From "Complete Control" to 80% Omani Route Traffic: How the United States Has Steadily Eroded Iran's Grip on the World's Most Important Waterway

The Evidence This Week

On 17 August 2026, a Reuters photographer captured vessels transiting near the Strait of Hormuz as seen from Musandam, Oman — ships moving through waters that, six months ago, Iran had declared under its complete control and threatened to set on fire if any unauthorised vessel attempted passage. The image, and the data that surrounds it, tells the story of a significant and measurable shift in who actually controls the chokepoint through which roughly a quarter of the world's seaborne oil once flowed freely every day.

According to Kpler, the commodity tracking firm that monitors ship movements using transponders and satellite data, more than 80 percent of vessel transits through the Strait of Hormuz over the past two weeks have taken the Omani route — the UN-authorised shipping channel that runs along the northern coast of Oman and that Iran has consistently and vehemently rejected as legitimate, attacking dozens of ships that have used it throughout the conflict. Ships are taking the route Iran says they cannot take, and doing so in large numbers. That is the most concrete available data point on the current state of control in the strait.

It does not mean the crisis is over. Oil flows remain well below pre-war levels. Iran continues to attack vessels it deems non-compliant with its demands. The US naval blockade of Iranian ports remains in place. Peace talks have stalled. But the trajectory is unmistakable: Iran entered this conflict claiming complete control of the world's most strategically critical maritime chokepoint. Nearly six months later, it is losing that control in measurable, documentable ways.

How the Crisis Began: Six Months of Context

The 2026 Strait of Hormuz crisis began on 28 February 2026, the same day US and Israeli forces launched the joint military operation against Iran that killed Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei. Within days of those strikes, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps officially declared the strait closed to "unfriendly nations" — permitting only Iran-approved vessels to pass, predominantly petroleum tankers bound for China and India travelling with military escort. By 4 March, the IRGC had declared that the Islamic Republic of Iran Navy had achieved "complete control" of the waterway. Iran threatened to set fire to any ship that attempted to transit without its authorisation.

The closure sent immediate shockwaves through global energy markets. Oil crossed $100 per barrel within days. Brent crude eventually surpassed $110. Global inflation, already elevated, spiked further. Countries began drawing down strategic reserves. The International Energy Agency warned that global oil stockpiles were diminishing at a pace that was becoming unsustainable the longer the closure continued.

The United States and Iran agreed to a two-week ceasefire on 7 April, with Trump stating it was conditional on Iran's "complete, immediate, and safe opening" of the strait. In practice, Iran began charging toll fees exceeding $1 million per ship rather than opening the waterway freely — an arrangement that produced some traffic but not the genuine reopening that the ceasefire framework envisioned. After the Islamabad Talks between Iran and the US broke down, the US Navy itself began a formal blockade of Iranian ports on 13 April, barring ships from entering or leaving any Iranian port either inside or outside the strait — a measure designed to strangle Iran's cashflow and close the strait to Iranian maritime trade while preserving the theoretical possibility of passage for non-Iranian vessels.

The United States and Iran signed a memorandum of understanding in June 2026 in which Iran agreed to "make arrangements using its best efforts for the safe passage of commercial vessels" through the strait. Iranian leaders subsequently claimed, in a reading of that MOU that the US and most international observers reject entirely, that the agreement had granted Iran the right to control all shipping through the strait — a claim without precedent in international maritime law. When Iranian forces resumed attacks on commercial shipping in July 2026, treating non-compliant vessels as having violated what Tehran characterised as the MOU framework, it was on the basis of this interpretation that carries no standing under the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea.

Who Controls the Strait Today: The Honest Assessment

The competing claims are now a fixture of the daily rhythm of this conflict. President Trump declared on 18 August that the United States has "total control over the strait" — a statement he has made repeatedly throughout the war. Iran's newly appointed head of the Basij paramilitary unit declared on the same day that the strait "is under Iran's control and management." Both statements are, in the specific sense that neither country genuinely commands the waterway without challenge, wrong.

The reality is that the Strait of Hormuz currently exists in a contested state that neither party fully controls but that has shifted measurably toward the American position over the past several weeks. The data is specific. Before the war, 130 to 140 commodity vessels transited the strait on a typical day. At the height of Iranian control in March and April, that number collapsed to effectively zero for non-Iran-approved traffic. As of 12 August, just eight vessels crossed the strait on a single Tuesday — far below pre-war levels but representing traffic that was simply not moving at all in the war's earlier weeks. Kpler's data showing more than 80 percent of recent transits taking the Omani route the US Navy escorts suggests that the combination of American naval presence, aerial campaign against Iranian coastal military infrastructure, and sustained diplomatic and economic pressure has materially degraded Iran's capacity to enforce its declared closure.

Iran's continued attacks on vessels — including two Abu Dhabi National Oil Company tankers attacked while transiting the strait on 14 August, with the UAE directly accusing Iran — confirm that Iran retains the capability and the will to threaten shipping. But deterrence is not the same as control. As analyst Pickering put it in the CNN analysis published on 18 August: "If their goal is to be 'in charge,' then I'd say they were never completely in control to start with. It feels like their goal is deterrence, in order to be validated as in-control. I think they are still deterring." The critical question is whether they are deterring effectively enough to maintain the economic and diplomatic leverage that control of the strait was meant to deliver.

