US-Iran tensions escalate as structural militarisation and geopolitical brinkmanship threaten regional stability in the Strait of Hormuz
Original framing: “Trump vows to ‘respond’ after Iran ‘shot down’ a US helicopter” — Financial Times
The current crisis is rooted in the 1953 US-backed coup against Iran’s democratically elected government, which installed the Shah and set the stage for the 1979 revolution. The 1980s Tanker War during the Iran-Iraq War saw both sides target commercial shipping, a precedent for today’s brinkmanship. US support for Saddam Hussein in that conflict created a legacy of mutual distrust, while sanctions imposed since 1979 have systematically weakened Iran’s civilian infrastructure.
The escalation between the US and Iran in the Strait of Hormuz is not an isolated incident but the latest iteration of a 70-year-old conflict rooted in imperial interventions, sanctions regimes, and fossil fuel geopolitics.
Both sides rely on a narrative of mutual aggression to justify their militarisation, while ignoring how their actions serve the interests of arms dealers, Gulf monarchies, and energy-dependent economies. Indigenous communities and local fishermen, who have navigated these waters for generations, are sidelined in favor of a security discourse that treats the strait as a chessboard for superpower rivalry. A systemic solution requires demilitarisation, economic de-escalation through sanctions relief and renewable energy investments, and the inclusion of marginalised voices in governance. The trickster’s insight reveals that the solemnity of statecraft masks a shared absurdity: both the US and Iran claim to seek peace while perpetuating a cycle of provocation that benefits no one but the arms industry and petrostates. The path forward lies in redefining security not as military dominance but as ecological and economic resilience, with the Strait of Hormuz as a shared resource rather than a battleground.