How Iran Will Kill 80+ Years of US Global Hegemony

Iran and the United States still can't agree on terms to actually end the conflict between them once and for all because many of the things they're demanding are completely irreconcilable. Iran is still demanding to have zero limits placed on its right to nuclear enrichment, a guarantee of future non-aggression from the US, the withdrawal of all American combat forces from the Persian Gulf region, reparations paid to Iran for war damages, the lifting of all primary and secondary sanctions, and the termination of all UN Security Council resolutions against Iran as well. All of these are strong, heavy demands, and an American acceptance of any one of them would look like a major defeat in the war, let alone an acceptance of all of them. So far, Iran and America both remain confident that they can outlast the other to get everything they want out of this war. But one demand of Iran is going to be far more consequential for the future trajectory of the world order than any other. And that's Iran's demand to continue controlling the straight of Hormuz with what's effectively a toll booth after the war is eventually over. Because if Iran manages to get its way with this, it's no exaggeration at all to say that it'll be the beginning of the end of the Pax Americana and the entire world order that we've all known since the end of World War II and the beginning of a new age in world order altogether. Before this current war started, this whole idea was completely inconceivable. For all of modern history, the straight of Hormos has been understood to be an international waterway. The whole width of the street at its narrowest point contains the overlapping territorial seas of both Iran and Oman with no high seas corridor between them that connects the Persian Gulf in the west to the Arabian Sea and the global ocean in the east. Under the terms of the landmark international treaty that regulates global maritime law, the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea, which entered into force in 1994 and has been ranified by more than 170 nations worldwide, though notably not by either Iran nor the United States. Tolls and other financial barriers are forbidden from being imposed by nations on international streets and natural waterways, just like the Straight of Hormuz. The right of free and unhindered innocent passage for merchant vessels through the territorial waters of coastal states has long been guaranteed for all under modern international law through the convention on the law of the sea and for decades before that which has helped international trade flourish and which has been protected and guaranteed by the US Navy since the end of the second world war. This has always been understood to have included the straight of Hormuz as well and until the United States and Israel began attacking Iran at the end of February 2026. That was indeed the case and all merchant shipping was able to travel through it for free. A very important system that guaranteed that the oil and gas from countries like Iran, Kuwait, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Qatar, and the UAE could all be get out to the global market unhindered. During the war, however, Iran announced a complete closure of the strait under the threat of missile and drone attacks on any ships who dare to sail through. But as the war progressed, Iran eventually developed an improvised toll system on the straight where began charging oil and gas tankers belonging to certain countries a fee in exchange for a promise not to attack them and to allow them through safely. A fee that was typically being paid either in cryptocurrency, stable coins, or Chinese yuan. And then something really interesting began happening. Countries as diverse as China, Japan, India, Pakistan, Greece, Malaysia, and Egypt all actually began paying Iran the toll. While the US military proved incapable of actually stopping them from being able to do so. Pandora's box was opened, and now it's going to be almost impossible to ever put it back away again. Iran is now demanding that in order to actually end this war for good, its sovereign control over the straight of Hormuz needs to be formally enshrined at its toll system over the street needs to be made permanent. Iran is currently demanding that it wants to charge a toll of $2 million per vessel that travels through the straight, which roughly translates to about a $1 toll per barrel of oil that transits through it. The Iranians have suggested that this future toll system could be shared in a joint partnership with the nation of Oman, which controls the southern side of the street of Hormuz. Iran would likely require Oman's cooperation in any such system because without them, ships could just decide to hug the Omani side of the street within Oman's territorial waters and then avoid paying Iran's tolls by moving through the other side. But there's a couple of complications. For one thing, Ovan has already publicly denied that it is seeking any tolls or fees through the straight, and they aren't cooperating with the Iranians at all. While the Iranians have released a new updated map of the straight that shows what are supposedly the currently safe routes for ships to take through it, which conveniently shows that the waters through Oman's side are currently unsafe because they mined all of them, which if true will force all the maritime traffic moving through their side of the straight instead so that they can better enforce their tolls and fees on it. If Iran is able to get its way over the straight now, it is an existential issue of survival for the

