The Strait of Hormuz is Iran’s best leverage to get Washington to release
Iran’s frozen assets, lift economic sanctions and end its naval blockade.
·
Key Leverage: Iran is maintaining control over the Strait of Hormuz to pressure
the US into restoring commitments made under the June 17 memorandum of understanding (MoU).
·
Economic
Relief: Tehran
wants the US to provide sanctions
relief, release frozen Iranian assets and lift restrictions on Iranian oil and petrochemical
exports.
·
US Military
Presence: Iran is
demanding the withdrawal of
US forces from around Iran, an end to attacks on its regional allies
and compensation for war-related damage.
·
June MoU: Most of Iran's current demands—apart from
war reparations—were
already included in the 14-point June memorandum, which subsequently collapsed.
·
Hormuz
Not Yet Reopened: Iran and
Oman have reportedly
made substantial progress on arrangements for future shipping through the strait,
but Tehran says an Oman agreement does
not automatically mean reopening Hormuz.
·
Conditions
Remain: Iran insists
that the US must first fulfill conditions communicated
through mediators before the waterway is fully reopened.
·
Energy
Pressure: Keeping
Hormuz largely restricted helps maintain higher
energy prices and pressures Persian Gulf states, which depend heavily
on the waterway for exports, to encourage Washington to negotiate.
·
Trust Deficit: Iran fears that reopening the strait too early
could allow Trump to claim a victory and then walk away from broader commitments.
·
US Position: Trump has indicated that Iran will eventually
agree because of economic hardship
and inflation, while currently taking a relatively restrained approach
toward further military action.
·
Internal
Iranian Divide: Iranian
officials remain divided between those favoring diplomacy and economic reconstruction
and hard-liners who prefer retaining Hormuz as negotiating leverage.
·
Nuclear
Talks: Any future
negotiations over Iran's nuclear
program are reportedly linked to restoring the June memorandum.
·
Core Issue: The dispute is less about reopening fees or
specific concessions and more about control,
leverage and trust between Washington and Tehran.
·
Overall
Outlook: The June
MoU could serve as the starting
point for a broader settlement, but significant mistrust and disagreements
remain before a permanent agreement can be reached.
[ABS News Service/10.08.2026]
Iran’s demands for reopening the Strait of Hormuz, as laid out in
a statement on Saturday, are largely what President Trump had already agreed
to do in the memorandum
of understanding that was signed on June 17 and
quickly fell apart. But Iran sees control over the strait as its best chance of getting
Mr. Trump to deliver on those promises — and is not willing to give it up just yet.
For Iran, analysts suggest, denying Mr. Trump the ability to claim
victory over the strait is the most efficient lever to persuade him to recommit
to those agreements and to implement them. Keeping the strait largely closed keeps
energy prices high and is also a way to ensure that Persian Gulf states, which depend
on the strait for exports, will also encourage Washington to return to the memorandum.
The level of mistrust between Iran and the United States is so high
that Tehran wants to ensure it gets the economic relief it has been promised, to
enable reconstruction, before it gives up even partial control over the strait,
said Esfandyar Batmanghelidj, founder of the Bourse & Bazaar Foundation, a think
tank focused on economic diplomacy.
“Iranian officials are concerned that if the strait opens, Trump
would walk away from this conflict without feeling the need to resolve it,” he said.
“They want to use the strait as a commitment mechanism to ensure Trump implements
the various provisions of the MOU.”
Ali Vaez, Iran project director for the International Crisis Group,
compared the strait to a “sword of Damocles over Trump.”
“Iran wants to front-load benefits without surrendering its main
leverage, which is Hormuz,” Mr. Vaez said.
On Sunday, Mr. Trump told Axios that he believes that Iran will eventually come around because of
economic distress and inflation. He did not threaten new military action against
Iran, saying, “We are low-keying it.”
Iran’s demands were listed on Saturday by Mohammad Bagher Zolghadr,
the secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council. He called for the United States to lift its naval blockade and sanctions on
Iran’s oil and petrochemical exports, withdraw the U.S. military from around Iran,
pay war reparations and release frozen Iranian assets, as well as end attacks on
Iran’s allies in the region, including in Lebanon, and threats against the country.
All those demands, except for reparations, are spelled out in the
14-point June memorandum. Most of the agreement’s terms were violated within weeks, with even Mr. Trump declaring the deal “over.”
The demand for reparations is also a familiar one, and Iranian officials
have said in local media that the issue is a bargaining chip to get as much sanctions
relief from Washington as possible, Mr. Vaez said.
Iran’s negotiations with Oman on how traffic would move through the
strait once it is open are essentially done, Mr. Vaez said. But Iran wants to tie
the strait to the restoration of the memorandum, which would require further talks
with the United States, he said. Any talks on the future of Iran’s nuclear program,
which is one of the main reasons Mr. Trump said he began this war, are dependent
on a restoration of the memorandum.
On Sunday, speaking to journalists, Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi
of Iran said, “Talks with Oman on the Strait of Hormuz are progressing well and
in final stages as experts are working on maps.”
He continued, “However, an agreement with Oman does not mean reopening
the strait, which remains dependent on fulfilling conditions conveyed through mediators.”
Part of the confusion stems from divisions within the Iranian system
about how to proceed, which has led to the emphasizing of these demands, said Sanam
Vakil, the director of the Middle East and North Africa program at Chatham House,
the London think tank.
Some officials see diplomacy as the best path to economic reconstruction,
she said. While others, the hard-liners, “are so skeptical
and paranoid that they would prefer to hold on to their leverage rather than think
of the economy,” gambling that Mr. Trump will not resume the war.
But the Iranians also see Washington as divided, she said, with some
officials pushing for diplomacy and others for more bombing, and Mr. Trump “blowing
one way or another.” There are also those in Washington who believe that once the
strait is open, Mr. Trump would be tempted to walk away from the whole issue and
leave Iran’s highly enriched uranium buried in the ground.
The Iranians “don’t want to do this for free,” Ms. Vakil said. “The
strait is not about fees, it’s about control and leverage for the rest of the package.”
And it is about trust, Mr. Batmanghelidj
said. Iran could have made more extreme demands, he said, but has chosen to try
to return to the memorandum as the basis for a permanent end to the war. “What matters
less is the particular figure or amount or concession, but what the U.S. can do
to prove to Iran that it can make good on any of these commitments.”
The memorandum of understanding “is the floor from which everyone
will try to build a structure for a deal,” Ms. Vakil said. “But we’re far away from
that.”