An agreement to reopen the Strait of Hormuz and restart a 60-day ceasefire between the US and Iran could be announced in the coming days. This would be a welcome step, but it is also a too-familiar one. Right now, the Middle East is seeing frameworks and negotiations that once offered space for diplomacy collapsing under the weight of mistrust and competing agendas.
A process to deliver Hamas disarmament in Gaza appeared to stall this week. Discussions between Lebanon and Israel in Rome broke down amid more Israeli strikes that it claims were prompted by attacks from Hezbollah. From Oman to the Levant, each case is different, but the pattern is the same – announcements create positivity and momentum before an enervating failure to deliver or the actions of spoilers drains them away.
For many economies, the unpredictability associated with Hormuz has become a strategic risk. Given its seriousness, several Gulf countries are clearly not content to wait and see if this latest rumoured deal involving Iran will arrive – or stick. Evidence for this can be seen in how some are adapting to a changed reality.
Saudi Arabia is expanding options along its west coast, with plans to increase capacity on the East-West pipeline and to make greater use of its Red Sea routes, even as that corridor faces its own vulnerabilities, courtesy of Iran’s Houthi proxy. For its part, the UAE has cut reliance on Hormuz by successfully rerouting a significant share of exports via the Gulf of Oman.
The seeming inability to resolve the Hormuz issue beyond temporary truces and uncertain agreements, mean the Gulf is no longer willing to hang its economic security on a single chokepoint, however vital it may have been up to now. Given how provisional and conditional diplomacy in the region has become, crisis management is no longer enough. Gulf countries are no longer willing to pay the price of repeated false dawns.
Credibility will determine whether any new Hormuz understanding holds. Iran’s behaviour in the waterway during this crisis has relied on pressure and violent coercion rather than stewardship. The US has vacillated between force and negotiation without settling the underlying dispute. A temporary mechanism may steady this situation, but it cannot be a substitute for a change in Tehran's behaviour.
There is still value in stabilisation, however, and an end to violence in Palestine, Lebanon and elsewhere is obviously something to be desired. But if agreements are to truly matter, they must be more than a lull in armed conflict. Without that depth, the region will continue only to prepare for the next wave of disruption.
