DECODING: Oman's mediation stalls, Hormuz remains a knife at the throat

A strategic channel turned into an arm-wrestling zone

The Strait of Hormuz has never been a simple maritime passage. Since the outbreak of the 2026 war between Iran, the United States and Israel on February 28, this chokepoint through which roughly 20 percent of the world's oil and gas flows, according to Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, has become a theater where every official statement carries as much weight as a missile. In early July, mediation efforts led notably through Oman to defuse the crisis ran into a wall: neither Tehran nor Washington will give ground on the core principle of who controls the waterway.

According to Al Jazeera, Iran has held high-level talks with Muscat without any reported breakthrough. The adviser to Iran's chief negotiator Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, Majid Shakeri, personally set the bar impossibly high by demanding that the sultanate guarantee that the portion of the strait within its territorial waters would not be used for military purposes against Iran — a guarantee that, in his view, can only be verified through Iranian inspections, with Omani assistance. In other words: Iran isn't just asking for mediation, it's demanding oversight.

Washington shuts the door on any ambiguity

For its part, the Pentagon, through CENTCOM, published a scathing "fact check" on July 9, 2026 on X, stating flatly: "Iran does not control the Strait of Hormuz." The American command noted that since early May, U.S. forces have helped move more than 800 commercial vessels and 380 million barrels of crude oil through the corridor. A figure meant to demonstrate, with data to back it up, that Iran's narrative of exclusive control over the waterway matches no verifiable operational reality.

This American refusal to recognize any Iranian authority over Hormuz effectively closes off the negotiating space in which Oman — and to a lesser extent Pakistan, mediator of the April 2026 ceasefire according to Britannica — could bring the positions closer together. Iranian parliament speaker and chief negotiator Mohammad Bagher Qalibaf fired back in the same combative register, warning that the strait would remain open "only under Iranian arrangements, not American threats," according to remarks reported by RFE/RL.

Two narratives colliding, two versions of the facts that never overlap: that is the real face of this crisis before mediation even enters the picture. You cannot negotiate a de-escalation when the two sides can't even agree on the starting reality.

Pakistan's historic role in the April ceasefire

It's worth remembering that the April 7-8, 2026 ceasefire between Iran, the United States and Israel was made possible through Pakistani mediation, according to Britannica. Direct negotiations even took place in Islamabad on April 11 and 12, bringing together U.S. Vice President JD Vance and Iranian parliament speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf — a level of direct engagement between Washington and Tehran unseen since Iran's 1979 revolution. But those talks led to no agreement, and Trump subsequently ordered a naval blockade targeting vessels arriving from Iranian ports.

That April precedent sheds light on the current situation: Pakistan proved it could get the parties to the same table, but not secure a substantive compromise on the core issue — effective control of the strait. Without a deeper agreement on that specific question, every new mediation effort, whether from Islamabad or Muscat, ends up replaying the same script of failure.

Oman, a close mediator with no coercive leverage

The Sultanate of Oman occupies a unique geographic position: part of the Strait of Hormuz runs through its territorial waters. That is precisely what makes it a natural mediator, but also a target of the disproportionate Iranian demands voiced by Majid Shakeri. Oman has no military coercive leverage comparable to that of the United States or Iran; its strength lies in its relative neutrality and its ability to talk with every party in the Gulf, including Bahrain and Kuwait, which were also hit by Iranian retaliatory fire, according to Al Jazeera.

But mediation without the power to force a compromise remains, in practice, a talking forum rather than a resolution mechanism. That is exactly what the lack of any breakthrough after the Muscat exchanges reveals: Oman can get the parties talking, but it cannot make them yield.

What we're watching is a diplomatic theater where regional mediators play the role of sincere facilitators, while the real decisions get made elsewhere — in the crisis rooms of Washington and Tehran. The Gulf is the stage; the lead actors remain the same.

Two small monarchies caught between two giants

Bahrain and Kuwait asked to be part of none of these negotiations, yet they find themselves on the front line. According to Al Jazeera, the IRGC and Iran's military fired projectiles toward these two countries during the retaliation that followed the American strikes in early July. These two Gulf monarchies, longtime hosts of American military bases and major economic partners in the regional oil trade, are paying the price of an escalation they neither started nor benefit from.

Their position makes the role of mediators like Oman, which shares with these countries a membership in the Gulf Cooperation Council, all the more urgent. But the humanitarian and economic urgency felt in Manama and Kuwait City has not, so far, translated into enough pressure on Tehran or Washington to speed up a compromise over Hormuz.

An entire region held hostage by a bilateral dispute

What was supposed to be a technical dispute over a contractual clause has become a systemic risk for the entire Gulf. Every new round of retaliation, every new targeted vessel, widens the circle of directly affected countries — without any of them holding a real seat at the negotiating table between Iran and the United States. That is one reason the mediation remains so fragile: it must protect interests that go far beyond the Tehran-Washington duo.

There is something deeply unjust about small Gulf states, with no responsibility for starting this war, ending up absorbing the fallout of a standoff between two capitals that both refuse to back down.

