A boat approaches the Saint Kitts and Nevis-flagged container ship Marsa Victory while crusing 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 ImagesOne sunken oil tanker within the six-mile-wide shipping channel, less than 21 miles west of Iran’s mountainous coast, could shut down commercial sea traffic in the Hormuz 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—opts to do so, especially with mines.
Standoff and Standstill in the Strait: No Easy Solution to Restoring Gulf Tanker Traffic
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