Iran's two-chokepoint gambit puts 20 million barrels a day in play

Fresh strikes on Iranian coastal defense and missile sites, confirmed by U.S. Central Command, are part of Washington's effort to reimpose a naval blockade on Iranian ports. Iran responded with cruise-missile strikes on tankers in the Strait of Hormuz and attacks on U.S.-linked targets in Bahrain, Kuwait, and Jordan. The U.S. Energy Information Administration reports oil flow through Hormuz averaged roughly 20 million barrels a day in 2024, about a fifth of global petroleum consumption, and Tehran is now signaling a threat to a second energy artery.

A second chokepoint enters the frame

Reuters reports that Iran is signaling it could use its Houthi allies in Yemen to threaten the Bab el-Mandeb gateway to the Red Sea, putting a second vital energy route at risk. Close it and tankers reroute around southern Africa, adding time and cost to global energy shipments. A one-chokepoint crisis is a logistics problem. Two chokepoints running simultaneously become a test of American staying power across a far wider theater.

Tehran's pattern is consistent. Iran answers each American strike by shifting pressure somewhere else: at sea, in oil markets, across Gulf capitals, and inside Washington's political debate. The objective is to make each U.S. move generate a wider problem, not a contained one.

The Tanker War playbook, restaged

Tehran has run a version of this before. During the Iran-Iraq War from 1980 to 1988, Iran helped transform the Persian Gulf into a contested waterway in what became the Tanker War. The U.S. Navy launched Operation Earnest Will to escort reflagged Kuwaiti tankers through the Gulf. In April 1988, USS Samuel B. Roberts struck an Iranian mine on that mission. Four days later, Operation Praying Mantis saw the Navy sink or damage a significant portion of Iran's operational navy in a single day.

Iran did not match American firepower. It learned that mines, tankers, and oil anxiety can force a stronger power to defend far more than one lane. That calculus has not changed.

Washington's unforced error, and what comes next

Trump floated a 20% fee on shipping through Hormuz, then dropped the proposal a day later. The International Maritime Organization said there is no legal basis for mandatory tolls on an international strait under transit-passage rules. Even withdrawn, the idea handed Tehran a talking point it had not earned.

Axios reports that Trump convened a Situation Room meeting to weigh an offensive broader than the current strikes near Hormuz. Trump has said publicly that strikes on Iranian power plants and bridges could follow if Tehran does not return to the table. That ultimatum is the next data point for the tape.