negotiations over the details continue. After that period, the agreement states, Iran and Oman are to begin talks on the future administration of the waterway. On Monday, Iran's Deputy Foreign Minister Kazem Gharibabadi said Tehran intends to seek an understanding with Oman first. If Oman proves unwilling to establish a joint framework for managing the strait, Iran will proceed on its own. Iranian state television reported that negotiations would begin next week, including discussions over transit fees and revised shipping routes.

Oman, the sultanate on the southeastern tip of the Arabian Peninsula, has long cultivated a reputation for neutrality while serving as an intermediary between Washington and Tehran. The war has made that balancing act almost impossible. Publicly, Muscat remains cautious. Foreign Minister Badr al-Busaidi rejects as unlawful the idea of charging vessels merely for passage, but distinguishes between charging for transit itself and charging for services provided by the coastal states. In a radio interview on Sunday, he said maintaining safe and clean waterways and responding to emergencies unquestionably costs money. Oman, he said, merely wants to explore existing models on a voluntary basis, again pointing to the Malacca and Singapore arrangement, where a private Japanese foundation manages contributions from governments, corporations, and industry organizations.

The American president has responded to all of this with threats. When reports emerged in May that Oman had been discussing transit fees with Iran, Trump threatened to bomb the country unless it behaved like everyone else. As recently as last week, he called the idea of tolls or transit charges unacceptable. Secretary of State Marco Rubio told reporters in Bahrain that the United States would oppose any arrangement that turned the waterway into a source of revenue, whether the payments were called fees, tolls, or even voluntary contributions. The goal, he said, must be to restore the strait to the condition it was in before the war. Whether the administration would ultimately accept a system of voluntary contributions remains unclear. American negotiators continue to emphasize the importance of their partnership with Oman and express confidence that the remaining differences can be resolved through technical negotiations.

Iran, however, leaves no doubt that it has no intention of surrendering this leverage. Security experts regard Tehran's ability to disrupt traffic through the strait as a strategic asset it cannot afford to relinquish. Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi told Iranian state television that the Strait of Hormuz would never return to its prewar condition, when passage was entirely free. Mehdi Mohammadi, a senior adviser to Iran's chief negotiator Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, wrote online that Iran cares little about the terminology, whether it is called a toll, a security fee, or simply a transit charge. Nowhere in the world, he added, is any service provided free of charge.

The American administration continues to defend its decision to enter the war. During the conflict, Iran controlled the strait for months and in doing so discovered an effective means of shaking the global economy while placing enormous pressure on Trump. The price of a barrel of crude oil climbed well above one hundred dollars, and American consumers paid more at the pump. H. A. Hellyer, an expert at the Royal United Services Institute in London, summarized the situation succinctly. Call the payments voluntary if you wish, he said, but before this war the Strait of Hormuz was completely open, and now it is not. That is not Oman's doing, because Oman never wanted this outcome. The entire situation, he argued, belongs on Washington's ledger as the consequence of a war that should never have been started. Three European diplomats say Oman initially presented its proposal as an emergency measure designed to keep trade moving if the conflict continued. Although Europe is uneasy about the proposed fees, its primary concern is now ensuring that any arrangement remains consistent with international law, something voluntary contributions could potentially satisfy.

How fragile the situation remains became clear last week. Oman and the International Maritime Organization, a United Nations agency, designated a secure shipping route running exclusively through Omani territorial waters. Iran responded by attacking a cargo vessel in the Strait of Hormuz, prompting the organization to suspend its effort to rescue hundreds of ships stranded in the narrow waterway. The fragile recovery of maritime commerce once again stood on the verge of collapse. Its Secretary-General, Arsenio Domínguez, whose organization oversees global shipping, considers mandatory tolls that undermine the freedom of the seas incompatible with international law, but believes a voluntary fund modeled on the Malacca arrangement could be possible. The world, he said, is learning from a system that already exists. For Oman, Gulf affairs expert Anna Jacobs explained, the issue is one of urgent national security, with the country's primary objective being to keep Iran engaged at the negotiating table.

Among the other Gulf states, all of which depend on the Strait of Hormuz to export their oil and natural gas, Oman's proposal is likely to deepen divisions. Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Faisal bin Farhan insisted that the strait must return to the condition it was in before the war. Why, he asked, should the world accept a fundamentally new order imposed as the outcome of a military conflict?

Four hundred years ago, Hugo Grotius described the sea as free, open to all and owned by no one. Yet that freedom was never a law of nature. It was a privilege secured by the power that possessed the strongest navy and guaranteed the existing order. Grotius was a jurist, diplomat, philosopher, and theologian. He is regarded as one of the founders of modern international law and natural law. As long as no one challenged that order, the freedom of the seas appeared self-evident. War shattered that illusion. Where the idea of the free sea once stood, there is now a barrier. Those who erected it now invoke the cold truth that no service comes without a price. Washington shattered the free sea through its own military intervention and now demands it back from those presenting the bill.