Gulf Arab states because Iran will effectively control the tap to their entire economies as well as the tap to the global economy. Stop and actually think about this for just a few seconds. What is it about Saudi Arabia that gives Saudi Arabia its global power and influence? It's the fact that the kingdom controls by far the largest share of spare capacity in the global oil market. Spare capacity is the amount of latent oil production that can be brought back online quickly and sustained for a while. Usually defined as oil production that can be brought online within 30 days and sustained for at least 90 days. Saudi Arabia dominates the amount of oil spare capacity in the world, controlling between 50 and 60% of the total global amount of it, while the Browder Gulf Cooperation Council or GCC controls between 80 and 95% of it. This means that the global oil market's ability to respond to sudden and unexpected supply shocks is overwhelmingly dependent upon Saudi Arabia and the rest of the GCC. And why Saudi Arabia and the GCC are considered to be the central bank of global oil who can influence the global price of oil up or down and therefore global inflation up or down more than any other center of global power can. However, that has historically largely been predicated on them being able to actually freely export their spare capacity through the straight of Hormuz. And if Iran were able to establish its sovereign control over the strait instead, it will overnight become the dominant global swing producer of oil instead. Really think about it. Under this scenario, if Iran doesn't like the global price of oil, whether it's too high or too low, they can simply adjust the number of tankers that they allow to move through the straight in order to influence the price up or down however they want to. If the UAE or Saudi Arabia ever do something to piss them off, they can just block their tankers from going through and applying massive pressure on their economies to make them change course. If I rock or Kuwait attempt to build a pipeline to divert their supplies around wormos, then the Iran can immediately shut the straight down for them and choke their economies and their ability to actually pay for those pipelines that take years worth of time to finish. This is why allowing Iran to establish its sovereign control over the strait will transform Iran almost overnight into the regional hegeimon of the Persian Gulf and why Saudi Arabia's privileged position as the world's most important oil swing producer will also shift towards Iran as well. It would be an absolute power chew by the Iranians to pull off, which is why the Saudis and the GCC are aggressively opposed to the whole idea. But Trump and the Americans have been moving back and forth on the idea as time has gone on and it's not really clear how exactly they'll end up settling on it. At various different times over the past month, Trump has said that he's indifferent to Iran setting up a toll booth on the straight of Hormuz and that it'd be the rest of the world's problem instead. That it crosses a red line and that he'd attack Iran to stop them from setting up a toll booth. and even that he'd collaborate with the Iranians in setting up a joint venture on the street so that America and Iran could both profit together off of a toll booth. Regardless of whether or not Iran alone controls the toll booth or if it's shared with Oman andor the United States, it'll likely begin with minimal consequences to the global economy that might not even really get noticed that much at first. But I also believe that it would have massive knock-on consequences further down the road that would slowly make themselves apparent and then be completely catastrophic. For one, a recent analysis conducted by Bgal, a think tank based in Brussels, calculated that the toll on worm that Iran is demanding of roughly $1 per barrel of oil passing through would only end up raising global oil prices by about 5 to 40 cents a barrel, which might seem like a bargain compared to the extra $40 per barrel that the prices increased to with the strait completely closed altogether. Bgal's calculations also suggested that the Arab Gulf exporters themselves like Iraq, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Qatar, and the UAE would end up paying more than 80% of the total cost of Iran's toll, while the rest of the world would only be minimally affected. This would likely end up collectively costing the Arab Gulf state somewhere between six and 14 billion dollars a year to pay that they weren't paying at all prior to this war. Which obviously really sucks for them, but it's also arguably more palatable at this point than seeing the strait continuing to be closed altogether, which in only a little over one month already cost them more than $50 billion in lost exports and output. Iran would stand to earn billions of dollars a year if they were successful in implementing this toll booth idea on the street of Hormuz. money that could function as a source of reparations payments that could help to rebuild the country's shattered infrastructure after the end of the war, but which would almost certainly also be shoveled back into rebuilding the country's military and nuclear apparatuses as well, breathing a

