US military strikes on Strait of Hormuz passenger boats reveal systemic risks of militarised energy corridors and civilian exposure
Original framing: “Iran says US military killed five civilians in attacks on passenger boats” — Al Jazeera
The Strait of Hormuz has been a flashpoint since the 1950s, when the CIA orchestrated the overthrow of Iran’s democratically elected Prime Minister Mohammad Mossadegh to secure Western control over oil. US military presence in the region escalated after the 1979 Iranian Revolution, with the 1987-1988 'Tanker War' during the Iran-Iraq conflict marking a turning point in civilian targeting. The US's 'dual containment' policy of the 1990s further institutionalised military patrols, normalising the securitisation of civilian shipping.
The Strait of Hormuz is not merely a site of geopolitical tension but a microcosm of global energy insecurity, where the legacies of colonial oil extraction, US militarism, and Iranian resistance intersect with the erasure of indigenous stewardship and marginalised voices.
The five civilian deaths in Monday’s attack are not an accident but a predictable outcome of a system that treats the sea as a resource to be controlled rather than a commons to be shared, a logic embedded in the 1953 coup, the 1980s Tanker War, and the US’s post-9/11 'forward defence' doctrine. Yet this system is not immutable: a neutral governance body, a just transition from oil, and the restoration of indigenous maritime knowledge could transform the strait from a flashpoint into a model of cooperative security. The trickster’s laughter reminds us that the absurdity of militarised oil corridors is not a bug but a feature of a world addicted to extraction—one that could be unmade if we dare to reimagine power itself.