Hormuz Hubris

With destructive neighbors like Iran, Middle Eastern states like Oman can no longer simply have their cake and eat it.

Perhaps the only thing hotter than the Northern Hemisphere’s sweltering summer of 2026, complete with a Europe literally on fire and a triple-digit heat advisory last weekend that turned Middle Tennessee into a furnace and drove the region’s air conditioners to their outer limits, may be President Donald Trump’s temper at traditional American allies who defy his wishes. While Seoul, as well as the American foreign policy mainstream, has long been annoyed by the unholy alliance of Trump and North Korean Supreme Leader Kim Jong Un who deem the so-called Freedom Shield biannual military exercises between the longtime allies as provocative instead of stabilizing, the latest ally to meet the president’s ire is one who, at least until this year, few Americans knew existed.

Introducing the Sultanate of Oman.

Ruled since 2020 by Sultan Haitham bin Tariq Al Said, Oman sits on the eastern tip of the Arabian Peninsula on the shores of the Arabian Sea. Like almost every nation in the region, the sultanate’s economy overwhelmingly relies on the export of oil and natural gas to countries such as China, India, and South Korea. However, unlike its wealthy Arab neighbors, Oman has two massive advantages— both through the sheer luck of geography. First, it is the only one of the six Gulf Cooperation Council states, plus multi-million barrel-per-day producer Iraq whose maritime trade route are entirely free regarding the Islamic Republic of Iran’s death grip of the now globally known Strait of Hormuz. In practice, this means Omani energy exports have been spared— and continue to function normally, much to the jealous chagrin of Oman’s neighbors. Second, Oman is Iran’s direct geographic counterpart directly across the strategic maritime chokepoint.

I must apologize for a little dive into Middle Eastern history, but as anyone reading this blog ought to know, one can never properly grasp the current political situation without a basic historical context. After all, my favorite quotation in human history is George Santayana’s “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” Anyway, since the expulsion of the Portuguese from the Arabian coast in 1650, the Musandam Peninsula, Hormuz’ southern shore, has been under the control of tribes loyal to the Al Said dynasty. This lineage has remained in power since 1749, albeit between 1798 and 1951 as a client state of Great Britain who, in exchange for dynastic security, guaranteed the safety of Britain’s Middle Eastern trade routes.

The Musandam Peninsula itself, however, remains a geographic oddity. Since the local ash-Shihuh tribe, which have made its home there for centuries have been loyal to Oman’s Al-Saids rather than to the seven noble families who cobbled together the United Arab Emirates in 1971, the peninsula remains to this day an Omani exclave surrounded by Emirati land borders. For decades, the shores of the strategic peninsula were dotted with sleepy fishing villages, somehow never erupting despite the dark shadow of the expansionist regime known as the Islamic Republic of Iran barely 20 miles across the Strait of Hormuz. In my frank opinion, such vulnerable geography badly undercuts Muscat’s self-aggrandized reputation as a benevolent Switzerland of the Middle East. Together, the two nations are the co-gatekeepers of the strait. And for nearly six months, one of them has slammed that gate shut.

For several weeks now, both Iran and Oman have engaged in sensitive, high-stakes negotiations over a long-term governance arrangement regarding the Strait of Hormuz. Just when it appeared that a diplomatic breakthrough was imminent, Iran’s Supreme National Security Council barked out a litany of sweeping, unilateral demands, including a complete U.S. military withdrawal and immediate, unconditional sanctions relief, and even reparations. If enacted, such concessions would represent a historic capitulation by the United States and its Gulf Arab allies to an adversary who wants to rule the Persian Gulf through blackmail and brute force. For a rogue state who has behaved with reckless violence and impunity, no self-respecting nation would ever cave to such extortion. Recent further menacing from Tehran, shall we say, does not help.

But there remain further roadblocks, not in Muscat but in Washington. According to a report released Tuesday by The Associated Press, President Trump, who has recently offered some colorful comments claiming the strait as sovereign American territory, was angered by what many administration officials resent as double dealing by the Sultanate, especially proposals for Oman to collect “voluntary service fees” for ships crossing the waterway. Such frustration spilled over into a threat, delivered to Fox News correspondent Trey Yingst to “bomb the s*** out of” Oman if the Sultanate “gets in the way” of Washington’s economic blockade against the Islamic republic. A vulgar threat, yes, but a threat provoked by legitimate frustrations regarding Iran’s refusal to compromise and Oman’s role in enabling its rogue neighbor. When pressed on the matter on Monday in the Oval Office, the president again refused to rule out a military campaign.

While it is most difficult for me to imagine Pentagon planners drawing up an operation to attack Omani targets, considering Muscat’s long-running security relationship with Washington, Trump’s frustration exposes what I believe is a fundamental miscalculation of Omani foreign policy. While publicly boasting the label Switzerland of the Middle East, never mind that Switzerland actually has rational neighbors, Omani diplomacy has amounted to little more than crude chicanery that plays Washington and Tehran against each other while amassing all the profits. This strategy works handsomely in peacetime, but when the guns of war are unleashed, such double dealing always goes down in flames. And it isn’t just Washington who is furious with Oman’s trickery, but Iran as well.

So that is this week’s lesson. You can always attempt to reel in the benefits of superpower hostility, but in the end, you will get burned. And the Sultanate of Oman may just learn this lesson the hard way.