The stalemate in the Strait of Hormuz calls for a new approach. Fighting continues to flare in the Gulf and beyond, while US President Donald Trump has declared that his war with Iran will not end until after the US midterm elections in November. In the meantime, the Strait of Hormuz, a critical global energy chokepoint, remains in a state of suspended animation, with only a handful of vessel crossings recorded daily, compared with more than one hundred before the war.
For six months, the United States has pursued aggressive military and economic measures to compel Iran to reopen the strait, including last month’s announcement of an “economic D-Day.” But it remains unclear whether either kinetic pressure or financial pain can force the hand of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC).
A true solution to Iran’s closure of the strait must be rooted in a regional, technocratic approach rather than a US-led, coercive one. The Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) should launch a Gulf maritime cooperative mechanism, and invite both Iran and Iraq to join it, to prevent any attempts at unilateral administration of the strait.
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Facts on the ground
Oman, a US ally whose territorial waters run along the southern stretch of the strait, has for weeks been negotiating bilaterally with Iran for its reopening, an effort that twice earned threats from Trump to “blow them up.” However, a deal between Oman and Iran would essentially divide control of the waterway between the two countries, falling well short of the shared demand by the Gulf states and the Trump administration that no party exercise control over the strait. The talks are yet to produce a breakthrough.
In early May, Iran moved to establish the Persian Gulf Strait Authority (PGSA), a seemingly mundane bureaucratic body with a disruptive purpose: to institutionalize Iran’s control over the strait by collecting steep transit fees from vessels it permits to pass through. Iran has since launched punishment strikes on tankers that failed to coordinate with the PGSA and has claimed that, by June, more than three hundred ships had engaged with the process, leading the United States to tighten sanctions around the controversial body.
Against Iran’s attempt to establish unilateral control as a fact on the ground, a regional cooperative mechanism would include all the Gulf’s littoral states and offer an alternative, multilateral framework for administering the strait. The Gulf states should make it clear that, in setting up the body, they are in no way conceding that compulsory transit fees are inevitable. Rather, the GCC would be recognizing that the Gulf would in fact benefit from a collective organizing mechanism focused on technocratic issues, including protecting the marine environment, ensuring navigational safety, fielding search-and-rescue teams, preventing illegal fishing, and maintaining infrastructure such as lighthouses and buoys.
(Re)building trust
Recent oil slicks off the coasts of Iran and Oman should serve as natural galvanizing events, since coordination is undoubtedly needed to limit the environmental fallout. In this domain, the cooperative mechanism could build on the precedent set by the Regional Organization for the Protection of the Marine Environment (ROPME), established in 1979 and based in Kuwait. The GCC states, Iran, and Iraq are all members of this body. While the work of ROPME is said to have been hampered by funding shortfalls and geopolitical tensions, the aim here would be to use practical cooperation to diffuse regional conflict and marshal necessary resources. Early cooperation in the realm of marine conservation would help foster trust and lay the collaborative groundwork for more fraught future tasks, such as demining.
As a technocratic, law-based endeavor, the Gulf Cooperative Mechanism would respect the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, which guarantees non-suspendable rights of passage through straits connecting the high seas. Unlike the Suez and Panama canals—artificial, human-made channels expensive to continually dredge and maintain—the Strait of Hormuz is a natural waterway, meaning mandatory tolls or transit fees could violate international law.
However, voluntary contributions are possible, as in the Strait of Malacca, where its three littoral states (Malaysia, Indonesia, and Singapore) do not charge ships for passage. Instead, they accept donations from international foundations and industry stakeholders into a cooperative mechanism focused on maintenance, environmental protection, and safety. Still, it’s worth noting that Strait of Malacca donations have never been coerced at gunpoint—and the amounts needed for the Gulf mechanism would likely be far higher.
The Gulf maritime mechanism could also charge limited dues for mine clearance or post-war clean-up services, in the manner of the icebreaking coefficient levied by Russia along the Arctic Northern Sea Route. Presumably, the Gulf states would also be free to invest directly into the cooperative mechanism, building out its conservation, search-and-rescue, and communications capabilities. Given the collaborative, problem-solving remit of the joint enterprise, there would be a strong case for ringfencing it from sanctions.
Splitting the difference
Boasting the Gulf’s longest coastline and significant maritime expertise, Iran may end up receiving a larger share of the mechanism’s funding in exchange for services provided for the collective good. That arrangement could both incentivize Tehran to sign up and offer it a face-saving alternative to extracting transit fees.
Indeed, for six months now, Iran has made plain that it seeks to monetize its dominant position along the Strait of Hormuz—whether through the reported two-million-dollar mandatory “safe passage” toll demanded by the PGSA or through a deal with the Trump administration that promised sanctions relief, unfrozen assets, and investment in return for reopening the strait.
At the same time, the Gulf states cannot accept a reality in which Iran maintains executive control over the strait—not simply as a matter of principle, but because Iran would hold capricious sway over all of their exports, picking and choosing which shipments to let pass and which to tie up in bureaucratic red tape or simply leave to rot in the sun. Kuwait and Qatar are particularly vulnerable, as they currently lack alternative export routes that could bypass the strait.
A cooperative mechanism could bridge these positions and implicitly trade access to funds for the provision of important services and for the diffusion of control over the strait. It would also serve as a much-needed local staging ground for technical cooperation, communication, and confidence-building measures.
Press the advantage
It is said that a new car loses 10 percent of its value the minute it is driven out of the dealership. Iran has now played its strategic ace in the hole, and IRGC decisionmakers must surely recognize that the value of unilaterally controlling the strait depreciates further with each passing day.
The Gulf states are busily implementing workarounds for the shuttered strait, ranging from expanding existing pipeline infrastructure to the Gulf of Oman or the Red Sea, to using a combination of sea and land routes through Egypt. Iran’s own top oil customer, China, is reducing its dependence on seaborne fossil fuels and accelerating the transition to clean energy. Meanwhile, the US military will keep getting better at stealthily escorting tankers through the southern part of the strait.
A Gulf-wide maritime mechanism would give Iran a way to convert its current advantage into lasting dividends before there are no more chips to cash. But in so doing, Tehran would be conceding any possibility of unilateral management of the strait or other forms of coercive control in favor of a collective, technocratic administrative effort that reflects the communal character of the Gulf’s waters.
A Gulf maritime cooperative mechanism could offer the Trump administration an off-ramp from the Hormuz crisis and open space for other channels of deconfliction. More importantly, it would restore agency to the Gulf states, making an asset of their shared geography, and therefore destiny, with Iran.
Alia Brahimi is a nonresident senior fellow with the Scowcroft Middle East Security Initiative at the Atlantic Council’s Middle East programs.
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Image: Vessels near the Strait of Hormuz, as seen from Musandam, Oman, August 31, 2026. (Reuters via Reuters Connect)