The Chokepoint Template

"Maritime embargo." A transit authority with the power to grant exemptions. Selective waivers for Chinese vessels. The same regulatory vocabulary now appears in two narrow bodies of water hundreds of miles apart, as if someone handed the Houthis a template. IRGC Quds Force commander Esmail Qaani made the coordination explicit.

From the Strait of Hormuz to Bab el-Mandeb and from the Persian Gulf to the Red Sea, a new security belt of the Resistance will be established. — Esmail Qaani

The "security belt" is not rhetoric. It is an institutional architecture being built at both ends simultaneously, and the mechanics are now visible enough to describe. At the Strait of Hormuz, Iran has created a formal state bureaucracy — the Persian Gulf Strait Authority — to collect transit fees from commercial shipping ^[1][2]. The IRGC is already imposing operational tolls of $1 million to $2 million per vessel, driving insurance premiums upward with each passage ^[3]. The system functions as a de facto permitting regime: vessels must coordinate with Iranian authorities before transiting, enforced by drones, sea mines, fast-attack craft, and coastal missile batteries ^[2]. Iran announced the toll plan publicly in late June, with China and "friendly nations" receiving special consideration ^[4]. At the other end of Qaani's belt, the Houthis are building the same institution. Yemen's Information Minister reported that the group is working with the IRGC to establish a formal toll system for commercial ships passing through Bab el-Mandeb, with Chinese vessels reportedly exempt — the same selective carve-out Iran offers at Hormuz ^[5]. The Houthis have already developed the enforcement language to match. When they struck the Saudi-flagged tanker NCC Ghazal, military spokesman Yahya Saree did not describe it as a protest or an act of retaliation. He said the vessel was attacked "due to violation of the maritime embargo imposed on the Saudi enemy" ^[5]. They have since declared a formal naval blockade of Saudi shipping in the strait, forcing the kingdom to reroute up to 7 million barrels of crude per day via the SUMED pipeline and the Cape of Good Hope, and announced plans to blockade an additional Red Sea waterway ^[6][7]. In June, they issued what read like a sovereign decree: a complete and total ban on Israeli maritime navigation in the Red Sea, with all Israeli-linked vessels designated as legitimate military targets ^[8]. The U.S. State Department has named the shared playbook from the outside ^[9].

These entities manufacture risk – including the threat of vessel seizures – and then charge commercial vessels for coverage against dangers created by the regime itself, generating revenue that sustains IRGC operations and Iran’s broader campaign of regional destabilisation. — United States Department of State

Secretary of State Marco Rubio warned that accepting the principle of charging for passage through an international waterway would "spread throughout the world like a contagion" ^[4]. But the contagion has already spread. The template is replicating. The counter-response, by contrast, is not consolidating into anything resembling a single architecture. It is fragmenting into at least three separate tracks that do not talk to each other. Saudi Arabia is forming a multinational military coalition headquartered in Riyadh, seeking participation from roughly 50 nations including Turkey, Pakistan, and Egypt, to protect Red Sea shipping from Houthi attacks ^[5]. Pakistan has backed the effort with real weight: a September 2025 mutual defense treaty treats an attack on one as an attack on both, and thousands of Pakistani soldiers are deployed near the Saudi-Yemen border ^[10]. Simultaneously, the United States and the United Kingdom are planning a London summit for a separate, Hormuz-focused naval coalition led by Defense Secretary Hegseth ^[11]. That track is already narrower than it sounds. The UK has explicitly refused to join offensive U.S. military action in Iran, and France conditioned its support on a stable ceasefire, citing frustration over the Trump administration's failure to consult allies before February airstrikes ^[11]. The coalition that exists is limited to defensive escort — it will not dismantle the toll system. And the UAE is running a third track entirely: lobbying the UN Security Council for a resolution to authorize force to reopen Hormuz, separate from both the Saudi coalition and the U.S.-UK summit ^[12]. These three initiatives are not merely uncoordinated. They are pulled apart by fractures that run through the Gulf itself. Saudi Arabia and the UAE — the two states that would anchor any unified response — are in a severe diplomatic rift. Saudi Arabia conducted airstrikes against UAE-linked weapons shipments in Yemen, launched a state media campaign accusing Abu Dhabi of "investing in chaos," and demanded Emirati forces leave the country ^[13][14]. The UAE, in turn, has pivoted toward a defense partnership with India ^[14]. The U.S.-Saudi security relationship, the backbone of any counter-coalition, is under its own strain. Saudi Arabia blocked U.S. military access to its airspace and Prince Sultan Airbase, effectively killing "Project Freedom," the American maritime escort operation for Hormuz. The U.S. retaliated by threatening to withhold interceptor missiles and considering a military drawdown ^[15]. Even a 19-nation NATO naval deployment to Hormuz in early July did not stop Iran from attacking two commercial tankers under its nose — the IRGC declared its missiles and drones "ready to fire at you" and continued enforcing its transit regime while the coalition cleared mines ^[16]. The shipping industry watched all of this and made its own decision. It did not wait for governments to resolve which of three uncoordinated tracks to join, or whether the Saudi-UAE rift would heal, or whether the U.S. and Saudi Arabia would patch their base-access dispute. It built permanent infrastructure. MSC, Maersk, and Hapag-Lloyd have all constructed multimodal landbridge routes across Saudi Arabia: containers arrive at Red Sea ports, move by truck across the kingdom to Dammam on the Gulf coast, and transfer to feeder vessels for final delivery ^[17]. Maersk described the route in language that suggested permanence, not contingency ^[17].

This solution is designed to ensure continuity for our customers despite the unprecedented challenges in the region — Soren Toft

Saudi Arabia itself launched a Logistics Corridors Initiative that redirects Gulf shipping to its Red Sea ports, including Jeddah Islamic Port with its 17-million-container capacity, explicitly to bypass Hormuz ^[18]. But that bypass routes directly into the zone where the Houthis are building their toll regime at Bab el-Mandeb. The pincer is now physical: Iran collects tolls at Hormuz, the Houthis are building a matching toll system at the Red Sea's southern gate, and Saudi Arabia's own backup corridor runs from one choke-point straight into the other. The market has priced in what governments are still debating. On a Saudi highway, trucks are carrying containers from Red Sea ports to the Gulf — moving what warships could not keep open.