Freedom of navigation, nuclear weapons, missiles and proxies are not separate files. They are consequences of one deeper failure: Iran’s denial of self-determination.

The current crisis in the Strait of Hormuz is usually described in the language of energy security, shipping insurance and naval power. That is understandable. When Reuters reports that only five ships passed through the Strait in twenty-four hours after Iranian seizures and a continuing American blockade of Iranian ports, the world immediately sees oil prices, supply chains and seafarers trapped in a war zone. But that framing is too narrow. Hormuz is not only a maritime crisis. It is a crisis of domination.

The basic question is this: may a state convert geography into coercion? May Iran use its coastline to threaten global passage? May it use the oil, ports and people of regions such as Khuzestan, or Al-Ahwaz to many of its Arab inhabitants, as instruments of a centralized revolutionary state? May it then invoke sovereignty as a shield while denying meaningful self-determination to the peoples within its borders?

If the answer is no, then the solution to the Iran crisis cannot begin with centrifuges. It must begin with self-determination.

The law of the sea gives us the first clue. The Strait of Hormuz is a strait used for international navigation. Under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, ships and aircraft enjoy the right of transit passage through such straits. Article 38 says that transit passage shall not be impeded. Article 44 says states bordering straits shall not hamper transit passage and that there shall be no suspension of it. Iran does not own Hormuz simply because geography placed it on one side of the waterway. Oman does not own it either. Coastal sovereignty exists, but it is limited by the world’s right of passage.

That principle is not a technicality. It is a moral rule dressed in legal form: geography is not a license to dominate.

The same principle applies on land. Article 1 of the UN Charter refers to “equal rights and self-determination of peoples” as one of the purposes of the United Nations. Article 1 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights says that all peoples have the right of self-determination and may freely determine their political status and pursue their economic, social and cultural development. That is not decorative language. It is one of the basic promises of the postwar international order.

This is where the Ahwazi Arabs matter. Khuzestan is not merely a province on a map. It is a resource-rich,........

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