Zarmeen Hassan
Operation Epic Fury; as Washington and Tel Aviv branded their coordinated assault; was months in the making and represented one of the most extensive military campaigns the Middle East had witnessed in decades. Its objectives were sweeping dismantle Iran’s nuclear infrastructure, neutralise its ballistic missile capabilities, decapitate its military command structure, and according to critics; lay the groundwork for a political transformation in Tehran that successive American administrations had quietly pursued for years.
The opening salvo came on February 28, 2026, when U.S. cruise missiles, drones, and Israeli fighter jets launched a coordinated wave of strikes across Iran before dawn had fully broken over Tehran. Within the first twelve hours, nearly 900 strikes were executed against military and strategic installations, systematically dismantling the infrastructure underpinning Iran’s nuclear programme.
The most consequential moment arrived when an airstrike in Tehran killed Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei; arguably the most enduring figure in modern Iranian and Islamic history. Dozens of senior Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) commanders were reportedly eliminated in the same wave of strikes.
Iran’s response was immediate and ferocious. Ballistic missiles struck U.S. military installations across the Gulf in Qatar, Bahrain, the UAE, Kuwait, and Jordan; while Israeli cities of Tel Aviv and Haifa came under sustained bombardment. Hezbollah simultaneously opened a northern front from Lebanon. Gulf capitals that had quietly acquiesced to the initial strikes now found themselves engulfed in the very conflict they had hoped to avoid. Operation Epic Fury had transformed a long-running shadow war into the most dangerous regional conflagration in a generation. And then came the Strait.
At its narrowest point, the Strait of Hormuz measures just 33 kilometres across; barely wider than the distance between neighbouring city districts. Yet this slender corridor carries an extraordinary proportion of the global economy on its waters: nearly 20% of the world’s daily oil supply, 20% of its liquefied natural gas (LNG), and almost one-third of its fertiliser shipments transit this passage every single day. The strait is, without exaggeration, the jugular vein of the modern global economy.
Severing it required no armada. According to energy analyst Helima Croft, a handful of strategically placed drone strikes near the strait were sufficient to set off the decisive chain reaction not through naval warfare, but through the global insurance market. Major maritime insurers began issuing 72-hour cancellation notices on Gulf war-risk coverage, rendering continued operations financially untenable for most operators. Tanker traffic, which had averaged 24 vessels per day, plummeted by 70% before grinding to a near-complete halt. Over 150 ships lay stranded in open waters, anchored and immobilised along Gulf coastlines.
Energy markets convulsed. Brent crude surpassed $82 per barrel by March 2, crossed $100 within days, and reached $119.50 by the end of the first week of March; its highest level since the early weeks of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022. The consequences fell unevenly across the globe. China, India, Japan, and South Korea; which collectively absorb roughly 69% of crude oil shipments through the strait; faced a direct threat to their industrial foundations. Pakistan, which imports over 80% of its oil through this corridor, confronted acute pressure on its already strained foreign exchange reserves, with rising fuel costs, electricity tariffs, and food prices hitting ordinary households with immediate and tangible force
Iran has since named Mojtaba Khamenei; son of the slain Supreme Leader; as his successor, a development Iranian official has characterised as a stabilising step. The international response has been considerably less sanguine. Warnings from Washington that the new leadership won’t last long; without American approval have only deepened the sense that a swift resolution remains distant.
The closure of the strait carries a profound irony: Iran’s own oil revenues depend on the very route it has now blockaded. Yet when a state perceives its survival to be at stake, conventional cost-benefit calculations rarely prevail. The IRGC has demonstrated it requires no formal naval blockade to enforce the closure, drone threats, maritime harassment, and the ensuing collapse of insurance coverage have proven equally effective at halting traffic without a single large-scale naval engagement.
The trajectory of this crisis could unfold along three distinct paths. The most optimistic envisions back-channel diplomacy potentially anchored by China, which appears to have been selectively permitted to continue Strait transits, producing a fragile de-escalation before irreversible economic damage sets in. A second, grimmer scenario involves a prolonged stalemate that forces a fundamental restructuring of global shipping routes, with tankers rerouting around the Cape of Good Hope at enormous additional cost, transmitting a slow economic shock across continents. The most alarming possibility is outright escalation: a naval confrontation in the Gulf, strikes on critical energy infrastructure, or the closure of another vital chokepoint such as the Bab el-Mandeb,developments that would not merely disrupt energy markets but threaten to unravel the trade architecture that sustains the modern global economy.
What the Strait of Hormuz crisis has exposed is the extraordinary fragility beneath modern prosperity. Decades of globalisation built a world of breathtaking efficiency and breathtaking vulnerability. We constructed a system in which 20% of the planet oil flows through a channel narrower than many city rivers, in the hands of a country the West spent half a century attempting to isolate.
The missiles that killed Khamenei may or may not have achieved their strategic objectives. But the 21 miles of water his forces subsequently froze have reminded every government, every boardroom, and every household on earth of a truth that comfortable decades of cheap energy allowed us to forget: the world’s economy has a single point of failure, and someone just pulled the pin.
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The views and opinions expressed in this article/opinion/comment are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the DND Thought Center and Dispatch News Desk (DND). Assumptions made within the analysis are not reflective of the position of the DND Thought Center and Dispatch News Desk.
