Are the Straits of Hormuz America’s Suez Canal?

I am not just jumping on a bandwagon when I quote Professor Xueqin Jiang, the Chinese-Canadian teacher and host of popular YouTube channel Predictive History (1.87 million followers) and Yale alumnus who is hailed as 'China's Nostradamus'. Having predicted in 2024 that Trump would return to the White House and that he would start a war with Iran he then, having examined theoretical combat scenarios and speculative circumstances, outlined why any US assault on Iran would prove disastrous for the Superpower, stating: "The third big prediction is that the United States will lose this war, which will forever change the global order."

Certainly, despite the loathsome nature of the Iranian regime, the US President seems to have achieved the impossible – of making Iran appear the underdog deserving of sympathy and allowing it to seize the initiative over when and whether talks take place together with enabling it to put into reality its power over the world economy in blocking the Straits of Hormuz and contemplating massively boosting its income through threats to charge shipping using that lane. In most people’s minds it is Iran that has seized the initiative and is dictating what happens next despite its clear military inferiority and devastation of its land through American bombing. The Iranians can afford to wait – they are not spending billions on armaments and expensive ammunition and do not have mid-term elections looming in November as well as having a quelled and quiescent public bullied into submission to the repressive regime.

President Trump, who, apparently, does not have a great grasp of history, would do well to reflect on the Suez Crisis of 1956 which is widely regarded as the final nail in the coffin of the UK as a global colonial power to which all others deferred. Although history never precisely repeats itself there are great similarities: the dispute was over the ownership and consequent ability to control shipping over a major waterway link for global trade; it demonstrated the self-assured belief that a super-power could dictate what it pleased to a wider world without any kick-back and it showed a fundamental initial lack of judgement and planning as well as a failure to assess accurately the reactions from other states (not least, also, the failure to consult with them in advance). 

The jury is still out on the Middle-East war as to whether the US President is cognisant of an inevitable disaster if he puts boots on the ground which will end in a Vietnam/ Libyan/ Afghanistan style debacle losing not only the war (probably after several years) but also at the price of the loss of public support both in USA and around the world. The capacity for a people to resist and drag out a conflict was certainly a miscalculation by President Putin when he marched his troops in a Special Operation into Ukraine in 2022 where we remain four years later with the arguable potential consequence of Putin’s fall from power but certainly a massive cost to Russia’s economy and its loss of life. Argentinian President Galtieri made a similar miscalculation when he invaded the Falklands in the mistaken belief that the UK had neither the resources nor the resolve to resist. I shall not quote other examples but history is littered with them.

The so-called Suez Crisis started with the nationalist Egyptian leader President Gamal Abdel Nasser, a military officer who had led a coup to gain power, nationalising the Suez Canal from the Suez Canal Company (jointly owned by the French and British) following his alienation from Western powers after he purchased weaponry from (then communist Warsaw Pact) Czechoslovakia and placed his country more in the communist camp and in retaliation for which both the US and UK abruptly withdrew their offer to finance construction of the Aswan Dam. In a similar example of ignoring international law after the UN Security Council passed a resolution recognizing Egypt's right to control the canal as long as it continued to allow passage through it for foreign ships  the UK, France and Israel made a secret agreement to take over the Suez Canal, occupy the Suez Canal zone and topple Nasser. Israel attacked Egypt overwhelming its defences, British and French planes bombarded Egyptian airfields in the canal zone, Nasser also ordered blockage of the canal by sinking or otherwise disabling forty-nine ships at its entrance and British and French forces landed in Port Said. The miscalculation by the British was that the USA would come to its aid yet, instead, it condemned the tripartite invasion and supported UN resolutions demanding withdrawal and a United Nations Emergency Force to be stationed in Sinai. The crisis demonstrated that the United Kingdom and France could no longer pursue their independent foreign policy without consent from the United States and was a sea change in the way in which the UK could conduct its foreign policy in the future: the veil of dominance of a colonial power that was rapidly losing all its former colonies was finally removed.

The unpopularity of the Iran war (apart from its almost certain illegality on the basis that the US could not demonstrate that it was under imminent threat of attack) was manifested by the reluctance and, in some cases, refusal of other Western NATO states to allow the use of their facilities to aid the US assault  and continuing action. This to the President, who has shown himself to be a vengeful man in other contexts, has now led to a further alienation of the USA by other countries – already set in train by earlier threats of the US Administration towards Canada, Greenland, Cuba and its actions in seizing the Venezuelan President (however heinous and corrupt he may be). The continuing American threat to fellow NATO countries (and a failure to appreciate that the Alliance is a defensive shield centred on Art.5 for mutual defence rather than a mechanism for countries to aid the aggression of another) has further driven a wedge within NATO at which both China and Russia can only marvel.

President Trump seems to have an inexhaustible capacity to insult or retaliate against allies which is not similarly deployed against President Putin and this disturbs many not just in ephemeral terms but in ongoing relationships which are so important for collective defence as well as showing solidarity to potential foes. The recipients of this behaviour are finding ways if responding – already both Spain and Switzerland have taken steps to move away from or cancel orders for F-35 fighter jets, opting for European alternatives like the Eurofighter, driven by concerns over high costs and, perhaps more tellingly, US "sustainment monopolies." Just as there is concern that Chinese goods hide hidden monitoring devices so there is a worry in procurement of US military materielle that if deployed in an action not favoured by the USA whether there is some mechanism, apart from political pressure, that would prevent their effective operation, including the provision of spare parts or necessary renewables. 

The international order and rule of law was always based on a lack of integral enforcement and relied on any military policing from the P5 states that were seen ultimately as the guarantors of the whole UN panoply of regulated international relationships. That was never satisfactory (as Roosevelt knew but had no other choice) and its flaws are now more apparent as the principal enforcer, the USA, is seen to use its power not to uphold that international order in a global philanthropic way but for its own self-interest. No longer is America seen as the arbiter of a just, rules-based order applicable to all. Apart from recent declarations on Canada, Greenland, Europe, Iran and Cuba perhaps the most worrying trait is this lack of confidence that the USA will abide by the Charter and do the right thing. A failure to do so makes it become just another self-serving power like China and Russia.

The Iran war in itself, whatever and whenever its conclusion, will not in itself end the hegemony of the USA but its reputation as the guarantor of the free world and civil liberties as well as its reliability as a friend in need have been fatally flawed and, if ever regained, will takes years to achieve. That is a cautionary note for all freedom loving states and may well signal the emergence of middle-ranking powers working more closely on mutual trade and security issues as the new progenitors of a re-established world order based on the rule of law and its universal applicability and adherence. Those of us who wish to sleep well in their beds at night had better hope so.

Keith Best TD, MA is a former Conservative Member of Parliament (MP) for Anglesey/Ynys Môn and served as the Parliamentary Private Secretary to the Secretary of State for Wales. Major in airborne and commando (artillery) forces, practising barrister, liveryman (Loriner), and Freeman of the City of London, Keith was named one of the 100 most influential people in public services in the UK by Society Guardian. Keith has made significant contributions to international refugee and human rights initiatives, including serving as Vice Chair of the European Council on Refugees and Exiles and as a member of the Foreign Secretary’s Advisory Panel on Torture Prevention. He is the Chair & CEO of the Wyndham Place Charlemagne Trust, Chair of the Universal Peace Federation (UK), patron of TEAM Global, and a trustee of several national and international organisations. 

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