Will the Iran Ceasefire Remake the Global Order?

Iran wants to charge oil tankers transiting the Strait of Hormuz around $2 million each. Such a fee would make little difference at the gas tank. But it would be a massive windfall to Iran, a revolution in the global order and guarantee another war.

• Right now, Iran is operating an informal system that allows favored governments to pay to have their ships transit the strait. As part of peace negotiations, Iran is insisting that this arrangement be formalized, saying it needs the money to rebuild from the war.
• “This system—informal and illegal for now—represents Iran’s biggest win from the war with the United States,” wrote the Telegraph.

Reuters’s Hugo Dixon estimates that such a toll could net Iran $500 billion over the next five years. That’s more than the entire output of the Iranian economy over the course of a year.

• Iranian government spending in 2024 was $56.4 billion. Add in $100 billion a year in transit fees, and Iran could triple its income overnight.

Seeds of the next war: “Even a fraction of that sum would slingshot the Shia nation to regional dominance,” wrote the Telegraph. “It would allow the irgc to rebuild, many times over, its obliterated military.”

• Ellen R. Wald, from the Atlantic Council’s Global Energy Center, said, “Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates and other Gulf countries cannot stand for it” and would “have to build an army and fight.”

Could more countries follow? If allowed, many more countries may set up their own toll booths.

• Britain seems unlikely to charge shipping for using the English Channel or the Straits of Gibraltar. But could China use its artificial islands to start charging ships coming through the South China Sea? That would cover around a third of all oceangoing trade. Could the Houthis insist on a toll for using the Red Sea? That would be another 15 percent.

The bigger picture: The United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea states that countries bordering a natural choke point cannot restrict passage in this way. Canals are different: They cost money to build and operate, so tolls are allowed.

This is a foundational principle of the postwar order. The U.S. dollar dominates the global economy, allowing America to borrow money easily. The U.S. dominates the world militarily. Other nations tolerate it because U.S. financial and economic dominance is used to keep the sea open and trade secure for all.

• If America tolerates an Iranian toll booth on one of the most vital oil choke points, it undermines the foundation of America’s dominance.

Britain’s and then America’s dominance of these naval passages, or choke points, was specifically prophesied.

• In Genesis 22:16-18, God told Abraham that He would multiply his descendants “as the stars of the heaven, and as the sand which is upon the sea shore.” These descendants, He said, would “possess the gate of his enemies.”
• Rebekah, Abraham’s daughter-in-law, was told “be thou the mother of thousands of millions, and let thy seed possess the gate of those which hate them” (Genesis 24:60). In the context of “thousands of millions” of people, what could the Bible be referring to? What gates affect millions of people? What is the closest thing international relations has to a gate?

This must be referring to sea gates.

• Britain and America used their dominance of these gates to secure world trade and usher the planet into its most prosperous period in history.

But the Bible also prophesies that Britain and America will lose these gates. In Deuteronomy 28:52, God tells the recipients of these blessings that if they refuse to obey Him, they will be besieged “in all thy gates.” The gates they once owned will be slammed shut.

That’s the time we are entering. The ceasefire could make sea gates a big deal once more.