new breath of life into the regime's nuclear weapons and ballistic missile programs and its support and funding for regional proxy forces like the Houthies and Hezbollah. Consider for a moment how much money the Suez and Panama canals earn for the countries that control them, Egypt and Panama. Egypt charges around $800,000 as a toll for super tankers to transit through the Suez Canal, which during normal years when trade isn't being disrupted by the Houthies in the Red Sea, has the potential of earning them more than $9 billion a year, which can help fund around 5% of the entire Egyptian government's budget. Meanwhile, Panama similarly charges vessels a total of up to $300,000 to transit through the Panama Canal, which usually earns their country more than $5. 7 billion a year and helps to fund around a fifth of the entire government's budget. If Iran was able to establish a toll booth over the straight of Arbuzz and they managed to charge what they want to charge, it could become capable of funding as much as 17th of the Iranian government's current operating budget, which as you can imagine would be a very big deal for the Iranians to accomplish, especially in light of the sanctions that are still in place on them and their shattered civilian and military infrastructure from the American and Israeli bombing campaigns. Nonetheless, there are many, many obstacles and challenges in the way for Iran to ever actually be able to get away with this idea. First of all, paying a toll to Iran for passage through the Straight of Hormuz would effectively be a direct payment to the IRGC, the Islamic Republic's ideological military wing that is designated as a terrorist organization by the US and the EU alike. Because of this, the IRGC is heavily sanctioned by the Western financial system. And so shipping firms who agree to pay them a toll would likely face economic consequences like fines and the dropping of insurance policies. It's unclear if the US and EU would be willing to overlook these complications. But they might since the alternative of keeping the straight closed is simply a much worse outcome economically. In addition to the tens of billions of dollars a month in lost oil and gas exports that's negatively affecting all of the Gulf economies and the increased global oil prices of about $40 a barrel that is surging global inflation. The straits continued closure is also proving to be a geopolitical boon for the Russians and the Kremlin's war machine in Ukraine. Because Russia is one of the top three big global oil producers and exporters as well. Bringle has calculated that the surging in global oil prices caused by the hormones closure could end up providing the Kremlin with between 45 and $151 billion worth of additional oil revenue depending on how long the straight remains closed. A great deal of which will inevitably become funneled into Moscow's ongoing war in Ukraine. On the other hand, if the straight was able to be negotiated back open again with the Iranian toll system in place, that might only result in an increase of global oil prices of 40 cents a barrel compared with pre-war levels, the Russians would only see a windfall of less than $1 billion instead. So there are real incentives on the American side to eventually accept the toll system over Hormuz in the end because it would deny giving the Kremlin tens of billions of dollars of extra cash to fight the war in Ukraine and it would bring global inflation back down again. Nonetheless, there are major consequences of accepting an Iranian toll booth over Hormos as well that'll probably only become apparent long after Trump has left office in Washington. It would inevitably legitimize the use of coercion by Iran to get what it wants, which like I said earlier would probably result in Iran continuing to apply pressure on Hormos to squeeze further concessions from the Gulf States and from the global economy indefinitely. A tall booth set up across Hormuz would also be a blatant violation of decades worth of generally accepted international maritime law. And this is likely to become the greatest consequence of all. Natural waterways and straits are legally distinct under international law from artificial canals like the Suez in Panama. Artificial canals are forbidden to be blockaded during wartime and innocent passage through them is legally guaranteed just like through straits. But since the canals were built across sovereign national territory and require maintenance upkeep to continue their operations, their countries are also legally enabled to charge tolls for their use. Some legal supporters of Iran's position on the hormones toll booth idea also point to the Turkish straits like the extremely narrow Bosphorus that's the only maritime connection between the Black and Mediterranean seas. Turkey does actually charge fees on shipping that passes through the Bosphorus, but they are technically required tolls or taxes. The complicated system regulating maritime traffic through the Bosphorus is covered by the 1936 Montro Convention that predates the 1994 Convention on the Law of the Sea and which was effectively grandfathered into it. Turkey isn't allowed to charge fees or tolls for simply passing through the Bosphorus.

