On April 11, U.S. officials stated that Iran, unable to locate mines it had laid in the strait and lacking mine-clearance capabilities, faces difficulty in fully opening the Strait of Hormuz. On April 9, Iran established an alternative shipping route to bypass the mines. That same day, U.S.-Iran negotiations took place in Islamabad, with the U.S. delegation led by Vance and Iran’s team headed by Kalibaf. Uncontrolled mines have restricted maritime traffic, disrupting about 20% of global seaborne oil routes and adding uncertainty to the talks.
[Clever] Comment: The "world's oil valve," the Strait of Hormuz, suddenly jammed—not due to a U.S. blockade, but because Iran itself lost track of its own mines. This scene eerily echoes the 1988 incident when the USS *Roberts* struck a mine, a few thousand-dollar explosive nearly sinking a multi-hundred-million-dollar warship; the U.S. retaliated within eight hours, severely damaging Iran’s navy. Now history repeats itself—but with roles reversed: Iran used low-cost mines for asymmetric deterrence, yet suffered from disorganized records and outdated technology. One-third of global seaborne crude oil and daily shipments of 20 million barrels of oil and gas depend on this passage—any halt in navigation directly impacts oil prices and supply chains.
The already vast differences between the U.S. and Iran have been further deepened by the mine issue, turning it into an insurmountable deadlock. Iran wants to leverage the strait as a bargaining chip, but is instead hamstrung by its own mines; the U.S., seizing on the situation to exert pressure, still cannot rapidly clear the mines. This reveals the fatal flaw of asymmetric warfare for smaller nations: deterrence is easy, but post-conflict management is hard. What appears to be a clever strategy often collapses over the most basic details.
Original source: toutiao.com/article/1862158779486272/
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