The U.S. Can Bomb Iran, But It Cannot Bomb Away the Strait of Hormuz

The U.S. military can destroy virtually any target Iran deploys near the Strait of Hormuz — but it cannot bomb away the strait itself.

That distinction is the entire core of the current war, yet it is repeatedly lost in the daily tally of airstrikes and retaliations. Over the past weekend, U.S. forces struck Iranian air-defense systems, coastal radar stations, missile and drone batteries, and small naval vessels. Iran struck back at U.S. facilities inside regional partner nations and other targets. Both governments now claim effective control over Hormuz transit. Washington says commercial vessels are moving under U.S. protection — but available vessel-tracking data tells a different story: traffic dropped roughly 52% between July 10 and 12, with only six ships reportedly transiting on Sunday. More vessels are going dark ("going black"), making the full picture incomplete, but these figures offer no image of a functioning, open strait.

Those two facts contradict each other, and the gap between them is the dispute. This war is not moving toward a U.S. or Iranian victory — it is settling into an armed stalemate with the Strait of Hormuz as its fixed fulcrum.

Iran's Strategic Shift

Iran's nuclear program was Washington's core justification for going to war, but it is no longer the dominant issue driving combat. The conflict has narrowed to a single question: who sets the terms for transiting the Strait of Hormuz? Tehran wants a formally recognized role in managing the waterway — licenses, tolls, some mechanism bearing an Iranian stamp. Washington and its Gulf partners demand unimpeded passage and reject any arrangement that transforms an international waterway into an Iranian tollbooth.

How far the war has drifted from its stated purpose is evident in the content of the Doha negotiations on July 1. The agenda was maritime traffic and frozen Iranian assets; nuclear issues were reportedly not even raised. The ceasefire that followed merely deferred the real dispute. The Strait of Hormuz gives Tehran leverage that its battered conventional military cannot provide — strategic coercive power that survives being bombed.

Punishment Is Not Control

This analysis does not claim Iran is a military peer of the United States — it is not, by a wide margin. The U.S. holds escalation dominance across every conventional metric that matters: it can locate and destroy fixed targets, sink small craft, suppress coastal defenses, and escort individual vessels. That is enough to ensure Iran can never exercise uncontested military control over the strait.

But freedom of navigation is a commercial fact before it is a naval one. Washington can declare the waterway open, but shipowners, charterers, and the insurers who price risk are the ones who determine whether it is operationally usable. Iran has learned how to survive in that gap. It does not need to blockade the Strait of Hormuz — a damaged tanker, a missing crew member, a warning shot across the bow of an "unauthorized" vessel: any one of these can suppress shipping for days at a time, and destroying yesterday's launch site does not guarantee there will be no drone or fast-attack boat tomorrow. The real target of Iranian coercion has never been the Fifth Fleet; it is the actuarial table on a London insurer's desk.

Iran has leverage, but no path to victory.

It is worth working through the reverse argument, because some commentary misreads Iran's ability to disrupt the strait as a war-winning capability — it is not. Tehran has no durable mechanism for establishing sovereignty over the strait. Every attempt to collect fees or impose licensing gives Washington a fresh justification for striking again and pushes Gulf governments toward further measures constraining Iran. Iran also depends on maritime exports; it cannot indefinitely strangle the system that finances itself.

The broader problem is that damage does not stop at America's door. Historically, roughly one-fifth of global oil trade and one-fifth of liquefied natural gas (LNG) trade moves through the Strait of Hormuz, most of it bound for Asia. The longer Iran disrupts the corridor, the more China, India, Japan, and Gulf producers will treat it as a primary threat to their own energy security rather than as a state pursuing legitimate interests. The costs Iran can impose; converting them into a stable order is an entirely different problem.

'Managed Instability': Neither Frozen Conflict Nor Negotiated Ceasefire

The outcome of this conflict is neither a frozen conflict nor a negotiated ceasefire — it is a cycle: Iran harasses shipping, the U.S. strikes for several days, Iran hits U.S. assets in the Gulf, and mediators restart talks before both sides cross the threshold of a larger war. Both governments have reasons to avoid that larger war and reasons to resist the compromise that would end the cycle. Iran will not surrender its most powerful remaining lever, and Washington cannot grant Iran a veto over Hormuz transit. The underlying danger of this "managed cycle" is that a single exchange of fire could produce damage too large to contain.

What Washington Should Actually Be Pursuing

The exit is not more bombing, nor is it an agreement that hands Iran a tollbooth. Washington should narrow its definition of success: preventing Iran from blockading the strait or imposing unilateral licensing and fee regimes, and calling that a win. Getting there will probably require a messier arrangement — some kind of de-confliction mechanism, possibly involving Oman — that gives Iran a voice without giving it a veto. What Washington should not do is define freedom of navigation as the permanent elimination of Iran's ability to threaten shipping. That would require an endless campaign against military capabilities that regenerate continuously along Iran's coastline — and Iran is not going to leave that coastline.

The Real Test Comes After the Airstrikes Stop

Washington will continue to come out of each engagement having destroyed more. Iran will continue to claim victory every time shipping volumes fall or oil prices rise. Both things can be simultaneously true, and both are incomplete.

The real test is whether ordinary commercial shipping can resume without sustained U.S. bombing and without prior Iranian permission. If the answer remains no, the United States has not secured freedom of navigation and Iran has not established formal control over anything. What both sides will have built together is the starting position for the next round of fighting — and nothing in the current trajectory suggests that round will be the last.

About the Author: Dr. Andrew Latham

Andrew Latham is a professor of international relations and political theory at Macalester College in St. Paul, Minnesota. Follow him on X: @aakatham.

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