The ongoing United States-Israeli war on Iran has thrust the Strait of Hormuz into the centre of a multidimensional geopolitical crisis. Since hostilities commenced in late February 2026, Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps has repeatedly threatened or targeted vessels, suspending transit through the strait. This has resulted in what the International Energy Agency has characterised as the most acute supply disruption in the history of the global energy market.

In this complex situation, three scenarios for what happens next emerge: Regional miliary action; joint international operation; and phased negotiations. Pakistan’s mediation – one of the few functioning diplomatic channels between Washington and Tehran – could play an important role in two of them.

Scenario one: Unilateral regional military action

This scenario envisions a coalition of regional states, principally the Gulf Cooperation Council members and Jordan, undertaking independent military operations to reopen the Strait of Hormuz without direct US operational involvement. This could be driven by protracted economic haemorrhage, the exhaustion of diplomatic options, or domestic political pressure to demonstrate state agency.

This scenario stumbles on the problem of “capability asymmetry”. While the Gulf states have invested substantially in the modernisation of their armies over the past two decades, they lack the integrated naval power projection, mine countermeasure capacity, and anti-air-defence capabilities to neutralise the layered asymmetric threat that Iran poses in the strait.

The stability of the military coalition is also under question: Each state has an incentive to free-ride on the military contributions of other members, particularly given the risks of Iranian retaliatory strikes on energy infrastructure.

More critically, unilateral regional action risks precipitating an escalation spiral:........

© Al Jazeera