Hormuz: Washington and Tehran Haggle Over a Strait in Exchange for $6 Billion

According to the Guardian, Gulf State negotiators say they are "prepared for the worst" as they await Washington's response to an Iranian proposal. That proposal could reopen the Strait of Hormuz before the US midterm elections on Tuesday. The indirect talks in Doha enter their third day on Sunday. Qatar is seeking the release of more than $6 billion in Iranian assets, which could pave the way for reopening the strait and resuming discussions on Iran's nuclear programme.

So much for the facts. The rest is our reading, and it is unglamorous.

Cui bono? Let's ask early, the answer is simple. A closed strait is a tap that someone turns. It is a tap through which a considerable share of the world's oil passes: the dispatch quantifies nothing, and we will not either. But the stakes are clear. When a state's money is frozen abroad and its reopening depends on a sea lane, we are not in "de-escalation", we are in a bargain between powers.

The $6 billion is the perfect illustration. These are Iranian assets, but it is the financial system dominated by Washington that decides whether they circulate. Lenin wrote it: finance capital is powerful enough to subordinate even politically independent states (our translation, Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism). Sanctions and frozen accounts are the political shell of an economic competition. Tehran answers with the only weapon it has: geography.

And the Gulf monarchies? They play the mediators. Qatar hosts, smooths the edges, and makes itself useful to everyone. This is not charity. These states export their energy through the same sea, and their capital moves through the same circuits. A blocked strait costs them dearly. Their "good offices" defend the interests of a rentier ruling class, not peace as such.

Then there is the timing. That the American response is expected just before the midterms is no detail. We do not know what Washington will decide, nor whether the electoral deadline will weigh on it. The dispatch does not say. But a government that must answer to its electorate within forty-eight hours does not have the same patience as usual. The price of petrol is also a ballot paper.

We will be told about a "rules-based order". Let us instead look at who writes the rules, who freezes the accounts, who controls the sea. Workers, for their part, will pay the bill at the pump or in the factories, whatever the outcome. That the negotiators are "prepared for the worst" says a great deal: the worst, here, is not an unforeseen catastrophe, it is a lever that each side keeps in its hand.