One sentence, two irreconcilable readings

At the heart of the current impasse sits Article 5 of the memorandum of understanding (MoU) signed the previous month between Tehran and Washington, according to Al Jazeera. The text states that Iran "will use its best efforts to ensure the safe passage of commercial vessels, free of charge for only 60 days, from the Persian Gulf to the Sea of Oman, and vice versa." A clause that seems technical on its face, but whose interpretation radically divides the two camps.

For Tehran, this wording grants Iran authority to manage traffic in the strait. The spokesman for parliament's national security committee, Ebrahim Azizi, wrote on X that this was "the only way," calling for "recognizing the new Iranian order in the Strait of Hormuz." Washington, conversely, maintains that the article only implies a responsibility not to obstruct transit — without granting Iran any veto power over the vessels that pass through it.

A goodwill clause turned into a legal battlefield

Article 5 also uses softer language, calling on Iran to engage with Oman and other regional states regarding the future administration and maritime services in the waterway. It is precisely this portion of the text that mediators might have used to build a technical compromise. But the maximalist Iranian interpretation — claiming political control rather than mere logistical cooperation — collapsed that diplomatic opening.

Iran's foreign minister has also accused Washington of violating the MoU's provisions on ending military operations on all fronts, including Lebanon, as well as those regarding respect for territorial sovereignty. Tehran has also condemned the U.S. Treasury Department's decision to revoke the 60-day waivers that had allowed Iran to export its oil and collect the revenue.

An agreement this poorly drafted and ambiguous in its wording was never built to last. When a single sentence can support two politically opposite readings, that's not a diplomatic text — it's a drafting time bomb.

A toll the entire world has rejected

According to RFE/RL, Tehran announced it would impose fees on vessels crossing the strait — a proposal rejected by nearly every country in the world. That collective refusal shows just how much the Iranian position, however dressed up in legal justifications tied to Article 5, is seen internationally as an attempt to monetize a geographic position rather than assert a legitimate security claim.

The battle of numbers is also a battle of credibility: the 800 vessels and 380 million barrels that CENTCOM has highlighted since early May are a direct, almost accounting-style response to the Iranian claim that "transit through the strait is only permitted via routes designated by Iran," a claim Iranian state media have pushed and that Washington has explicitly called false.

The precedent of the American blockade and its economic fallout

The context of the naval blockade imposed by the U.S. Navy in April 2026, after the collapse of the Islamabad talks, had already demonstrated the fragility of Iran's economy under sustained maritime pressure: according to Britannica, Iranian storage capacity for exports was set to hit maximum capacity by May, threatening to force a cut in oil production. Overall commercial traffic through the strait had, at the time, fallen by more than 90 percent after the conflict began, causing fuel shortages in Asia and pushing the global oil price to an average of 103 dollars a barrel in March, compared with roughly 70 dollars before the war.

It is this recent economic memory — Iranian oil revenues rising by 25 million dollars a day in March thanks to the price spike, yet a national economy choked by the blockade — that explains why Tehran clings so tightly to the strait as leverage today. It is, in its own terms as reported by Al Jazeera, a matter of strategic survival as much as national pride.

There is a bitter irony in watching a regime that has long lived off oil rents get caught in its own geographic trap. The strait that was meant to be a weapon has become a cage — and Tehran keeps struggling harder inside it.

A funeral that freezes any prospect of compromise

It's impossible to understand the current impasse without mentioning Iran's domestic political climate. Ali Khamenei, killed in the first wave of American-Israeli strikes on February 28, 2026 according to Britannica, was buried in the holy city of Mashhad after a week-long funeral, with processions passing through Iraq. According to Al Jazeera, no negotiations were expected before these ceremonies concluded — a delay that, on its own, explains part of the current diplomatic paralysis around Hormuz.

This mourning atmosphere has also revived calls for revenge, including against Donald Trump personally. Former Revolutionary Guards commander Mohsen Rezaei declared on state television that "the Americans will destroy these talks themselves," calling for vengeance for Khamenei to be inflicted on Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu.

An Iranian political class divided over strategy

Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian, who had backed the April agreement, was criticized by conservatives for that position. He nonetheless defended the diplomatic line on X, accusing Washington of "bending rules, intimidating rivals, creating obstacles and cheating," calling it the "MAGA playbook" that Iran "rejects." Conservative cleric Mahmoud Nabavian, for his part, said the overnight strikes proved once again that "trusting the [American] terrorist government brings nothing but pure losses."

This internal rift — between a presidency open to a pragmatic compromise and a hardline wing ready to sacrifice any negotiation to preserve national pride — makes the task facing Pakistani and Omani mediators nearly impossible. You cannot effectively negotiate with a country whose foreign policy shifts tone depending on who's speaking that day.

A country in full national mourning, riven by internal fault lines, and being told to renegotiate its maritime sovereignty under duress: that's a recipe for a diplomatic failure foretold. Oman and Pakistan cannot resolve what Tehran hasn't even resolved with itself.

