Thirty-four miles. That’s the width of the Strait of Hormuz, the strategic waterway separating Iran and the Arabian peninsula through which 40 percent of global seaborne oil trade occurs. Right now, events in this tiny passageway threaten to transform the global economic malaise into full-scale economic calamity, and quite possibly set off a major war.

Although it’s long been recognized as a point of contention between Iran and the West, the Hormuz passageway has come into sharper focus in recent weeks. Last month, Iran began a 10-day naval exercise in a 1,200-square-mile stretch of the Persian Gulf, including Hormuz. More than a few Iranian politicians were quick to admit that the games were less about demonstrating strength than about showing Iran’s ability to cause global chaos by closing down the key passageway.

“Soon we will hold a military maneuver on how to close the Strait of Hormuz,” a member of the Iranian Parliament’s National Security Committee, Parviz Sarvari, said on December 12. “If the world wants to make the region insecure, we will make the world insecure.” Isa Ja’fari, another politician, made similar remarks before the Iranian Parliament on December 18. “If an oil embargo is placed on Iran, we will not allow a single barrel of oil to pass through here to the belligerent countries,” he said. “America should know that the world’s energy gullet, that is to say, the Strait of Hormuz, is in our hands.”