But they're sort of able to get around this by charging fees for things like lighthouse dues, rescue and salvage dues, and health and sanitary dues instead. While Turkey can't legally require ships passing through the straits to accept pilots or tug assistants, the narrow and winding Bosphorus in particular is an infamously difficult passage to navigate through for huge modern tinker vessels, which means that most insurance companies require vessels transiting through to accept pilots and tug assistants that are paid to Turkey anyway. So, Turkey is able to effectively earn revenue through every ship that passes through their straits anyway. But very importantly for this, Turkey usually only collects smaller fees in the order of low tens of thousands of dollars for ships passing through their straits compared to the hundreds of thousands of dollars that are collected by Egypt and Panama through their canals or the millions of dollars that's currently being demanded by Iran to pass through Hormuz. Turkeykey's low fees through the Bosphorus can legitimately be argued as necessary. While her wrongs very high fees that they are demanding the river muzz can basically only be seen as nothing but extortion, but the extortion still might eventually be seen as being better than the alternative. Nonetheless, the establishment of an Iranian toll booth on the street of Hormuz might just end up heralding the gradual return of the history of global trade prior to the Second World War. Back when tolls, taxes, and fees enforced by empires and pirates on trade routes and choke points were the norm. For thousands of years, the traders and merchants basically just had to put up with. For centuries, the Kingdom of Denmark was able to exploit its geographic position by enforcing a toll on all the merchant traffic through the Orusund that they called the sound dues. This forced all merchant traffic between the Baltic and North Seas to pay Denmark a toll on their trade for centuries. It lasted from the 15th century through the mid-19th century. The diggings closed down all of the other streets between the north and Baltic seas that they also controlled and forced all maritime traffic through the Orusundo where they were made to pay their dues in Copenhagen. If ships refused to pay the dues or attempted to pass through the other straits, Danish artillery on the shorelines around the straits would simply open fire on them. The sound dues made little Denmark extremely wealthy and prosperous and contributed as much as 23 of the kingdom's income for centuries. But the sound dues also made Denmark plenty of external enemies who' chafed against them and directly contributed to multiple wars against other states that depended on bolting maritime trade like Sweden and the Netherlands. Denmark was eventually pressured into abandoning the sound dues only in 1857 by the British and the Russians who were both interested in seeing the data straits transformed into a freeto use international waterway to improve trade between the Baltic and the outside world. Many other locations all around the world functioned similarly to the sound dues for basically all of human history. Both the Byzantines and the Ottomans enforced tolls on merchant traffic through the Bosphorus and the Darnells for centuries that made Constantinople and later Istanbul one of the most fabulously wealthy cities in the world which was only put to an end by the 1923 Treaty of Lausan after World War I which itself was later replaced by the 1936 Montro Convention. When the Portuguese dominated the Indian Ocean between the 16th and 18th centuries, they created an infamous system called cartas where all non-Christian merchant vessels operating within the ocean had to pay the Portuguese for a passer permit to conduct their trade. And if the Portuguese navy caught any vessels without one, they would hijack or sink it. The Dutch and British East India companies alike controlled and taxed choke points like Malaa throughout the Malay archipelago for centuries as well. While pirates all over the world from the Barbar Coast to the Caribbean forced tributes or tolls in exchange for safe passage through straits like Gibralar and the straits out of the Gulf of Mexico for centuries as well. Since the very first days of the US Republic, freedom of navigation on the high seas has been a fundamental core doctrine that it is consistently fought to defend. America's very first military intervention ever. Its quasi war with France in 1798 was primarily fought over French interference with American commercial shipping. Shortly after that, the US Navy fought against the Barbarie pirates off the coast of North Africa after they refused to pay their tributes for safe passage. The belief that global commerce should be allowed to move freely across the world seas has guided US foreign policy ever since the birth of the republic. And that core doctrine only deepened after the end of the second world war. That war effectively ended with the destruction of all of the world's major navies except for the US Navy, which thereafter assumed the responsibility of permanently patrolling all of the world seas in order to safeguard the freedom of international trade, which included guaranteeing that all of the world's most critical maritime choke points remained open and free from the tolls and tributes that had defined previous history as well.

All of this, of course, has cost the US greatly over the past 80 plus years of history, as it has poured money into its navy to continue operating the system. But it's also been greatly beneficial for both the US and the rest of the world as well. It's a huge anomaly in history that merchants and traders anywhere in the world have been confident in their ability to ship their goods anywhere else in the world for free and without much fear of piracy or attacks along the way. Where nations can be confident about the free and safe importation of critical resources that they require from elsewhere and an anomaly that has been consistently ensured and made possible by the US Navy. It is this historically unique system that has enabled the proliferation of globalization, international trade, and the skyrocketing of wealth all around the world since the end of World War II, which has made both America and the rest of the world much richer than we otherwise would be. It has enabled every other country in the world from Europe to China to Japan to the Gulf States to South America to all focus almost entirely on trade rather than their own navies that they would otherwise require to secure their own trade routes. Since