Dependency Without Allegiance

Iraq had been shipping roughly 93 million barrels of oil through the Strait of Hormuz each month. By April, the number was 10 million. ^[1]

We will work to develop the oil industry to achieve sustainable development and support the country's economy, especially since the oil sector is the backbone of the federal budget. — Basim Mohammed Khudhair

The collapse was not collateral damage from a war that happened to close a waterway. It was the output of a machine with a switch. When the June ceasefire between Washington and Tehran collapsed in July, Trump immediately reimposed the naval blockade, declared the United States the guardian of the Hormuz Strait, and imposed a 20 percent toll on cargo transiting it. ^[2]

The USA will be, from this point forward, known as ‘THE GUARDIAN OF THE HORMUZ STRAIT’, but as such, and as a matter of FAIRNESS, will be reimbursed, at the rate of 20% on all cargo shipped, for any and all costs necessary to do the job of providing safety and security to this very volatile section of the World. — Donald Trump

Ceasefire off means blockade on, tolls on, American maritime control asserted. Ceasefire on means the strait reopens and the tolls disappear. The toll arc is familiar — proposed in April, abandoned under international pressure, reimposed in July. What matters now is what the toggle does to the countries caught inside it. The mechanism converts instability into leverage, and leverage into a political price. Iraq is the clearest case. With its Hormuz exports gutted, Baghdad needed alternative routes and energy investment — and it needed them from the country that controlled the strait. ^[3] Prime Minister al-Zaidi flew to Washington seeking to move the bilateral relationship from crisis management to what he called a durable, long-term partnership. ^[3]

The focus, he said, would not be about striking a “temporary” agreement but about establishing “a durable, long-term partnership that serves the shared interests of both countries”. — Haider al-Aboudi

Washington named its price. The US suspended Iraqi oil-revenue payments processed through the Federal Reserve Bank of New York and demanded Baghdad expel pro-Iran militias from state institutions as a condition for restoring aid. ^[4]

There is a very blurry line right now between the Iraqi state and these militias. — United States Department of State

Iraq complied — partially. It set a September 21 deadline for militia disarmament, timed just before al-Zaidi's Washington visit. ^[5] Several Iran-backed factions, including Asaib Ahl al-Haq and the Imam Ali Brigades, began disarming in June. Muqtada al-Sadr integrated his armed wing Saraya al-Salam into Iraqi state forces. ^[6] The sequence was legible: Hormuz instability collapsed Iraq's exports, the export collapse created dependency on American investment, and the dependency was converted into a demand that Baghdad sever its ties to Tehran's proxies. But the chain breaks at the point where dependency is supposed to become allegiance. Two weeks before al-Zaidi flew to Washington, Iran's Foreign Minister Araghchi visited Baghdad and called Iraq Iran's friend, neighbor, and strategic partner, proposing a regional security framework to replace foreign military presence. ^[7] Al-Zaidi told Araghchi that Iraq supports prioritizing an end to wars and adopting dialogue — the same prime minister who was about to ask Washington for energy investment. ^[7]

Iraq supports prioritizing an end to wars and adopting dialogue to establish stability in the region — Ali al-Zaidi

Iraq was not simply hedging rhetorically. On July 3, Baghdad negotiated a transitional protocol with Turkey to maintain oil exports through the Kirkuk-Ceyhan pipeline — a route that bypasses Hormuz entirely and runs through Ankara, not Washington. ^[8] The pipeline deal was a separate exit, built while Iraq was accepting American terms. The toggle has produced dependency in the countries caught inside it. It has not yet produced one that stopped building its own way out. Saudi Arabia is expanding its East-West pipeline by up to 2 million barrels a day to bypass Hormuz via the Red Sea port of Yanbu, with Kuwait, Bahrain, and Qatar seeking access. ^[9] Iran and Oman are co-drafting a safe-passage protocol for the strait — a maritime arrangement that would serve Gulf shipping without serving Washington. ^[10]

These requirements will not mean restrictions, but rather to facilitate and ensure safe passage and provide better services to ships that pass through this route — Kazem Gharibabadi

The costs of the toggle fall on the partners the US is courting. When the ceasefire switched off this time, Iran struck US military infrastructure in Bahrain and Kuwait — the same countries Washington is asking to host bypass infrastructure and absorb the risks of American maritime control. ^[11] The machine works. It produces countries that need American help, that accept American conditions, that set deadlines and disarm militias and sign energy agreements. What it does not produce is countries that stop negotiating with Tehran, or stop building pipelines through Ankara, or stop drafting safe-passage protocols with Oman. The bypass architecture rising around the strait — Saudi pipelines to Yanbu, Iraqi-Turkish corridors, Omani-Iranian transit rules — may serve the Gulf states that are building it. It may not serve Washington.