What the Naval Blockade Is Actually Doing

The US naval blockade of Iranian ports, in place since 13 April, represents the most significant and most sustained American coercive instrument currently operating in the strait environment. It has two distinct but related effects. The first is economic: by barring ships from entering or leaving Iranian ports, the blockade has strangled Iran's cashflow from maritime trade and closed the strait to Iranian commercial shipping entirely. A country that declared itself the master of the world's most important oil route now cannot use that route for its own maritime commerce. The second effect is diplomatic leverage: as long as the blockade remains in place and is credibly maintained, the United States retains significant negotiating power over what a final settlement of the Hormuz crisis looks like, including what new rules govern the strait going forward and which international body — if any new body is created — manages transit arrangements.

CNN's analysis published on 13 August noted this leverage dynamic explicitly: "If the US backs off for any reason or loosens its grip on the blockade, it loses negotiating power and could have less say over the future of the strait, including which parties will govern it and what new rules are imposed for shipping." The United States on the same day said it could maintain the naval blockade indefinitely, and would continue ratcheting up economic pressure on Tehran as long as ceasefire talks remained stalled. Iran has stated its conditions for the strait's genuine reopening: the US naval blockade must be lifted, sanctions must be eased, and Iranian assets frozen overseas must be unfrozen.

The Human and Economic Cost of Continued Stalemate

At nine vessels transiting the strait on the single day of 14 August — compared to 130 to 140 before the war — the global economic cost of the Hormuz crisis has become one of the most significant single-point disruptions to international trade since the COVID-19 pandemic. The IEA's warning that global oil stockpiles are diminishing at a rapid clip is not a theoretical concern. Every week the strait remains effectively closed, the world burns through strategic petroleum reserves that took years to accumulate, energy prices remain elevated well above pre-war levels, and the inflationary pressure that the closure has generated continues to compound across every economy whose industrial and consumer activity depends on energy costs.

The formation of the Persian Gulf Strait Authority — a multilateral body established during the course of the crisis — represents one of the most significant institutional responses to the disruption, though its operational capacity and ultimate legitimacy remain questions that a final resolution of the conflict will need to answer. One tugboat has been sunk. At least 17 merchant ships have been damaged, with 7 abandoned. Two merchant ships have been captured. Twelve seafarers are dead or missing. One port worker has been killed and two wounded in Bahrain. These are not the numbers of a humanitarian crisis at the scale of the war's direct combat casualties — but they are the numbers of a sustained maritime conflict that has no settled end.

The Bottom Line as of 19 August 2026

The most precise formulation of where the Hormuz situation stands today comes not from Trump's "total control" claim or the IRGC's "complete control and management" counter-claim, but from the Kpler data and from the analysts who read it without a political stake in either narrative. More ships are moving through the strait now than were moving a month or two ago. More of them are taking the Omani route that Iran vehemently opposes. The US naval escort operation is functioning. Iran is losing control it once had more firmly.

Iran has not lost control entirely. It retains the capacity to attack ships, to threaten traffic and to impose costs on vessels that attempt the Omani route without adequate escort. Its deterrence — degraded but not eliminated — still shapes the decisions of shipping companies, insurers and energy buyers across the world. The strait is not open in any sense that resembles its pre-war state.

But the trajectory, as of this week, clearly favours the United States. Whether that trajectory continues, reverses or produces a negotiated settlement depends on variables — the durability of the US naval blockade, the state of Iran's military capacity after nearly six months of strikes, the domestic political pressures on both governments, and the role of Pakistan, Oman and China in any eventual diplomatic resolution — that remain genuinely uncertain as the conflict enters its seventh month.

Sources

1. CNN Business — Iran has lost significant control of the Strait of Hormuz (August 18, 2026) — cnn.com
2. CNN — Trump keeps saying the US controls the Strait of Hormuz. Does it? (August 13, 2026) — cnn.com
3. CNN — Iran, US continue fight for control: August 12, 2026 live updates (August 12, 2026) — cnn.com
4. Al Jazeera — As Strait of Hormuz transit drops, Trump again says US has 'control' (August 12, 2026) — aljazeera.com
5. Al Jazeera — Iran rejects Trump's claim to 'control' Hormuz: What's the latest in talks? (August 12, 2026) — aljazeera.com
6. The Jerusalem Post — Shipping in Strait of Hormuz drops off as Iran, US continue fight for control (August 14, 2026) — jpost.com
7. Yahoo News / CNN — Iran is losing control of the Strait of Hormuz (August 18, 2026) — yahoo.com
8. Wikipedia — 2026 Strait of Hormuz crisis — en.wikipedia.org
9. Wikipedia — 2026 Strait of Hormuz campaign — en.wikipedia.org
10. Congress.gov / CRS — The Strait of Hormuz: Security Developments and Impacts on Oil, Gas, and Other Commodities (updated August 2026) — congress.gov