their trade routes have effectively been guaranteed and protected by the US Navy instead. Since the end of the Second World War, the US Navy has frequently engaged in what it calls freedom of navigation exercises to shut down any and all threats to this global system against Gaddafi's Libya when he declared the entire Gulf of Sidra to be a Libyan territorial sea in the 1980s to the Somali pirates off the Horn of Africa to the South China Sea and through the Taiwan Strait against China and most recently against the Houthi's attacks on commercial shipping from Yemen in the Red Sea. So now all of a sudden were Trump and the Americans to ever accept Iran setting up a toll booth on the straight of Buzz even tacidly it would be the biggest and most blatant challenge ever to this whole system that America has spent decades if not centuries carefully and painstakingly establishing and defending and the precedent of doing so might upend the whole thing altogether. If Iran is allowed to set up a toll booth on the straight overmuz, why should Denmark not be allowed to also reestablish the sound dues between the Baltic and the North Sea again? Denmark might even relish the opportunity to do so right now on the oil exports of Russia. The Baltic Sea is Russia's most important oil export route because roughly 60% of all of Russia's seaborn crude oil exports flow from out of the Baltic and necessarily have to transit through the Danish straits. Since modern large oil takers are far too large to fit through any alternatives around them, like Germany's Keel Canal, when factoring in other count's oil exports that flow out of the Baltic through the Danish Straits, like Norway and Kazakhstan, roughly 3. 5 million barrels per day of oil move through it on average, which represents as much as 4% of the global seaborn crude oil trade. If Denmark reintroduced a modern version of the sound dues and charge at a similar rate of about a dollar per barrel like Iran is proposing on the straight of Wormuz, then Denmark could stand to collect an additional $1. 3 billion in annual revenue from non-EU countries like Russia, Kazakhstan, and Norway. The overwhelming majority of which would mostly come from Russia, which is currently a very unfriendly country to Denmark and the EU right now. Anyway, this would boost Denmark's total tax revenue by more than 2% without needing to raise taxes by even a cent on their own citizens and which would primarily be paid by Denmark and the EU's enemy Russia instead with the legal precedent of the Hormuz toll behind them. Why would Denmark eventually not also take the opportunity to do the same? Moreover, why would Turkey not try and find a way to wrigle out of the dated Montro convention and begin charging heftier tolls for passage through the Bosphorus and Dardinels again like it used to historically? Why would countries along the Bab almond demonstrate not find a way to set up a lucrative toll system like Djibouti, Eratraa, and Yemen, especially with the Houthis invit who've already shown their willingness to attack commercial shipping in the region. Would Spain and Morocco ever consider setting up a toll booth along the straight of Jialter? Why not another toll booth on the straight of do minus the UK and France? Or why not a system of tolls through the straight of Mala and throughout all of the other straits between all of Indonesia's islands like the Dutch and British East India companies used to demand in their time that Japan, South Korea, China, Vietnam, and the Philippines today would effectively have no real method of avoiding. Why would Canada decide against setting up a toll regime through the Northwest Passage? a straight that will become increasingly important as the world continues warming and which Canada already argues are fully sovereign territorial waters of theirs against the opinion of the United States and Europe that bitterly regarded them as international waterways instead. Why would an America and Russia decide on eventually setting up another toll

booth along the Bearing Straight in the not tooistant future when Arctic trade is more important? You can see how it might all begin with the president of Iran setting up a toll booth over the straight of Hormuz and then gradually throughout the future cascade into a full-blown return back to the era of mercantalism, taxed trade routes and piracy that defined human history and gummed up global trade for centuries which will break down globalization, slow down global trade and increase poverty. break down international trade routes and access to critical resources and fuel global reinvestments by nations back into their navies and militaries and armed forces again as they become forced to secure their own seal lanes themselves again. All potentially representing the final end of the Pax Americana era that we've known and apparently gotten too familiar with and taken for granted since the end of World War II. It's a future outcome that'll ultimately benefit only a few of the nations who control the choke points in the short term at the cost of everybody else, including themselves, in the long term, in a hopeless race down to the bottom. Now, the history of solving complex geopolitical problems like this is full of daring missions where a handful of men and women attempt the impossible against overwhelming odds. Trump himself has frequently suggested authorizing a special forces raid into Iran to attempt and seize the country's remaining stockpiles of enriched uranium for increased leverage in the ongoing negotiations to end the war once and for all. Historically though, raids just like this haven't always received the attention they deserve in general documentaries. A problem that my friends at Realtime History are seeking to solve with their brand new series called History's Most Daring Raids, where every month they explore some of history's most famous, bold, and clandestine raids and operations, analyzing tactics and strategy with beautiful map animations that visually explain why some managed to work and why others failed. Both of which present lessons for raids into the modern day. And you can watch history's most daring raids next on Nebula, which as I'm sure you've heard by now, is my own streaming site that I co-founded along with dozens of other creators. But what you've maybe not heard until now is that there's never been a better time to sign up to Nebula because you can get 50% off of the annual subscription for just $30 for the entire year. And there's plenty of new content for you to go and watch right now. 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