A short🧵for those insisting on a fiction: the Strait of Hormuz is not Iran’s sovereign toll gate, private cash machine, or maritime revenue stream. It is an international strait used by the world. Geography may give Iran a coastline on one side of it. It does not give Iran the right to invoice the rest of the planet for passage.
The legal principle is neither exotic nor difficult. Passage through an international strait is a right of navigation, not a commercial favor extended by the nearest coastal state. The moment a country claims it can charge all vessels merely for transiting, it is no longer speaking the language of sovereignty. It is claiming discretionary control over a route the global economy depends on.
And this is where the lazy comparisons begin. Suez is an artificial canal built, operated, and administered by Egypt. The Turkish Straits are governed by a specific treaty framework. Hormuz is neither of those things. It is a natural strait used for international navigation. Different facts. Different legal regime. Different strategic implications. People collapsing them into one category are advertising confusion, not making an argument.
The strategic issue is even larger than the legal one. If Iran were allowed to normalize a toll regime in Hormuz, every chokepoint state on earth would study that precedent carefully. The issue would no longer be one strait in one region. It would become a template for coercive monetization of maritime passage across the world’s most sensitive trade arteries. That is not a regional adjustment. That is systemic destabilization.
So let us call things by their proper names. A recognized fee for actual services under a lawful framework is one thing. A unilateral demand for payment simply to refrain from obstructing international shipping is something else entirely. That is not maritime governance. It is political coercion wearing a legal costume.
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