Netanyahu prepares the ground for renewed hostilities

While mediation around Hormuz officially focuses on Tehran and Washington, Israel remains a player whose weight cannot be ignored. Defense Minister Israel Katz said his country was ready to resume its military campaign against Iran "with even greater force" if necessary, adding: "The military is ready and on alert to resume fighting… to eliminate threats, including a third time if necessary." These remarks, reported by RFE/RL, show that Israel views the conflict as far from over.

Benjamin Netanyahu himself said that "the Iranian axis is weaker than ever, while Israel is stronger than ever," while acknowledging that "the campaign is not over." Netanyahu and Donald Trump spoke by phone on July 9, with Trump briefing him on "American movements in the Gulf" — coordination that leaves little room for a genuinely autonomous regional mediation.

Military preparations that contradict the de-escalation narrative

According to Israeli media including Walla, the Israeli military is actively preparing for the possibility of a new war with Iran, including coordination with CENTCOM and updates to its operational plans. Israel also explicitly opposes the MoU signed between Iran and the United States, and has repeatedly threatened to assassinate new Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei and other Iranian officials.

In this context, any mediation over Hormuz must contend with a third actor that is officially not at the negotiating table, but whose every military move can collapse the fragile balance Pakistan or Oman are trying to preserve. Hormuz, then, is not just a bilateral Iran-U.S. dispute: it is an explosive triangle.

It's hard to believe in sincere mediation when one of the main belligerents is openly preparing the next round while letting diplomats bustle behind the scenes. Israel isn't negotiating Hormuz — it's waiting for its moment.

A fresh military escalation that renders ongoing mediation moot

Even as mediation efforts limped along, the American military struck southern Iran overnight on July 8 into 9, according to Al Jazeera, with Donald Trump claiming the strike was "20 times harder than Iran's strikes." According to RFE/RL, CENTCOM claimed to have hit about 90 Iranian military targets in a fresh wave, following an earlier operation that had struck roughly 80 targets, including more than 60 boats belonging to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC).

These American strikes were explicitly meant to punish Iran for violating the ceasefire by attacking three commercial vessels in the strait. In return, the IRGC and Iran's military fired projectiles toward Bahrain and Kuwait, and shot down an American drone. Iran's health ministry reported 14 deaths in two days of American attacks, according to figures given by its spokesman Hossein Kermanpur.

Trump calls the negotiations dead, while leaving a door ajar

Trump declared that the MoU signed the previous month between Tehran and Washington was "finished," calling Iranian authorities "sick" and "vermin" — language that, on its own, illustrates the collapse of the diplomatic climate. He nonetheless added: "I'm going to talk to our negotiators. They want to negotiate. They're good people," while stating he had no personal hope for a negotiated settlement in the short term.

It is in this in-between space — total rhetorical rupture but channels technically still open through envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner — that Pakistan and Oman must try to do their mediation work. An exercise that increasingly resembles trying to put out a fire with a glass of water while someone keeps pouring gasoline.

When a president calls his counterparts "vermin" while claiming he wants to negotiate, he isn't practicing diplomacy — he's staging theater for his domestic audience while keeping an emergency exit open. It's cynical, but it's also terribly easy to read.

The real obstacle isn't geographic, it's political

Pakistan and Oman's mediation isn't failing because these two countries lack goodwill or diplomatic skill. It is failing because the Hormuz crisis is no longer, fundamentally, a dispute over a poorly worded clause in a memorandum of understanding. It has become a test of strength between an internally fractured Iranian regime, in the middle of political mourning, and an American administration that has chosen a show of force over diplomatic restraint.

As long as Tehran keeps framing its claim over the strait as a matter of regime survival rather than a negotiable logistical issue, and as long as Washington keeps responding with military strikes to every maritime incident, no regional mediator — be it Oman with its privileged geographic position or Pakistan with its diplomatic credit from the spring — will be able to build a lasting compromise.

The West must stay firm, but clear-eyed about the risk of permanent escalation

For the West, the stakes go beyond the simple security of oil transit. It is the very credibility of international maritime law being tested: accepting that a state can claim a de facto veto over an international waterway would set a dangerous precedent, far beyond the Gulf. Backing CENTCOM's position on freedom of navigation is not a partisan choice — it is a strategic necessity to preserve the rules-based international order, the very order that Putin's Russia and China are each, in their own way, trying to dismantle elsewhere in the world.

People often ask me whether mediation can still succeed on a file this locked down. My honest answer: yes, but only if one of the two camps agrees to lose face publicly. So far, neither Tehran nor Washington has shown the slightest sign of being ready for that.

By Maxime Marquette, columnist

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I am not a journalist but a columnist and analyst. My expertise lies in observing and analysing the geopolitical, economic and strategic dynamics that shape our world. My work is to take political strategies apart, to understand global economic movements, to put the decisions of international actors in context and to offer analytical perspectives on the changes that are redefining our societies.

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