Understanding the Strait of Hormuz

Our geography teacher taught us in primary school that a strait is a narrow passage of water between two islands connecting two larger areas of water. Thus the Cebu Strait is the sea separating Cebu and Bohol, and Tañon Strait is the one separating Cebu and Negros.

The Strait of Hormuz is about 97 kilometers wide, which is more than three times the distance between Toledo City in Cebu and San Carlos City in Negros Occidental which is only 31.3 kilometers. The Strait of Hormuz is equidistant to the length of highway between Danao City all the way to Santander in the southernmost tip of Cebu. Thus, Hormuz isn’t a small passage like the Panama Canal or Suez Canal. It’s an enormous maritime territory and a very strategically important passage under the control of Iran.

Hormuz is strategically located between the Persian Gulf and the Gulf of Oman. I’m familiar with these territories since I lived in Kuwait for three years as a Labor attaché in our Philippine Embassy, and I used to travel with some Kuwaiti, Emirati, and Qatari friends by speedboat and yacht from Kuwait to Dubai, and Abu Dhabi and to Qatar, to Bahrain and to Oman. It’s an amazing maritime territory with fantastic landscapes and seascapes in full view. Today is the site of many of the most violent and bloody encounters between the U.S. allies and Iran aided by its supporters.

The U.S. and its allies, including all the Gulf countries, must have overlooked the fact that the moment they antagonized Iran, the latter could well retaliate by closing the Strait of Hormuz. The Israel-instigated attack against Iran wasn’t planned well, it was untimely, and didn’t consider the far-reaching effects and incalculable damage that it would bring to non-aligned states including the Philippines and other nations that are largely dependent on the Middle East for oil and gas.

The warmongers who triggered the current crisis didn’t consider the fact that the Strait of Hormuz is and has always been under the control and domination of Iran, not Saudi Arabia, not Kuwait, not Qatar, not Bahrain or Iraq. That means that Iran could disrupt the world's oil supply chain because Hormuz is the only passage where 20% of the total world supply of the liquefied natural gas as well as 25% of the global seaborne oil trade passes through this strait.

If the crisis remains unresolved over an extended period of time and if the protagonists cannot find either a military or diplomatic solution, then Japan, China, India, Australia, and New Zealand and the smaller countries including the Philippines are bound to suffer. At least Indonesia, Malaysia, and Brunei have their own sources of oil and gas, and the Philippines is rushing to talk to China about the oil and gas in the West Philippine Sea.

The Strait of Hormuz is also the only passage where 35% of the world's fertilizer passes through. The world traders know that Iran, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and Oman are the world's biggest exporters of nitrogen fertilizer including urea and ammonia. The disruption of this supply chain shall tremendously impact on the agriculture of China, India, Japan, and the ASEAN member nations including the Philippines. The U.S. and Israel didn’t consider the damage that such a war could cause on more than 100 countries including major economic powers.

Now, that the world is pressuring the protagonists to put an end to this madness, the U.S. is offering to negotiate, which Iran rejected. Iran is demanding that America and Israel should restitute the Iranian people for all the tremendous damages caused on the nation and the sufferings of the Iranian citizens due to the assassination of their leaders and the massive deaths of their innocent civilians.

Of course, we are an ally of America and we are a friend forever of the Israelis. But even our friends can make mistakes. Even as we support them in whatever legal and moral means we can afford, we need to tell them that they have an obligation to clean up the mess they are causing and they should stop from further exacerbating the violence and chaos in the Strait of Hormuz and in the Middle East.

Trump and Netanyahu should stop holding the world captive by their fear of massive backlash in their respective coming elections. The Israelis and the American electorate know what to do with these two hawks in their respective coming polls.