WASHINGTON, July 12 — The Strait of Hormuz has been a flashpoint for conflict multiple times. The record shows a pattern of escalation and de-escalation tied to diplomatic negotiations and sanctions, stretching from the 1980s to the present day. The Tanker War proper began in 1984, during the Iran-Iraq War.
Iraq attacked Iranian oil tankers, and Iran retaliated by striking ships bound for Iraqi allies. Over 400 ships were damaged in that campaign, according to the historical record.
The U.S. Navy intervened in 1987 with Operation Earnest Will, reflagging Kuwaiti tankers to protect them from attack. The following year, the USS Vincennes accidentally shot down Iran Air Flight 655, killing 290 civilians. In 2012, Iran threatened to close the strait in response to U.S. and EU sanctions.
That threat triggered increased U.S. naval deployments to the region. The pattern repeated in 2019, after the U.S. withdrew from the JCPOA, the Iran nuclear deal, in 2018.
That year, Iran seized the British-flagged tanker Stena Impero. In September 2019, Iran attacked Saudi oil facilities at Abqaiq and Khurais, temporarily cutting Saudi oil production by 5.7 million barrels per day. The U.S. responded by deploying additional troops and aircraft to the region.
In 2021, Iran attacked the Israeli-owned tanker Mercer Street off Oman, killing two crew members. Sources familiar with the timeline note that each of these incidents has followed a similar arc: a diplomatic or sanctions-related trigger, a period of heightened naval activity, and then a de-escalation as talks resume or pressure shifts. On the timeline, the 2019 Abqaiq and Khurais attacks represent the most significant single disruption to global oil supply from the strait since the Tanker War of the 1980s.
The temporary production cut of 5.7 million barrels per day was a sharp reminder of the chokepoint’s vulnerability. The U.S. deployment of additional troops and aircraft that followed was a direct response to that attack.
The Mercer Street incident in 2021, which killed two crew members, demonstrated that the threat had expanded beyond state-owned or allied tankers to commercial shipping more broadly. Iran’s attack on that vessel off Oman showed the strait’s reach extends beyond its narrow confines into the wider Gulf of Oman and Arabian Sea. What to watch next: the Strait of Hormuz remains a strategic chokepoint where diplomatic negotiations and sanctions cycles have consistently triggered military escalation.
The pattern established since 1984 suggests that any significant shift in U.S.-Iran relations, whether toward tighter sanctions or renewed talks, carries the risk of a new round of attacks on commercial shipping. The record shows that the U.S. Navy has historically intervened when those attacks threatened allied or reflagged vessels, and that pattern is unlikely to change under the current administration.
