Standoff and Standstill in the Strait: No Easy Solution to Restoring Gulf Tanker Traffic

It would be relatively simple for the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps to completely shut down shipping traffic in the Hormuz Strait, experts say.

A boat approaches the Saint Kitts and Nevis-flagged container ship Marsa Victory while cruising in the waters of the Strait of Hormuz off the coast of Khasab in Oman's northern Musandam Peninsula on June 25, 2025. Giuseppe Cacace/AFP via Getty Images

One sunken oil tanker in a six-mile-wide shipping channel in the Strait of Hormuz, less than 21 miles west of Iran’s mountainous coast, could shut down commercial sea traffic in the strait for months, analysts say.

And it would be relatively easy to do if Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC)—which has trained for decades in small-craft operations in these waters and has artillery hidden in reinforced bunkers looming above—were to opt to do so, especially with mines.