By James T. Areddy
The geography of the Strait of Hormuz, where shipping lanes are just 2 miles wide, gives Iran unique power over the global economy. But its history shows the current battle for the strait is just the latest iteration of a centuries-old fight to control the critical trade entrepôt.
American leaders recognized the risks from Iran's proximity to the waterway long before President Trump expressed frustration that a regime he calls all-but-defeated is still able to conduct global economic warfare there.
Since the days of ancient Persia, successive world powers including the Greeks, Ottomans and Portuguese sought to control the strait. It was once one of the wealthiest places on Earth, as spices, silk and jewels from India moved through its waters destined for trading centers like Baghdad, and ultimately Europe. Zheng He, a 15th-century Chinese seafarer, visited the strait, and Marco Polo wrote about risk-taking mariners there.
More recently, Hormuz and the Persian Gulf have been a Rubicon for American presidents, sometimes defining their foreign policy and taste for exercising military power. Decades before he held political office, Trump himself went on record with a call for America to show "backbone" to ensuring Gulf security.
Analysts say Iran is forcing a showdown of wills over soaring energy prices, aimed at pressuring Trump to curtail the war. Hormuz is the only shipping channel linking some of the world's largest energy reserves to global demand, and Iran lines its northern rim.
Soon after being attacked on Feb. 28, Iran began firing shots and drones at oil tankers, cargo vessels and ports to discourage sails toward the strait.
It is an ancient strategy.
"Long before the tankers arrived, Hormuz mattered for the same deeper structural reason that it matters today. It is a narrow maritime gate between resources, riches and the wider world," historian Bianca Nobilo recently told listeners of her podcast "History Uncensored."
The Portuguese and Ottomans wrestled to control Hormuz, and in the 19th century, European traders dubbed the area the Pirate Coast because of assaults on their cargoes by marauders who launched from the southern rim of the strait, in modern day United Arab Emirates.
The region's more recent strategic importance traces to the 1930s when major oil discoveries in Saudi Arabia and Bahrain sparked a new geopolitical calculus about the region. For decades, the U.S. took a back seat to securing the Gulf. Initially, the British handled it and then the Washington-friendly Shah of Iran kept watch.
Everything changed with Iran's 1979 Islamic Revolution.
Months before Iranians took American diplomats hostage and Iran relations went into free fall, the Central Intelligence Agency had pointed to a different risk from the Islamic Revolution in "The Strait of Hormuz: A Vulnerable Lifeline."
The now-declassified CIA report cited a range of potential threats to crude-oil shipments through the strait, from sea mines to sabotage from tiny wooden craft known as dhows. "There are many options for imaginative, resourceful terrorists contemplating an attack on shipping in the Strait," the intelligence agency said.
President Jimmy Carter used his 1980 State of the Union address to articulate a proactive new American position toward the region, centered on the strait. "An attempt by any outside force to gain control of the Persian Gulf region will be regarded as an assault on the vital interests of the United States of America," Carter said.
Every president since has challenged Iran over concerns about Gulf shipping, but President Ronald Reagan faced the closest parallel to today's Hormuz shutdown during what was called the tanker war in the late 1980s. Sworn enemies, Iran and Iraq both attacked oil infrastructure and the president organized naval escorts to protect shipments.
Around that time, Hormuz captured Trump's attention. Then a 41-year-old property developer, Trump published a 1987 open letter through full-page newspaper advertisements arguing that the U.S. should show "backbone."
Echoed in some of the arguments he has made in recent days, Trump wrote that allies like Japan and Saudi Arabia should assume the costs of protecting oil shipments through the Persian Gulf, which he called "an area of only marginal significance to the United States for its oil supplies."
Write to James T. Areddy at James.Areddy@wsj.com
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
March 21, 2026 12:00 ET (16:00 GMT)
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