ISTANBUL — Qatar has told Iran, the United States and Oman that it will stop shipping altogether rather than pay to cross the Strait of Hormuz, and has proposed an alternative.
The Strait of Malacca cooperation mechanism is a possible benchmark for a workable solution, said Rashid Al-Mohanadi, a Qatari analyst. It is a voluntary fund covering navigation services, environmental cleanup, search and rescue and radar projects, paid into by the states that use that strait most, among them Japan, China and the Gulf countries.
“That is doable,” he told The Washington Times. “But that mechanism does not entitle payment for passage.”
“The priority is freedom of navigation, meaning you do not need to ask permission to pass through the strait,” said Mr. Al-Mohanadi, of the Qatar-based Middle East Council on Global Affairs, who spent nearly a decade in the country’s liquid natural gas sector before moving into its defense industry. “You can coordinate. You might have a duty to inform, but nobody can say yes or no.”
“It was made clear to the Iranians, to the Americans and to the Omanis who are managing this: This is a red line,” he said. “We’re willing to close shop and wait this out rather than agree to terms that include payment for passage.”
Qatar has the reserves to wait. “If we concede now and give the Iranians control over our livelihood, that means our future and the future of our kids are in their hands,” he said.
Iranian missiles hit the Ras Laffan complex in March, destroying two LNG trains and a gas-to-liquids plant and taking out about 17% of Qatar’s export capacity.
The Qatari carrier Al Rekayyat was struck near the strait on July 7, and Doha said it held Iran fully legally responsible. A second cargo loaded in Qatar was hit off Oman on Aug. 3.
On Saturday, a missile struck a tanker belonging to the Abu Dhabi National Oil Company as it crossed the strait. The United Arab Emirates called it a hostile Iranian attack and an act of piracy by the Revolutionary Guard. ADNOC confirmed the strike without naming anyone. No one was hurt.
It was the 16th attack on an ADNOC vessel since the war began. Three of its ships were hit in a single week last week, the company said, killing one crew member and injuring 20.
Iran is not currently discussing transit fees, Foreign Ministry spokesman Esmaeil Baghaei said Monday. Iran would charge for maritime services provided to ships, he said, and is working on mechanisms to monitor security, protect the environment, and combat crime at sea.
Those are the functions the Malacca fund covers. Reopening Hormuz, Mr. Baghaei added, is now conditional on lifting the American naval blockade and on compensation for damages.
Mohammad Bagher Zolghadr set out six conditions on Saturday. Two of them go beyond the ceasefire and sanctions terms Iran has repeated for weeks: the withdrawal of American naval and air forces from around Iran, and an end to war against Iran’s allies in Lebanon, Palestine, Yemen and Iraq.
He resigned as secretary of the Supreme National Security Council a day later. President Masoud Pezeshkian named Mohsen Rezaee, who commanded the Revolutionary Guards from 1981 through 1997, to replace him.
Mr. Rezaee said in July that control of the Strait of Hormuz was more important than dozens of atomic bombs.
Washington cannot deliver the second without Israel’s agreement, and Iran is asking it to guarantee the outcome.
What is being negotiated is a fourth lane, separate from the international corridor, which was closed after the war, and from the Iranian and Omani routes. Mr. Baghaei said the talks are bilateral, with no connection to any third party, and that the strait will under no circumstances return to what it was before the war.
“The core of this crisis is no longer a technical dispute over shipping lanes but a fundamental clash over sovereignty and authority,” said Mostafa Ahmed, head of political and security studies at the Al Habtoor Research Center in Dubai.
Cauvery Ganapathy, a fellow for climate and energy at ORF Middle East in Dubai, traces five months of American failure to force the strait open to a gap that predates the war.
“The advantage that littoral states such as Iran carry in a world of asymmetric warfare was misunderstood for very long,” she told The Washington Times. “It is far greater than has been accounted for.”
Stopping the attacks from Iranian soil would mean controlling more than 60 miles of shoreline. That means boots on the ground, she said, for which there is no American appetite. “Iran’s pain threshold is far higher than the American one.”
Tehran also believes the terms on which it ends this war open a path to regional and global integration it has not had in more than 40 years, she said, and will not trade away the chokepoint for anything short of formal control.
The draft bill now before Iran’s parliament, reported by the Fars and Tasnim agencies, would bar vessels belonging to or linked with the United States, Israel and other states Tehran designates as hostile. It would charge transiting ships up to 7% of cargo value and fine violators up to 20%.
The Revolutionary Guard seized the MSC Aries near the strait in April 2024. The vessel flew a Portuguese flag and answered to Zodiac Maritime, part-owned by the Israeli businessman Eyal Ofer. Flags say little about ownership.
“Your friends get to go through,” said Shon Hiatt, an associate professor of business administration at the University of Southern California’s Marshall School of Business and director of its Zage Business of Energy Initiative. “If you’re not a friend, you’re not going to transit it.”
Mr. Ahmed said the memorandum of understanding signed June 17 left in place the administrative authorities Iran established in May, which require prior vessel notification and route coordination under a maritime safety framing.
“By not explicitly mandating the dismantling of these oversight mechanisms,” he said, “Washington is granting implicit political cover to Iran’s sovereign claims.”
Washington will go on insisting the strait belongs to everyone, Mr. Ahmed said, while Iran runs it in practice. If the arrangement holds, the change is permanent.
“This transforms the Strait of Hormuz from a protected artery of global trade into a permanent, structural bargaining chip,” he said, “signalling a severe blow to American maritime deterrence and establishing a dangerous global precedent.”
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