Iran Threatens Key Oil Route After Red Sea Mission Fails Against Houthis

Western nations face a more challenging mission protecting the Strait of Hormuz after their billion-dollar Red Sea operation failed to stop Houthi attacks. Iran has blocked the critical waterway that handles a fifth of global oil and gas supplies, sending energy prices soaring worldwide.

Western allies attempting to safeguard the Strait of Hormuz for energy transportation are confronting a sobering lesson: their previous multi-billion dollar mission in the Red Sea, which began years ago, ultimately collapsed against Yemen’s Houthi forces.

The expensive Red Sea operation – which resulted in four vessels destroyed, over $1 billion spent on armaments, and a shipping lane that commercial vessels continue to avoid – now casts a shadow over the far more complicated Strait of Hormuz situation. This vital shipping channel carries approximately one-fifth of the world’s oil and liquefied natural gas, and Iran, a much stronger opponent than the Houthis, has now shut it down.

Iran’s blockade of the waterway and strikes on energy facilities across neighboring Gulf states have caused oil prices to skyrocket in what experts call the most severe disruption to global oil and gas distribution ever recorded. Without reopening this crucial passage, supply shortages will intensify, potentially driving up costs for energy, food, and countless other goods across the globe.

“There is no substitute for the Strait of Hormuz,” Kuwait Petroleum CEO Sheikh Nawaf Saud Al-Sabah declared during a heated video conference broadcast to the CERAWeek energy summit in Houston on Tuesday. “It is the world’s strait, under international law and practical reality.”

U.N. Security Council members engaged in negotiations Tuesday over resolutions aimed at protecting the strait, with certain countries like Bahrain pushing for aggressive language that would permit “all necessary means” to defend the waterway – potentially including military action.

Reuters spoke with 19 security and maritime specialists who outlined the numerous obstacles confronting the United States and its partners in securing the strait. Iran possesses significantly more sophisticated military capabilities than the Houthis, including stockpiles of inexpensive drones, floating explosives, and missiles, plus convenient access from its rugged mountainous shoreline to the confined waterway.

“Defending convoy operations in the Strait of Hormuz is significantly more challenging than in the Red Sea,” explained retired Rear Admiral Mark Montgomery, who participated in U.S. tanker protection missions through the Strait of Hormuz in 1988 during the Iran-Iraq conflict.

This presents a major challenge for U.S. President Donald Trump as he attempts to defend the Iran conflict to inflation-concerned American voters ahead of November midterm elections, with gasoline prices approaching $4 per gallon. Energy costs are not anticipated to drop significantly until the waterway reopens, according to analysts.

Trump has remained uncommitted regarding U.S. participation, initially stating the Navy would provide ship escorts as required, then recently suggesting other countries should spearhead the initiative. Iran has prevented most vessels from passing through the maritime bottleneck since combined U.S.-Israeli strikes on Iran commenced February 28.

Iran is evaluating a plan to charge fees for ships wanting passage through the strait, an Iranian legislator informed state media last week.

The American effort to defend Red Sea shipping from Houthi attacks began in December 2023, with European countries launching their own operation months later. Allied forces destroyed hundreds of drones and missiles, yet the Houthis managed to sink four ships between 2024 and 2025. Shipping companies now mostly bypass the passage, which previously handled 12% of global trade, choosing instead the much longer route around Africa’s Horn.

“It was a tactical and operational victory and a strategic draw, if not a strategic defeat,” noted Joshua Tallis, a naval expert at research organization CNA.

The threat zone surrounding the Strait of Hormuz spans up to five times larger than the Houthis’ strike zone around the Bab el-Mandeb Strait leading to the Red Sea. Unlike the Houthis, Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps represents a professional military force with domestic weapons manufacturing and funding access.

Escorting ships through the strait would demand up to a dozen major warships like destroyers, supported by aircraft, drones and helicopters to address constraints from limited maneuvering space, military specialists indicated. Air support would be essential to defend against aerial drones and explosive-carrying manned or unmanned boats that can easily disappear among regular sea traffic.

“A destroyer can intercept missiles but cannot simultaneously sweep mines, counter drone-boat swarms from multiple bearings, and manage GPS disruption,” SSY analysts explained.

Experts believe Iran’s IRGC forces maintain missile and drone supplies concealed in structures and caverns throughout hundreds of miles of steep, mountainous coastline. In certain areas, the shore sits so close to shipping lanes that drones could reach vessels within five to 10 minutes, specialists warned.

“There are ballistic missiles, drones, floating mines and even if you were able to destroy those three capacities, there are suicide operations,” said Adel Bakawan, who directs the European Institute for Studies on the Middle East and North Africa.

Naval mines and heavily weaponized mini-submarines represent dangers the U.S. never faced in the Red Sea, according to Tom Sharpe, a former Royal Navy commander. He emphasized the enormous consequences of confronting these threats.

“If (the Americans) lose a destroyer in this … that changes the calculus of everything. That’s 300 people,” Sharpe warned, referring to potential U.S. sailor casualties.

No definitive proof exists that Iran has placed mines in the strait, U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth stated earlier this month, following reports that Iran had positioned approximately a dozen mines in the waterway.

A strategy combining mine removal, military escorts and aerial patrols should eventually restore strait traffic flow, said Bryan Clark, an autonomous warfare specialist at the Hudson Institute.

“You might have to do that for months before you have finally eroded the IRGC threat,” Clark concluded.