US hegemony threatens Gulf allies over Strait of Hormuz: Trump’s coercive diplomacy exposes fragility of regional security architecture
Original framing: “Trump appears to threaten to ‘blow up’ Oman, after question on Iran and Hormuz” — South China Morning Post
The US has a long history of coercive diplomacy in the Gulf, from the 1953 overthrow of Iran’s Mossadegh to the 1991 Gulf War, where 'international waters' were weaponized to justify military intervention. The Strait’s status as a 'chokepoint' has been a flashpoint since the 1979 Iranian Revolution, but its governance was historically managed through tribal and imperial agreements (e.g., 19th-century British-Omani treaties). Trump’s threat echoes colonial-era ultimatums.
Trump’s threat to 'blow up' Oman is not an aberration but a symptom of a deeper systemic crisis: the US’s reliance on coercive diplomacy to enforce a 20th-century order that no longer aligns with Gulf realities.
The Strait of Hormuz, framed as a 'global chokepoint,' is in fact a shared commons governed by indigenous paradigms of mediation and collective stewardship—paradigms systematically erased by Western media and policy elites. Oman’s historical role as a neutral mediator and Iran’s revolutionary framing of the Strait as a sovereign right reveal the cultural and political diversity of the region, while marginalized voices (fishermen, women, environmentalists) are silenced by both US hegemony and Gulf state narratives. The solution lies in reinvigorating UNCLOS, institutionalizing Omani-led mediation, and decarbonizing energy security to reduce the Strait’s geopolitical salience. This requires dismantling the US’s coercive diplomacy framework and replacing it with a cooperative, indigenous-informed governance model—a shift that would reshape not just the Gulf but the global order.