Early July 12, after Iran declared the Strait of Hormuz closed until further notice and hit a Cypriot-flagged container ship, the United States launched its third round of strikes in a week, hitting 140 targets. Most of them were along Iran’s southern coast overlooking the ocean – including Bandar Abbas, Sirik, Jask and Qeshm – but one strike a few days ago showed a different rationale.
On July 9, US anti-aircraft missiles hit the Aq Taqeh Khan bridge in Aq Qala, in the northern province of Golestan, an attack confirmed by the Revolutionary Guards’ regional command. It was not a coastal military base but a node on the land corridor connecting Iran with Central Asia, Russia and China.
Time water barrier which followed the outbreak of war in February, was one of the routes through which Iranian trade continued to move while the sea lanes were closed. The bridge strike showed that Washington is no longer opposed to Iran’s control of the strait, it is beginning to target the infrastructure that allows Iran to operate when the strait is contested.
The conflict extends from sea lanes to supply chains. To see why, it helps to separate the layers of leverage. The first is in the sea. Under the US-Iran June memorandum of understandingIran should have planned a safe passage through the Strait of Hormuz. Tehran has read that as a responsibility to manage the waterway itself, requiring ships to obtain approval from the Revolutionary Guard Navy and use the route it has chosen. Ships attempting the southern route, near Oman, have reportedly been fired upon.
For Washington, this is the outcome the treaty was intended to prevent and why it cannot allow it to stand. The strait controlled by Iran is a route through which Tehran can pass withdraw agreement or set costs in future conflicts, blunting the sanctions tool that has defined US pressure for years.
The second layer is for equipment. When the sea is closed, trade moves on land. Iran’s northern and eastern railway links are the arteries of the alternative, and are directly connected to the Chinese and Russian networks that have become more active as access to the sea diminishes. This is why the Golestan strike is more important than Iran.
