The Battle for Hormuz Traesure Trove

This article challenges two influential explanations of the US-Iran war. Robert Pape characterizes the US as caught in an “escalation trap,” while John Mearsheimer emphasizes Israel’s role in drawing the US into the conflict. Both explanations, the article argues, understate American agency. The war is better understood as part of a deliberate, long-standing US strategy to construct and preserve hegemony over the Hormuz Treasure Trove (HTT): the extraordinary concentration of oil, natural gas, petrochemical feedstocks, minerals, and other resources surrounding the Persian Gulf, with the Strait of Hormuz as the principal gateway. US hegemony over the HTT has been built through military bases, compliant Gulf states, dollar-denominated energy trade, economic sanctions, and military action against resistant states. The US subdued Iraq; Iran remains the principal non-compliant regional power. China’s growing dependence on Gulf energy has raised the stakes, transforming control over the HTT into an increasingly important arena of US-China rivalry. Therefore, escalation is not a trap Washington has fallen into but an escalation strategy: the sequential use of economic, air, and potentially ground power when lesser forms of coercion fail. The article concludes that the US-Iran war is ultimately a contest over American agency in preserving regional hegemony against Iranian resistance and China’s expanding economic power.