Iran drafted a plan to reopen the Strait of Hormuz to every country except the United States and Israel. The U.S. rejected this immediately. Turns out when you control the world's largest navy you don't negotiate shipping terms with countries whose entire maritime strategy is speedboats with RPGs.
The Strait of Hormuz carries about 20 percent of global oil supply. Iran wants to pick and choose who gets through. This is like your landlord saying you can use the hallway but only on Tuesdays. Except the hallway is international waters and your landlord has exactly zero enforceable claim to it.
Retail traders saw this headline and panic-bought oil futures at 9:47 AM. By 9:51 AM the U.S. had already said no. By 10:15 AM those same traders were posting loss porn on Reddit wondering why geopolitical brinksmanship didn't move crude prices the way a TikTok told them it would.
Iran's draft plan exists somewhere between a serious policy proposal and a child announcing they've decided the living room is now a no-parents zone. The difference is the child might successfully hold that territory for eleven minutes.
The Strait is 21 miles wide at its narrowest point. Iran shares a border with it. So does Oman, who would very much like to not be involved in whatever this is. The U.S. Fifth Fleet is already there. They have been for decades. They did not leave when Iran asked nicely and they will not leave because Iran wrote a strongly worded draft.
Imagine proposing a plan where the outcome is identical to doing nothing except now everyone hates you slightly more. Iran just invented the foreign policy equivalent of a market-neutral strategy with a 100 percent expense ratio.
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